Topband: [Fwd: Re: Question for the EXPERTS and Heavy Transceiver users and testers]

[mstangelo at comcast.net]

All,

I've been enjoying this discussion of "non-competition-grade" transceivers.

My base station radio is a K3 but I do lots of operating on the road and on trips and am looking for a small transceiver with good signal handling capabilitues on CW and well as effective DSP to help with the eliminaton of automobile generated QRN.

Does anyone have experience with the following:

Icom IC-7200
Kenwood TS-480
Yaesu FT-897

Sherwood doesn't evaluate the smaller radios and I've looked at the receive 2khz and 5khz measurements in the ARRL Product reviews. None compare to the top of the line radios; the FT897 has the worst perfomance but the 7200 and 480 seem to have the best specs for smaller radios.

I also considered the K2 but I also do lots of utility listening with the radio.

I'd appreciate any feedback.

73,

Mike N2MS



----- Original Message -----
From: GEORGE WALLNER 
To: Herb Schoenbohm , Topband 
Sent: Thu, 1 Apr 2010 16:47:52 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Re: Topband: [Fwd: Re: Question for the EXPERTS and Heavy Transceiver users and    testers]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010 12:33:41 -0400
  Herb Schoenbohm wrote:
> I replaced my aging Icom 765 with a 746 pro> 
>I would like to 
>see a side by side test on RX with the K3.  

Herb,

While I have not done a formal side-by-side test of the 
two rigs, and I don't claim to be an expert, both HA7RY 
(Tomi) and I have used both rigs, side-by-side, on the 
5K0T and VK9GMW DXpeditions. On VK9WWI we only had the 
746. During these operations we made a combined 6000 QSO-s 
on TB -- most of them DX. I also use both rigs at my home 
QTH.

Both Tomi and I were impressed by the 746. As you point 
out, RX sensitivity is excellent and the DSP filter is 
very handy. Indeed, in a weak signal environment it is 
hard to tell which RX is better. Although I like the K3 a 
lot, I feel that its DSP, when set to narrow, tends to 
"mangle" weak signals in the presence of high noise. What 
I mean by that is that when you set the DSP to a bandwidth 
narrower than 200 Hz, weak signals seem to become 
"modulated" by the noise and they become harder to read. 
Again, this is just an impression that both Tomi and I 
shared. I don't remember having this issue with the 746. 
During those DXpedtions, and more recently on TX3A, we 
almost always had the K3 DSP set to 300 Hz on TB, even 
when we had some dense pile-ups.

<snip>

I hope this helps,

73, George, AA7JV
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UR RST IS ... ... ..9 QSB QSB - hw? BK