[VHFcontesting] Re: Ideal contesting rig

Fri Jan 31 13:00:06 EST 2003

Hi Caity, and others,

I was noticing the same thing the other day.  Icom
does seem to have given up on 220, as I don't think
they make any rig that covers 220 now.  Don't know if
they got burned too bad on the 375A or what.  BTW, if
Icom has any left over in their warehouse, they should
look at what they are going for now.  Icom does
deserve special mention, though, for the T81 which did
bring 1.2g capabilities to more people at an
affordable price.  It has been worth a few contest
QSOs and 3 grids towards my VUCC.

The more disturbing trend is how manufactures think we
are all going to become SWLs.  Most of the new HTs
cover HF, wideband receive, etc., but very limited
transmit.  Give me an extra transmit band anyday over
HF receive on an HT.  In fact, I don't want HF
receive.  It has to be frustrating to be out in the
field and hearing all the DX I am missing!

Kenwood did add 220 to the F6 (great job), and Yaesu
made an attempt at 220 in the VX7R, and even alinco
and ADI are making 220 HTs, but when is the first
Quint bander coming out.  Icom did the quad band
concept, too band they discontinued it-now lets take a
T81 and add 220, and find a way to open up the
transmit for 903!!

73s JOhn NE0P

--- caitlynmaire at earthlink.net wrote:
> Hi, John, and everyone else,
> 
> On Fri, 31 Jan 2003 07:55:09 -0800 (PST)
> John Geiger <johngeig at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Very interesting discussion...
> 
> > I agree that the Icom IC970H is considered the top
> of
> > the line VHF/UHF rig, and I believe that it is,
> and it
> > still commands a very good price.  The one
> shortcoming
> > with it is that it is a satellite rig-that means
> that
> > it has no 6 meters,
> 
> I believe Icom assumes that if you have an IC-970H
> you will also have
> one of their high end HF rigs, all of which have 6
> meters.  Considering
> what the IC-575H is going for on the used market
> nowadays, having one
> additional rig (instead of a shack in a box) doesn't
> seem like such a
> bad thing to me.
> 
> > no 220
> 
> Icom has long abandoned the 222MHz band.  It isn't a
> ham band in Japan
> and Europe, and even in the U.S. demand was minimal.
>  Take a look how
> many FT-736Rs have the 222 module compared to the
> total number out
> there.  Take a look at how many IC-375As they
> managed to sell.  I think
> this was, more than anything, a marketing decision. 
> They certainly
> could have made a 222 module for the rig.
> 
> > and the 2.4 module is for
> > the wrong part of the 13cm band.
> 
> Not in Japan, it's not.  Their band is much smaller
> than ours.  Was the
> 13cm module even sold in the US?  I don't think so.
> 
> > That seems to be
> > Icom's dirction today-make all of their VHF rigs
> > geared only to satellite users.
> 
> Not exactly.  I think they are geared to the
> Japanese market, not the
> U.S. market.
> 
> > Yaesu is doing the
> > same thing.
> 
> Yep.
> 
> > The beauty of the FT736 was that it was a
> > satellite rig that was also geared towards
> terrestrial
> > operation-hence the 220 and 6 modules.   
> 
> It also had a mediocre receiver.  The FT-736R was
> simply the best
> all-in-one budget solution.  Serious VHF/UHFers
> prefer transverters for
> good reason:  they outperform the FT-736R in almost
> every way.  Ditto
> the FT-847.  The IC-970H and IC-x75 series realy
> could hold their own,
> performance-wise.  Pity there isn't the demand in
> the U.S. for the
> IC-970H or an updated version.
> 
> 73,
> Caity
> KU4QD
> > 
> > I am curious as to why there is this satellite
> focus.
> > Surely there must be more hams doing terrestrial
> work
> > than satellite work
> > 
> > 73s John NE0P
> > 
> > 
> > --- caitlynmaire at earthlink.net wrote:
> > > Hi, 
> > > 
> > > The closest thing today would be the Icom
> IC-970J,
> > > the Japanese version
> > > of the IC-970H, which is still sold in Japan. 
> We
> > > Americans wouldn't pay
> > > the big bucks so it was discontinued here.  No
> 6m,
> > > but a fabulous
> > > 2m/70cm/23cm rig.  I got to play with one and
> > > decided that if I ever won
> > > the lottery...  Every time I see an IC-970H with
> the
> > > 23cm module it
> > > *still* goes for a lot of green.
> > > 
> > > 73,
> > > Caity
> > > KU4QD
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