[VHFcontesting] Transverters

[Mark Spencer]

Bill nice post and you have more or less summed up my current thoughts re roving and transvetrers.   

I'll just mention that in my experience I have found it is helpful to have radios dedicated to 50  (and if possible 144 MHz) on a full time basis while roving.  As much as I would like to use my IC 7300 as an IF radio I like using it full time for 50 MHz.  

I do like the remote control head feature of my ICOM 706 MkiiG's but not unsurprisingly the 7300 does seem to work better on 50 MHz.    I'm hoping I will see a similar improvement on 144 and 432 if I switch to a 9700 for those bands. 

I'm still flip flopping between carrying the 7300 in a transit case while driving and setting it up when I stop driving or shelf mounting in the cab of my truck.  A 9700 will present a similar dilemma.   The price point of those radios doesn't allow me to rationalize breaking one of them on a roving outing and the lack of remote control head makes them more vulnerable to catastrophic damage in my view.

I still have the 706's to use for monitoring while driving and in some circumstances I may still use them as my main radios and leave the more expensive radios at home.

73

Mark S
VE7AFZ

mark at alignedsolutions.com
604 762 4099

> On Dec 17, 2018, at 11:03 AM, Bill Olson <callbill at hotmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi all, Here's my take on all this. The nice thing about transverters, especially ones with high dynamic range mixers, is that they preserve the good features of the IF rig. If the IF rig is an HF transceiver which (because it's meant to be used on the crowded HF bands) has great selectivity, low phase noise, and other state of the art features like modern noise blankers, well you know, all the bells and whistles, etc, then you have a VHF/UHF rig that will really perform for weak signals on a crowded band on VHF. The down side is extra complexity, more cables, more boxes, more stuff to go wrong etc. Many of the new HF/VHF/UHF rigs are pretty good on selectivity and dynamic range, maybe not that great on sensitivity. But for roving on 6,2,432, even 1296, these rigs are probably the way to go. Add PA's and preamps if needed. Using the same rig as an IF for a 222 transverter makes sense (certainly better than an HTX100!). On the higher "microwave" bands a separate IF rig might make sens
> e as long as it's stable and low in self-generated noise. being able to run "liaison" on a lower band while working the microwave bands is a plus. I think FT290's are probably less than ideal these days. But if that's all you have, it's more important to be "out there" than to worry about the ultimate in performance.
> 
> my $.02  - bill K1DY (in snowy Maine)
> ________________________________
> From: VHFcontesting <vhfcontesting-bounces at contesting.com> on behalf of Sean Waite <waisean at gmail.com>
> Sent: Monday, December 17, 2018 6:09 PM
> To: aduhawk at comcast.net
> Cc: VHF Contesting; Patrick Thomas
> Subject: Re: [VHFcontesting] Transverters (was: Icom IC-9700 Release Date)
> 
> The K1SIG rover uses transverters on everything but 6,2 and 70. Depending
> on the configuration for the particular contest, we have an IC-746, IC-910,
> IC-7000 and a TS-590 pulling duty on the native bands. One of those cheapo
> Ukrainian transverters on 222, previously with an HTX100 as IF but next
> time will be an FT-818. We've got SG Labs transverters on 33,23 and 13cm,
> and if I actually get the rest of the pieces I need I have a homebrew (not
> my homebrew, purchased homebrew) transverter on 5 gig and a DEMI 10 gig
> module. We had been using a FT290rII and an FT790rII as IFs on the
> microwaves, but will be moving to an FT817.
> 
> I've debated getting the 1.2 module for the 910. For the price I'll
> probably end up with the SG Labs amp, 25W vs 10W and half the price. I see
> one on ebay at the moment for $750, which is 3/4 what I paid for the radio
> itself. The IC-9100 and IC-9700 are both out of my price range for now.
> 
> 73, Sean WA1TE
> 
>> On Mon, Dec 17, 2018 at 9:05 AM <aduhawk at comcast.net> wrote:
>> 
>> We started roving seriously 20+ years ago using Xvrtrs for 222, 900, 1.2
>> and 2304. We used 706MKii and an IC820 which doubled as an IF for 1.2 and
>> the primary for 432. We have TE Systems higher power amps for the bottom
>> four.  There are beams for all bands.  There are two of us in the vehicle
>> (K9ILT shotgun) and our weekend gear.
>> 
>> The release of the TS2000X simplified life dramatically.  It became the
>> primary rig for 6, 2, 432 and 1.2.  The 706 became the IF for 900 and 2304
>> (with an attenuator).  The second SO239 for HF became the IF port for 222.
>> The remote head meant that we had control of everything right in front of
>