Early Christmas getting a new rig

[Fred Villiard]

I've made up my mind to retire the old TS-440 rather than fixing it.
Trying to make up my mind what to get, I want to use it on the boat and in the shack.
Was thinking about an IC-7100, a friend of mine stopped by yesterday with his mobile and I played with it for several hours.

It worked very well, but the panel is so dam small, but my big meat hooks had trouble with the touch screen while sitting still, let alone in a rocking boat.

Thinking about, FT-857D but it's very small, FT-991, TS-2000, and TS-480SAT. I haven't seen any of these in the flesh, kind of leaning to the TS-2000 or the TS-480SAT. The 480 is a lot like the 440 that I'm use to, but would like VHF and UHF in one rig.

Wondering if anyone has any experience with any of these or opinons.

Thanks
Fred Villiard
K3VKY

 

[sullyj020]

I have a Yeasu FT-450, I use it on the boat and the truck. Large readout, big knobs and easy to use.

 

[steve stark]

Like Sully, I am using the FT-450D on the boat. I am just now setting up a mobile antenna on the truck, and plan on using the FT-450D there as well. It is a simple interface with fairly good DSP filters (not excellent) so we'll see how it goes. Of course, it does not meet your need for HF/VHF/UHF. Recently, it was recommended that I take a look at the fore-runner of the IC-7100, the IC-7000. I, like you, don't appreciate touch screens in a mobile environment and the IC-7000 looks much easier to control with virtually the same specs.

I have become quite fond of my TS-590SG in the home shack and am now pretty biased toward Kenwood as a superior rig.

All that being said, if the FT-450D works out well in the truck re: noise blanker, noise filter, etc., I'll probably stick with it.

 

[Fred Villiard]

Hi Sully & Steve,
Thanks I hadn't thought about the FT-450, but I will check it out. The lack of vhf, uhf coverage does not keep it out of the running it would be nice, but not mandatory.

I'm sort of Kenwood for HF, over the years TS-820, then 2 TS-440s, lean towards Icom, for VHF. In the late 60's I worked as a broadcast engineer, on the hill there were two 60 kw tv transmitters, eight commercial vhf and uhf base stations, and a two meter repeater. I tried a whole raft of different rigs on two meters, but they all overloaded except the Icom, can't remember the model, it was their first synthesized rig, it never batted an eye.

Next week I have to go to Milwaukee for work, plan of spending a day at AES petting rigs, and most likely bring something home with me.

Fred Villiard
K3VKY

 

[nameless]

Hi Fred,

You might try to see the new Yaesu (Standard Horizon) FT-991. This looks like the new boat radio. It replaces the FT-897D/847D radio (which seem long in the tooth today) with a very clean, modern radio. On my boat it's currently an Icom 706MkIIG but that's due for an upgrade next year. The Yaesu is looking good. I agree touch screen, old eyes, & meat hooks don't seem to mix well.

Take care,

Sean
W5CDR

 

[Fred Villiard]

Hi Sean,
The 991 is on my short list also. When I'm at AES I'm going to pet as many different rigs as I have time for.

Thanks
Fred Villiard
K3VKY

 

[Fred Villiard]

Well the TS-480SAT won out, second a toss up between FT-991 and TS-2000.
What tipped the 480 it had a slightly cleaner signal, I cheated had a portable spectrum analyzer from work along. Also it is a lot like the 440 so it just felt right, if the IC-7100 was just a bit larger and didn't have that damn touch screen it would have won hands down.

I want to commend the folks at AES Milwaukee for putting up with me all day, and were extremely helpful. They are installing the cw, and narrow ssb filters, and ship it to me, didn't want to lug it on the plane, no charge for the install or shipping.

Fred Villiard
K3VKY

 

[steve stark]

So, Fred...
What's the verdict on the TS-480sat after using it awhile?

 

[Fred Villiard]

Hi Steve,
I haven't had much chance to use it, just made a couple of fairly local contacts on 75 meters, with very good reports.
Something is wrong with my 15 year old 6BTV vertical, 75 was the only band that I could get a match on, thought oh s@@@ the rig is not working, but on the dummy load everything seemed fine. I brought home a VNA from work and swept the antenna, and the return loss is horriable.

The weather the past couple days has been to sloppy to do any outside work on the antenna, this weekend it should be good enough, then I'll sweep just the coax, and the antenna separately, hope it's just the coax.

The rig its self is enough like my old 440 that a lot of the learning curve is fairly easy. So far I'm happy with it, we'll see what it does with a good antenna.

Fred Villiard
K3VKY

 

[nameless]

Hi Fred,

Have you noodled the problem to a solution? If the internal tuner couldn't match chances are good the system is beyond the 3:1 capability of the internal tuner. Do you have a wider range tuner or one you could put at the base of the vertical? What were you matching your previous radio with? Is the coax as old as the antenna? Yada, yada, you know the rest

 

[Fred Villiard]

Well when I swept the antenna at the coax, other than 75 meters the best return loss was the equivalent of about 30 to 1 swr, on 75 it was about 2.5 to 1.
Went to the antenna and the worst was 1.32 to 1, at the resonant points. Just for the heck of it, with the coax disconnected from the antenna, I swept it again and there was almost no change from the first run, good Belden 9913, when I replaced the cable about 6 or 7 years ago, I didn't have a 200+ feet of LMR400 or 500 and was in a hurry so used the Belden.

I dug up the cable, it was only about 2 or 3 inches under just enough that it wouldn't get hit with the mower, wiped the dirt off and brought it inside. I left it over night, had to do some chores to keep domestic tranquility.

When I came down there was a large puddle on the floor under the pile of cable, at first I was going to blame the hound, then upon starting to inspect the cable there was water dripping out of a little hole in the jacket. It looked like a small stone or something had perforated it, and water wicked in.

When I worked for Amphenol Interconnect, did a lot of environmental testing of a lot of different coax and connectors and found that coax with just braid and or unbounded foil shielding would wick moisture if the seal was compromised, and Belden was one of the worst. Times LMR and several other cables have a bonded foil inner shield which won't wick when damaged.

So right now I'm waiting for a 1000 foot spool of LMR500 UF, then I'll do it right, and hopefully I get my tower and beams up this summer after 14 years since I have moved.