Ham Radio 360: Shopping Show #4 with the entire 360 gang

[00:00:00] The following is a presentation of the Six Arrows Radio Network It's the Ham Radio 360 podcast special edition shopping show coming up Hey friends welcome back into the Ham Radio 360 podcast My name is Cale K4 CDN, that's Kilo 4 Charlie Dalton, November

[00:00:30] If this is your very first time, well welcome in We've got a huge back catalog of shows that we'd like to invite you to listen to after you take this one in I'm on vacation, I'm not supposed to be around until the first of the year

[00:00:42] But I did not want to let the shopping season pass us by without creating for you our fourth annual shopping show Now us and Lee, I'm talking George and Jeremy from the Workbench show as well as John from the Field Radio podcast

[00:00:55] We're all here and we're going to talk handy talkies We'll talk mobile radios, HF radios, whether we're talking in your car in your backpack, on the park bench or wherever We're talking about all those things as well as cool accessories

[00:01:09] Things that you may have forgotten that you even needed Or how about a great list of stocking stuffers The coolest thing about it is, go to the website Ham Radio 360.com The podcast will be listed there as well as in the show notes

[00:01:21] Everything we talk about in the order that it's discussed Links to manufacturers, Amazon, different shops and whatnot for you to get this gear in your shack this holiday season So thank you for the opportunity to be here

[00:01:36] Thank you again to George and Jeremy and John for coming in and hanging out with me as well Hope you enjoy this, it's about two and a half hours or so long So get ready, but hey, you're probably still hung over on Turkey

[00:01:47] So take it all in, I'll be back in a little while We'll catch up then Alright, welcome in to the very special shopping show episode here of Ham Radio 360 podcast Kale Nelson, K4 CDN, dropping back in Sliding down the chimney for the shopping show for 2017-2018

[00:02:16] With us in this call, this conversation really It's more than a call, we've got some friends that you will recognize We have George, KJ6VU, hey George how are you? Kale, I'm doing great, how are you? Doing good man, welcome into Ham Radio 360 podcast

[00:02:32] Special Super Edition shopping show It's nice to be here Don't ask me to say that again, I'll mess it up Jeremy KF7IJZ, George's co-host from the Workbench podcast Jeremy, welcome in, good to hear you Well, good to hear you, thank you for having us

[00:02:49] Absolutely and not to be left out But on assignment nonetheless John Jacobs, W7 DBO John where are you at and welcome to the podcast Greetings, I am in the beautiful town of Promp, Nevada Just north of Las Vegas Okay, okay Yeah, right next to area 57

[00:03:10] Are you there going to visit W6OBB? He is in town, I should go try and find him You should, you should stop by and get a QSL card Excellent, excellent, well welcome in guys

[00:03:21] This is something we've done for the last, I think this will be our fourth year So this would be the last four years we've done this And this is our opportunity to try to convince other amateur radio operators To spend their hard earned money

[00:03:34] But at the same time help them make some good decisions with those purchases And we were kind of talking just a few minutes before we got the show started here

[00:03:42] One of the things we want to do is not be a repeat of the last programs that we produced for you But we did want to kind of give you some insight

[00:03:50] And some of the things that we're thinking about regarding amateur radio and purchases coming up in the new year Now I'll be very, very just open here with you guys I've spent the majority of my day looking at Amazon for some

[00:04:04] I've been asked, you know, hey Kale what can we get you for Christmas? Your birthday is coming up whatever And I'm having a hard time because I don't know if I'm just really just happy right now And don't need anything else

[00:04:14] And of course Amazon's maybe not the best place to shop But I'm having some trouble coming up with some great ideas So this may help me, this show actually may help me some personally As we get nearer the holiday season So you guys ready to get started?

[00:04:29] You bet, let's do it Alright, alright, well you know one of the things that when It's going to happen When people get excited about the amateur radio hobby Or maybe they get licensed right off The very first thing they think they want to do

[00:04:43] Is to buy a handy talkie Or as Kale likes to call it a walkie talkie And you know that of course that'll get you in trouble Don't call it that around anybody But anyway, of course a lot of people go for the cheaper Chinese handy talkies from Amazon

[00:04:57] There's no need to talk about those Everybody has them, you know what they are But a good quality handy talkie Doesn't have to cost three, four, five hundred dollars I've got a great example of one that doesn't But it may not fulfill your needs

[00:05:11] So I want to just kick it to you guys And say, just tell me what you would look for In your first handy talkie that wasn't the thirty-five Dollar import Of course they are all imported And what would be some of the reasonings behind that Jeremy?

[00:05:25] Well, you know I've said time and time and time again That so my first handy talkie was the Venerable Hiyasu FT-60 It is a dual band but single received radio It's bulletproof, it runs off double A's It's come down in price quite a bit

[00:05:46] They're available for about one fifty to one sixty But the challenge with these radios is that They are end of life They have been replaced by the Hiyasu FT-65 You can still find these at many of the online retailers But my guess is this holiday season may be

[00:06:03] One of the last times they are available But you know as a good rugged entry Into the hobby with a quality radio design For purpose for amateur use I don't think you can go wrong with the FT-60 Now I will add one more thing You know there's

[00:06:23] We've covered digital modes and D-Star And DMR and System Fusion all these different ways And I think we should talk a little bit About digital modes here in a minute But another radio that is a fantastic radio If you can find one

[00:06:38] And it is also a radio that is no longer made And this is another radio that I have owned And regret getting rid of This is an iCom radio that was a D-Star radio It is the IC92AD And whether you have D-Star in your area or not

[00:06:55] It was also just a fantastic handheld HT for analog It was a dual band dual received radio And it was rugged as could be Very simple to use Battery life was fantastic And that's not even mentioning anything with the D-Star

[00:07:12] Yeah and I'm a huge fan of dual band Dual received dual VFO I'm spoiled like that So that's a very good recommendation I'm actually going to write that down Because I'd like to have a little higher grade dual bender George we know that you're a Kenwood fan

[00:07:29] But you also have some others around there What would be your pick on a It doesn't have to be ultra top shelf But it does have to have some amateur radio leanings toward it Instead of just hey we use these in the factory over here

[00:07:45] Let's put them on the boat and send them to America You know my picks are pretty split Between fairly inexpensive and expensive So I think at the more inexpensive end I think the O'Shawn radios are great The KGUV3D is one that I've bought

[00:08:02] I've got a few of them like one in every car One in my go bag They're 100 bucks, they're like 99.95 And at that price point They're every bit as good in terms of raw performance As the $300 Japanese radios in my opinion And I came to that conclusion reluctantly

[00:08:24] Because I used to give my buddies a hard time About this junkie radio until I went out and bought one And the more I used it the more I realized It was actually a very decent radio It doesn't quite have as nice of a user interface

[00:08:36] As the more expensive radios, it's analog only Some of the buttons are kind of a weird combination Of buttons to get it to do what you want But if you can forgive those kind of odd Aspects of the radio it's really good

[00:08:49] And it's way better than a $30 Bo-fang radio The $30 Bo-fangs have their place We won't say what that place is exactly at this point Actually I have a suggestion for a Bo-fang later in the show But as let's say even your first HT

[00:09:06] I would spring the 100 bucks and not get the Bo-fang Because it's a way better radio If I were going to go up from there I agree on the FT-60 and its replacement I think that's a very nice radio And if I were to go beyond that

[00:09:22] Then you sort of get into the analog and digital radios The Kenwood radio I liked a lot was the THF-68 But that's been discontinued So there's really not a great replacement for that But in that kind of $300 price range You're starting to get into the analog and digital

[00:09:40] Mixed mode radios like the ICOM ID-51 series Or the, I forget the YASU It's not the FT-1, maybe FT-2 or something like that They have a fancy one and a not so fancy one And those seem pretty decent So I'm pretty split, $100 or $300

[00:10:00] This is kind of the next jump for me Yeah, yeah, you know I've had great success with the O'Sheen Or I think Richard calls them Wooks on But if you're wondering what we're talking about It used to be the cheap handy when I got in

[00:10:13] That was as cheap as you could get And I think I've got six of them now And all different flavors, 220, 6 meter dual band My boys are studying for their license I bought them two used They were virtually brand new three

[00:10:27] What is it? Three Delta? Yeah the three deltas So they're in the box waiting on them to get their tickets So I've been really pleased with those I mean they're really And I've just, here lately I've been really working my mind hard My original still use it

[00:10:42] With a signal stick, signal antenna John can tell us about later But anyway, John, speaking of John John's over here waiting for us John, what are some of your thoughts regarding Handy talkies for somebody getting into the hobby That wants to spend more than 30 bucks

[00:10:57] To get some good performance Well what I did is I had a radio for about 15 years An old Kenwood and yeah I've got all the bail things But finally I decided you know You talked about it, you did a show on Having your second radio

[00:11:15] Your second radio being the one Making the purchase so I held out After hearing about the new Kenwood THD74A And I got it And I have to say I have buyer's remorse On that item I'm just not, it stays on the shelf

[00:11:33] More than it goes in the field Because I know how much it cost The battery life I'm not seeing I understand maybe you do some upgrades On the battery but I'm just not seeing And D-Star's not really working out That well with it so I would say

[00:11:50] And they're getting cheaper now because The THD72A gives you that APRS Doesn't give you the D-Star but like I said I don't think Kenwood really implemented D-Star that well on that It's not as smooth as I hear I'll be talking about the icons

[00:12:07] It's still kind of a programming It's a bunch of channels to activate your repeaters And it didn't have the dual receive And so if you're looking to talk to the satellites Everybody is saying go back to the old Kenwood That you can actually monitor on the other band

[00:12:28] While you're transmitting And that was one thing they left out of that D74A So I'll go ahead and support me I want to clarify one thing about that That you can't receive What it is not is it is not full duplex

[00:12:40] So you can't receive while you're talking I don't think any of the handy talkies Will let you do that Yeah, I think it was the D7 The predecessor to the D72 If I remember correctly was a full duplex And then there might have been an icon

[00:12:56] Because if you know folks who are really in a satellite Like some of these radios that were full duplex Handy talkies were very much desired Yeah, so I would say DIA maybe not get the top of the shelf one Dile back a little bit

[00:13:12] Like I said, I think most of it is just mental On how much it is And you don't want to ruggedize it Right, I got you Well, here's my favorite It's the most simplistic radio that I own But it's my absolute favorite

[00:13:28] And I go to it if the Oshin is somewhere else And that's the Kenwood Shocker there It's a T I'm trying to read this on the box up here THK20 Alpha THK20 Alpha It's a 2 meter radio only And it's a 5.5 watt transmitter with low power as well

[00:13:48] Comes with a really Must be a very good antenna from the factory Because the thing just talks all over the place And I don't actually bought my open box From MTC back when Had less than 100 bucks in it And it is really out of everything I own

[00:14:03] It is my personal favorite radio I'm talking, you know, the HF rigs Everything involved That little 2 meter only handheld is my favorite radio It's so simple to use, it works every time And it sounds great So if you don't need dual banding Consider that one for sure

[00:14:22] But I'll have to echo George on the Oshin Or the Wuxon or however you want to say it Those have been very good performers for me as well I've got a question about this real quick Which one? The Oshin So at Dayton a couple years ago

[00:14:39] Richard from Main Trading Company Gave me a fantastic deal on the Is it like the 8E? The one that was the tri-band with the built in Cross-bander Cross-band repeat, yep So I agree with everything you guys are saying I think that the radios

[00:14:58] They punch way above their weight I think they're better than their price Would have any reason to let you believe they are They're even relatively easy to figure out With a little bit of studying from the keep it pad Like I would say it's no more complicated

[00:15:12] Than picking up a modern Kenwood or a Yaser Or whatnot But I have had absolutely terrible luck with the batteries Hmm Well, it may be because it's a different series radio The ones that George and I are talking about Are the original Oshins

[00:15:28] That don't have the pretty big display Like the one you do It's got just a two line display And I don't know if that affects it or not But I haven't heard that But I've never owned one of those models either So I can't...

[00:15:42] You know, funny thing is I had one of those KGUV 8 And I actually liked the UV3 better And I can't really tell you why Because the display is not as nice Well, it's a similar kind of display But it's smaller And anyway, a friend of mine got licensed

[00:15:58] And so I gave him my UV8 as a... You know, congratulations present And I didn't miss it at all I actually liked the UV3 better And I'm not quite sure If it's any different performance wise And I've never really had a big battery problem

[00:16:14] There are two different battery sizes You can get for the UV3 There's a... I don't remember the exact capacity There's a 17 and a 30 something Yeah, exactly And it comes with a smaller one of course Which is not bad And then I got one of the bigger ones

[00:16:30] I really haven't had much of a battery life problem But maybe I just haven't been in the same situation Well, then I want to be clear Like the issue that I've had I had two of the high capacity batteries For the My8 Which I think like...

[00:16:44] Kale, I think you said it's like 3,000 or 3200 milliamp hours And both of those high capacity batteries Just... I mean the batteries themselves failed it I'm not talking about battery life of the radio The batteries themselves just failed After anywhere from 3 to 5 months And so again

[00:17:01] The radio, I mean that radio is my... Oh, it's storming and I want to listen to the repeater For the Skyworn Nets That's my go-to radio Here in the house So I was just curious about that Because I do think the equipment is really good

[00:17:16] And John on your podcast You were recently... When you were doing the episode about the repeater in a can These radios also have an accessory Available for them called a battery eliminator Which is basically a plastic case That plugs into the back of the radio

[00:17:32] In place of the battery and gives you a 12 volt Cigarette lighter socket So you can run them straight off 12 volt as well Yeah, yeah exactly And I have those... one is none kind of an idea with those So I try to keep those handy for all of mine

[00:17:46] And George, I also have a 1D And I think I have some 6Ds as well So I might even have a 2D in there What I'm trying to convey here to the listener is There's multiple D Oshin Wuxon radios And they're all about the same thing

[00:18:02] Some maybe a little later vintage or whatnot But they all kind of look the same And we've had some pretty good luck with them John, do you... when you buy a handy talkie Do you add those like Jeremy's talking about

[00:18:14] Do you keep those with you when you're out traveling And whatnot or even in the glove compartment For your battery eliminators for your handis? Yeah, so I have kind of a stock Whenever I get an HT I make sure I have several things

[00:18:28] First of all, I get a second of whatever Battery it is And then also, especially with some of the ChaiCom stuff now You can get a DC plug for the base charger But you can also get a USB plug That goes into the base charger

[00:18:45] So I always make sure I have some type of way of DC Charging from the cradle That way I don't have to kind of mess with plugging it In the radio Yeah, the DC clamshell To replace that so you can plug it into

[00:18:57] Pretty much anything that has power You're going to find a lot of anything Pretty much is going to have power for you From car batteries to field batteries And then also the replacement So you can put in double A Or triple A batteries

[00:19:12] That's always an item I get And I always replace the dummy load antenna That comes on those Yeah, and that's exactly What we would expect to hear from you In the Field Radio Show is having those things In case you need them Whether you're out of the shack

[00:19:27] Or out in the middle of nowhere Is to make sure you have those extra things And really honestly When you purchase these items You should just, if you can Go ahead and put those in your cart At the same time so you'll have them

[00:19:39] You know how to use them And you don't have to say Man, I wish I'd ordered that It takes another three or four days Or whatever And then another $10 in shipping For a $20 accessory Exactly Plus one at that point Yeah, so that's one of the things

[00:19:52] I love about John's show Is he's always encouraging you To make sure that you have it To get ready to go kind of a thing And we've talked about that All three of four of us Have talked about it numerous times

[00:20:03] But it's something that you need to think about Or at least you should consider thinking about As you're purchasing these items A lot of radios work better With an external antenna Or even a magnet mount antenna There's a pigtail adapter You can put in there

[00:20:18] So a lot of those things seem to be common sense To some of us But maybe it's not so To somebody new just coming in And of course if you've got questions The four of us would love to answer those Regarding our suggestions And even our opinions here

[00:20:32] On Handytalki radios Anybody got anything else to toss in there? I can just throw in that I have We'll put the link in the show notes But on my private page w7dbo.net I have a breakdown of my HT go bag that identifies All these different breakouts

[00:20:50] And I just brought it up One of them that I failed to mention was You know, you obviously replace The stock antenna that comes with it But they've done a shoot out in the past They found out this RH-660S It's an extension antenna

[00:21:04] It's one you have to be really careful with Because it literally collapses down But it's probably a three foot antenna But that's the one that has the most gain So that's the antenna you need When you really need to make that contact

[00:21:16] And you've got to be really careful with it Because it does load so heavy on the HT But we can put in the show notes I've kind of broken down all the things you get You know, in a small go bag For your HT radio

[00:21:31] Very good, very good And George I think we might have done A show about that same topic years ago Did we? For some reason I'm thinking that Or at least we talked about it What was that again, Kale? The handy talky go bag

[00:21:44] Did we talk about that in the past? We did do a go bag show And I think we talked about HTs As one of the parts of that And it was Lawn Whatever game you played there With the Frisbees Oh yeah, that's right Frisbegolf Frisbegolf

[00:22:01] Okay, so we'll find all those links And put them in the show notes here As we talk about handy talkies Thanks guys for your suggestions On all of those and your input I know that when I came into the hobby I didn't have a whole lot to spend

[00:22:15] And I was directed to the Oceane And it was either that Or the FT-60 Which at that time was really expensive Compared to what it is now Because there was no competition And I went with the Oceane I've been very happy with it

[00:22:29] So I'm glad that I was directed that way Let's keep talking about radios Because of course that's what This whole topic is about But you know, you kind of go from The handy talkie and I'll give a I don't want to say too much about the exercise

[00:22:45] Here recently, I know John's Wanting to talk about it on his show But recently we had a The big grid X exercise here in town And we had 31 hams participate We manned 13 different stations It was just a great success And what happened was

[00:22:59] A lot of amateurs who showed up With just a handy talkie Realized that usually won't Really get the job done So now they're waking up And they're saying hey, you know I need more than this handy Of course we're kind of a

[00:23:13] Rural suburban area I guess you'd call it So maybe it's different in the big cities But the mobile radios are Just so much more radio When it comes to performance Let's talk about that for just a minute And along with some suggestions I also have some off

[00:23:33] Out of the catalog suggestions I guess you'd call it Jeremy And let's just go back to you They come in multiple flavors Mainly you can get them single band And dual band Where do you fall out with those? You know, this is an area where

[00:23:52] I think you start getting into A little bit more having to pay Attention to your application Because when I started My first mobile was really You know geared to be used at home And I started with the YSU FT-8800 Which is a dual band

[00:24:09] Will receive VHF UHF radio Fantastic radio bulletproof But that's all it was Was an analog radio These days, you know If you're into D-star You buy a D-star one If you're into APRS You buy a Kenwood If you're in a system fusion With the AAC-1

[00:24:28] Almost everybody still makes Just a standard analog only Version of the radio I guess I'll try to keep this brief But probably my favorite Still just analog dual band Is going to continue to be the Kenwood D71 Because it still has an Honest God packet port on it

[00:24:47] If you want to upgrade to a D-star Or sorry, an APRS capability You can buy the TNC control head That comes in the 710 separately And it's a Kenwood It's got built-in crossband repeating If you were way bought into Kenwood and using Sky Command There's some capabilities there

[00:25:05] So I think it is a good value Of a radio But there are two other radios One of which I picked up a Dayton Which has actually become One of my favorite Dayton purchases So I love the sub $100 high value purchases at Dayton You know, the infamous

[00:25:24] Titerra MD380HT that we probably all have Was one of those purchases But this year from Richard at MTC Radio I picked up another Titerra radio Called the MD8600 You familiar with this? Yeah, that's the little micro dual bender Right? Or is it the trial band?

[00:25:43] Mine, well I think Technically it is tri-band But I've never tried it on 220 But yes, it is small It is fit in the palm of your hand small 25 watts on VHF 20 watts on UHF The version that Richard sells at MTC Radio Is actually

[00:26:04] I don't know what IPX rating it is But I think it's IPX68 So it is slightly water and dust proof I know folks are using these To put on quads or in jeeps And things like that But what I love about this radio Is, you know

[00:26:20] It's relatively easy to program Very easy to program through the software Relatively easy to program from the front panel And the mic The manual for it is fairly decent But it's just a nice 25-20 watt radio That's tiny, fits in an ammo can Very well, very field expedient

[00:26:38] It's rugged I mean, and it's around 100 bucks Close to 100 dollars right there at it Yeah Now the one thing I will say Is, and I was trying to research this Because I've never played with it It is a multiple band radio

[00:26:54] But I cannot tell you if it is actually A multiple receive radio So I don't know if it could receive Like VHF and UHF at the same time Or VHF and VHF at the same time For 100 bucks I don't care Just buy two

[00:27:06] Yeah, if you really need it just buy two You know, it has It has USB programming capability It's got a speaker output And then a fairly rugged Like mini-den It's not the right word But it's not like a modular plug It's actually a little like socket thing

[00:27:24] With a twist lock But it's just a fun radio For less than 100 bucks And I... It's the radio in my house Currently is a mobile that gets used the most So that's good That's good to hear Because I haven't heard any good Or bad reports on that

[00:27:43] So thank you for sharing Yeah, I mean as far as... There have been a number of those Small form factor 20 watt radios That have had a bunch of issues But this one really seems to have been Fairly rock solid I mean for what I'm using it for

[00:27:58] Which is programmed in 5 or 6 repeaters and talk on it Have not really run into any issues Now the last thing I'll say about Mobiles and this is kind of I'm gonna ignore commercial gear altogether But again getting into the digital side of things I am a D-star user

[00:28:18] I'm a DMR user ICOM released this year A new... It's a dual band but single receive D-star radio called the ID4100 The thing that I like about this radio Despite the fact that it has all of the Latest and greatest ICOM D-star technologies In other words GPS location

[00:28:38] And automatic programming of analog And digital repeaters It has the new hotspot and access point modes It has you know everything that they've done It has a bluetooth option But if you ever saw the original 880 It is a tiny radio Compared to well tiny-ish

[00:28:58] For a 50 watt dual band radio The display on it is a tiny little head I mean it's compared to most radio Detachable heads this thing is tiny And I like it because it makes for a very clean And organized installation Again the real selling point of it

[00:29:17] Is a D-star radio if you don't have D-star nearby or you don't have hotspot capability I would not recommend you buy it But that is going to be one of the radios At the top of my list next year in Dayton Very good very good

[00:29:29] So George we heard from Jeremy The 4100 is really a radio that caught my eye But you know you lent me your 880 And I sent it back with a manual That had 288 pages and it totally Scared me to death I never got that thing to work on VHS analog

[00:29:46] So you know that's a really important point though I think that generation of the ICOM radios That's probably their first or second generation VHF, UHF radios The user interface was really poor And the newer generation radios Like the one that Jeremy is talking about

[00:30:07] The 4100 has the newer DR mode And all that easier to use A user interface So I think your experience with the 4100 Would be much better than the 880 By the way why do you think I sent you the 880 It was a test and I failed

[00:30:23] It's not a test it was just like Painful for me to use it Yeah it's on the scale Yeah I can't figure it out maybe he could use it So that's a radio where once you programmed it For the things you want You just don't touch it again

[00:30:38] But I find that really frustrating Which is by the way back to the Kenwood One of the reasons why I generally like Kenwood handy talkies and mobiles Is because their user interface Is much more obvious to use And you know all of them are pretty good these days

[00:30:56] But compared to the Chinese radios They really are noticeably better For me if I were going to go on the cheap If you go a cut above the Chinese radios Probably the best deal going is The Yasu Monoban 2 meter radio

[00:31:13] It's the FTM 3200 is the new version of that And it's about 170 bucks But it's like a 70 watt radio So if you really don't need UHF And 2 meters is sufficient Then that's a fabulous radio for that price Those have always been a great deal

[00:31:32] But for me that's really not useful Because all of the R club stuff is on UHF And in a lot of areas there's so much going on You need both bands And I would go with Jeremy's suggestion For the TMV71 It's a great radio dual band

[00:31:53] Great performance easy to use And has a packet port Did you say it has a packet port also? Yeah, sorry I'm very frustrated that there seems to be a war On the packet port Like neither of or none of ICOM's Latest generation high end radios

[00:32:10] Have a packet port I don't really understand that That seems like such an obvious thing You'd want to put on there anyway Even if not a lot of people use it But I don't know why you'd bother taking it off Gotta save that 18 cent item on the bomb

[00:32:25] Yeah that didn't connect her Boy, I don't know We used it this week in the exercise With the TMV71 With a signal link doing sound card packet Worked like a jam Yeah, so those would be my picks If you're willing to spend some more money

[00:32:44] Like I think also you were saying Jeremy You start to get into the more digital fancy radios My personal favorite at the moment is the ICOM ID 5100 And when it first came out I thought it was the ugliest display I'd ever seen

[00:33:00] And to this day I'm still not happy with it I think it is kind of a miss on the display But I think from a feature and a usability perspective I think it's very good It's a big display So the functionality, the performance is great

[00:33:17] I think that's our real winner Nice, is that a touchscreen like the 7100 Or is it just an intuitive display kind of thing It's a touchscreen just like the 7100 That's what makes it so nice So like with the 7100, what threw me for a loop

[00:33:31] When I first played with that radio was I thought I can't figure out where the function button is To change the frequency or the mode And then it dawned on me, oh you just pressed that number On the screen and you know Like I was overthinking it

[00:33:44] And the 5100 is the same way So although there's more soft buttons on it But yeah, so it's a really decent radio Nice Still has a sucky screen but It's good radio It was good radio John, what do you like And before you say that

[00:34:02] We know that you're a big fan of the 710 But tell us if that's it, why And fill us in Well for me, I have to agree with Jeremy On the micro radios If you're looking for something That's not going to be very expensive And intrusive into your install

[00:34:22] I have the BTEC 2501 That's been replaced now by some Different UV 25X4 Which is a tri-bender But that little tiny mini radio really I put that in the WIFE pilot And it actually stayed there And it's just a nice little radio

[00:34:42] You're not putting a lot of money into it And it's good for install I've also put those in the smallest Of ammo cans That you can get from Harbor Freight Or Wal-Mart So that's a great little tiny radio As far as the TMD710GA

[00:34:59] That I have with Kenwood It really fits what I do in the field I do event support So when I'm VHF, UHF In the field I'm doing event support Or whether that's like Lajota Which is heavily on the APRS reliant Or we're sending FL Digi packet

[00:35:19] To a remote station So all the event support I do I don't do anything within really cell phone range Except for the Lajota I like doing the extreme back country No cell phone range Half hour away from cell phone range So you're really the

[00:35:35] You're the item in the event support You are really needing to have a good communications So just having the availability On that V710 to run the packet Run the TNC or go to FL Digi mode When it comes off a separate sound card

[00:35:52] I just really like that radio So that's one I can say that I'm happy I got And I really don't see any other kind of radio That I'd replace it with right now Nice, nice Well that's really good to hear Especially from you and Jeremy both

[00:36:08] Regarding those low cost entry level I guess we call them entry level rigs now But that's good to know Because there are a lot of people out there Like I was when I first got in Man back then about a 5 watt handy For 120 bucks you were excited

[00:36:23] You got a deal but now you can get a 25 watt mobile That's quite a shout Or something to shout about if you're a new ham So get on the manufacturers for doing that A lot of people don't like it But it is helping people get in the hobby

[00:36:40] Get going So we have a local I have a local ham here that's taking that Noji and Oji He's taken that or say N0ji He's taken that and turned it into man pack So he's put it into the backpack And uses that as basically a 25 watt HD

[00:36:59] Wow, wow that's pretty cool Pretty cool stuff Well you know my favorite of course Is going to be the dual band 71A We've talked about it And that's a horse that we could beat to death But if you're listening and you're considering

[00:37:13] Spending 300 plus dollars on a good quality Japanese manufactured type Dual band radio You will not be disappointed with the 71A The reason I wanted it so bad was for the Crossband repeater And I use that thing all the time It's just awesome that you can take

[00:37:34] A 0.2 watt handy talky Out here way far out in the country And crossband through your van Sitting in the driveway and make that Contact on a local repeater Or even if you're doing it simplex With having that extra power So if you ever consider

[00:37:52] That you may be coming up to something like that Or you may need some extra reach Or just some utility Really, really look into the Crossband repeating radios I don't think it's a wasted expense Actually and the dual band you'll receive It scratches my itch

[00:38:10] So I really appreciate that in the radio So I have a It's not radio related And I don't know if we're going to cover this later But I came across something a couple months ago That makes one heck of an accessory For these radios out in the field

[00:38:26] Okay So you guys remember There was a company called MCM Electronics Based out of here in Ohio They were part of the Overall premier for an L family MCM Electronics as a brand has been dissolved And they are now part of Element 14

[00:38:46] But I got an email from them the other day Saying hey all of the MCM Electronics House brands including Tenma And Stellar Labs and all these Are available again in our catalog The reason this matters Is Stellar Labs was a brand

[00:39:03] That they made all kinds of audio video stuff for But one of the things that was really interesting Is they make these tripod stands That are made for They have several that are made for like loud speakers Like if you're doing a PA system But they have one

[00:39:19] That's made for a lighting system And it extends to 10 feet Wow Which is about 4 feet higher Than you see in these average The best part about it of course Is that the thing is less than $50 And it can hold It says it can hold up to 100 pounds

[00:39:38] But one of these tripods I've seen one in person They're only about maybe 4 feet Collapsed or slightly smaller And then they come with a bar across the top For mounting lights which if you want to stick an intent on It's not necessary

[00:39:52] Kail, make sure you have the link for the show notes Because the model number is the 555-11635 Yeah, I'll never remember that But we'll link it in the show notes Yeah, I think that's a pretty good deal $45 or less for a 10 foot tripod

[00:40:09] That is, again having seen one in person Is fairly sturdy Is that the one with the crank? Does it crank up or lift up? This is a lift up The other thing that's nice too Is each of the sections as it cranks up Has a cross cotter pin

[00:40:26] So you're not just relying on like some kind of Twist compression fitting I like that Yeah, because those plastic pieces They fell and when they fell, especially if I've loaded those up with lights before When you do test that 100 pound limit

[00:40:41] And if it doesn't come with a cotter pin You definitely want to drill your own cotter pin in those Nice, that might be something to add To the pickup when you go out into the field To To Talson antenna against Yes, yeah definitely

[00:40:55] Those pipes are big enough to fit The military poles Okay Yeah Cool stuff, okay So I think we've talked About the mobile radios VHF, UHF And I think we got it covered but man I tell you You heard us, the Kenwood mobiles

[00:41:17] Are really a great place to start You know and you may be Looking and I want to touch on this real quick Jeremy, we talked about this a few minutes ago And one of you said you had something written down Maybe regarding this but they are

[00:41:29] You mentioned Jeremy the 8800 From Yesu which is out of production Now the 8900 is kind of taking its place there And I I kind of feel like that probably won't last much longer Actually but they also make a radio Which is the 7900 It's kind of an old school

[00:41:45] Single VFO Single frequency on the display But it's a dual band radio, no crossband repeat But it's a brick house Solid radio, detachable face You know somebody may come up and say Jeremy, George, John I can't afford a $359 Radio right now but I could swing this 279

[00:42:05] For a brand new 7900 with a warranty Would you say something like that would be a good investment For a ham who's looking to Improve their radios In their car or something I'm a fan of that radio I've recommended it to other new hands Who didn't quite want to

[00:42:23] Kind of like hard drives, they're like I'll never need two bands at the same time When we all said I'll never need more than 20 megabytes But no, basically To me it was kind of like If you expanded the FT-60 To a 50Y radio

[00:42:39] That's kind of what you had And they're from the same generation of Yesu technology Nice interface You know one thing that is kind of handy In the ham world when it comes to the Japanese Radios in particular The pricing on the radios Generally reflects

[00:42:57] The feature set more so than The performance, in other words If you buy the $170 Yesu 2 meter only radio That radio's core Received performance probably won't Be that much different than a $500 Radio, the big difference is really Going to be the features that you get And the pricing

[00:43:17] Between the big three vendors Become Kenwood Yesu They tend to have similar products And similar price points So the point of all that is That you can pretty much take the price And look at that as Kind of a metric of Sophisticating features So if you'd say well

[00:43:37] Gee I can't afford a $500 radio But I could afford a $250 radio Would that be any good? The answer is As a radio yeah find safe choice. The only question is, does it have the the sort of secondary whizzy features that you might be

[00:43:55] lacking? And for 90% of the people, the answer is probably no. So to me, I mean, the biggest breakpoint is going from a single VFO to a dual VFO radio. Now, I essentially have two radios simultaneously in one. And is it worth, you

[00:44:11] know, going from 150 to, you know, 300 bucks to get that? For me, it is, you know. And and beyond that, you're really talking about digital features and stuff like that that you may or may not need. So I think the prices are pretty good proxy

[00:44:26] for just, you know, like the sophistication of the feature set. Yeah, so if you come up with a budget of 300 bucks, and there's three of them out there, they're probably gonna be all be pretty this pretty much the same with their

[00:44:38] performance. And you're right, George, thinking about that. I mean, you look at the great, I think it's a FT 400 or 450, the pretty multi color display from Yezu that does APRS. And all is a great radio, but it's almost what 600 bucks brand

[00:44:53] new. And a lot of people scratch your head. Wow, do I really need that? I mean, so you know, maybe not the funny thing. The funny thing about that, Kale is, is I kind of think of myself as sort of a gearhead. And I look at these

[00:45:05] radio features. And I think, wow, that's a really cool feature. And there's a big long list of features on the more expensive radios. And I never use any of those features. I mean, and I think I would be the target market for all that

[00:45:19] stuff. And I, you know, basically, I need to set the frequency offset, the tone and transmit, you know, like, that's kind of what I do 99% of the time. The only feature that I ever use in my FM radios that is beyond that

[00:45:37] would be a digital mode. So I use my D star radio because I like D star. But, you know, all the other stuff, except for dual VFO, you know, you really don't need most of that stuff. Yeah, yeah. And John could tell you, you know, before

[00:45:49] you get out in the field, you need to know what your purpose is, the reason you're going out. So you can take that back and in going through your mindset on this purchasing thing, because you can really overthink your

[00:46:01] purchases. Yes, I'm one of those. I really am. And that's why we enjoy doing these shows. And there's really candid conversation to try to help you understand and make a good choice with your money, because everybody knows how hard it is to get that nowadays, right? So if

[00:46:15] you overthink it, you're gonna, you're gonna probably spend more than you really need. But if you can determine what you want to use it for like, okay, kale down here in the country, the repeater's a long way away, I

[00:46:26] want to be able to sit in my house and use a mobile radio because I spend most of my time on the radio while driving VHF UHF repeater talk stuff. But I still want to be able to talk on the repeater's from inside my house. Well,

[00:46:40] I can't without having to buy a radio, put up an antenna on the outside of the house another power supply you got to buy. But if I can swing one of those cross band repeating rigs, put it in the van, set it

[00:46:51] up and use it well, I've just killed two birds one rock and I'm really happy. So I knew going into this and it took me guys, it took me almost three and a half years to save up to buy that radio, the

[00:47:03] TMV 71 a but I've got another one now because it's so freaking awesome. And it's used the first one I bought was an open, open box B stock kind of thing from MTC. The second one I bought used, got a really good deal thanks to a very generous

[00:47:18] him. But that was my goal. My goal was to cross band repeat to get into the local repeaters now found all kind of crazy other uses for it. So you know, if you live in an area where nobody talks on UHF, you may be able

[00:47:31] to get get away with the 3200 from Yezu. George has told you it's a great radio and be happy there. Are you may want APRS? So you got to go up. It just determine what your goal is and go there. Exactly. And I think the big kind of epiphany

[00:47:45] is is that's like that 3200 radio. It's broad performance on a two meter repeater is not going to be any better than a $600 radio. No. So if you're going to park it on that repeater 30 miles away and that's pretty much where you hang out, you don't really

[00:48:00] need to spend the money. So the nice thing too is if you had a radio like that, let's say you're really agonizing over this decision because oh my God, you don't want to make a bad decision. If you bought that less expensive radio

[00:48:14] and after a year you go well turns out there is a UHF repeater. I really wish I had dual VFO or whatever. Get the fancier radio and you'll either sell or keep the cheaper radio. There's nothing wrong with that. It's probably not the last radio

[00:48:29] you're ever going to buy. So put it in a go box, put it in the go. Exactly. Exactly. One is nine. So while we're still talking mobiles, let's talk mobile mobile HF operations. Now this is somewhere where I'm just going to be I'm going to come

[00:48:43] out the front and get myself out of the way real quick. I don't do mobile HF radio because I have five kids that I'm mobile with so that just doesn't happen. But I know that you guys have some experiences with it. I mean, John grew up

[00:48:58] as his dad and granddad were him. So I mean he's been around this stuff for forever. John, what are you? What are your takes on mobile HF operating? Well, I have to switch gears because interestingly enough with VHF, UHF, handhelds of mobile. I'm a Kenwood

[00:49:15] guy. Then when you get into HF, I'm an ICOM fan. So I don't know kind of how that happened. But I have two ICOM rigs, actually three, but the one stays at home. So I do have a 7300 and that only comes outdoors when it's

[00:49:33] field day and it sits inside my my camper just because I want to keep that nice. So the two that I take routinely in the field is the ICOM 7200, which is the one that was discontinued. And then I tried selling and right when I tried selling

[00:49:51] it, the ICOM decided to re-release it. So it became impossible to sell. That is the rig that they selected for the ARL went to Puerto Rico with. They had 20 of those. So that 7200, yes, it's heavy. Yes, it's a tank. And you know, you're not going to do

[00:50:11] a soda with it. But if you're not worrying about weight, that 7200 is back in production now and there's plenty of used ones out there. The price point is really low for a ruggedized radio that has a USB into it so you can do digital modes

[00:50:29] and it just works great. And the best of all, it looks tactical. So if you can get it in camo, which I'm not sure why. But so yeah, gigaparts, they used to do that. That is they did these awesome color schemes and camo

[00:50:43] patterns and they don't do that anymore. I'm surprised they don't because they'd sell a bunch of that stuff. Well, you know, our buddy, Jeremy and I have a buddy named Greg and Greg actually took his apart and painted it green before. Yep. Oh, de green. Yeah.

[00:50:56] Go big daddy. Yeah. Shout out to our man, Greg. That's I mean, the 7200 that is like I said, if you're not looking for lightweight operations, that's that's the radio go to them. The second one I have is they're still out there and these are tanks

[00:51:11] also but the icon 706 Mark 2G. That's a that's an all mode radio. It is a power hog. But for such a small compact all mode radio, I keep that in my truck. But then I also put that on the ATV and that's just a great one

[00:51:30] that's that's out of production. But so that's kind of where I've landed. I still have on my my Santa list is the is the Elocraft KX3. So if I'm good this year and use the next five years of Christmas as I might be able to get one.

[00:51:48] As my wife is sitting here in the room. Yeah, I just read a news article how there's the large amount of Americans are still paying for last year's Christmas this year. So I don't know, John, you kind of brave tonight, man, that even admitting that you have

[00:52:00] that many radios in front of your bride. So yeah, I almost bought a 706 years ago. I wish I hadn't missed the deal, but it just didn't happen. And that's just how it goes. George, we know that you and Noah were were sending CW back after the flood

[00:52:16] and so you've seen a lot in regards to mobile. I hadn't had an opportunity to give you a hard time about that in a long time. So and love having you guys here, by the way, George, mobile HF radio for you. What does that look like?

[00:52:31] Oh, I'd break this into two different topics. One is really mobile, in other words, sitting in the car or the truck or whatever with with the radio talking as you go down the highway different from portable. Yes. OK, so so in the real mobile sense

[00:52:46] for HF, I've used a 706 mobile HF a bit and it was OK. And then I got a Kenwood TS 480 SAT and that was a really, really, really good radio. I would recommend that. So between. Well, I don't know between those two,

[00:53:06] but even any other one off the top of my head, I think of all of the real mobile form factor radios, the TS 480 is great. It's probably got one of the best receivers in it. It's it's about a 10 year old design, maybe more at this point.

[00:53:19] 100 Watts antenna tuner, basic antenna tuner built in. They also make a 200 watt model, which is the HX version with no tuner. So if you really want to fry yourself in the car, you can get a 200 watt PA. But the receiver in that radio is excellent

[00:53:34] and the user interface that control head is nice because there's a speaker in the back. The mic plugs into it so physically it's handy and convenient. The buttons are are physical buttons. And I think one of the things you want to think about while you're

[00:53:50] screaming down the freeway is ergonomically, can you interact with the radio without taking your eyes off the road? And the 480 will let you do that because there's a bunch of buttons on the control head, as opposed to a newer radio like the ICOM 7100. That's mostly touchscreen.

[00:54:07] So if you're going to operate while driving, I would I would look at the 480. OK. I'll plus that. Yeah, I mean, and that's really what it comes down to is it's not just that there are physical buttons. There's a plethora of physical buttons

[00:54:23] because even like something like the venerable, like one of the most popular portable radios ever, the the yesu FT 857, it had three buttons for 472 functions. And you know, you had to depending on how long you held a button down, whether it was three seconds or three

[00:54:39] point two seconds, it would do something different. Where is the the Kenwood in the car? You know, having all those buttons like you can develop muscle memory to remember where to press to do things. So yeah, plus one. Yeah, agreed.

[00:54:54] And by the way, it's got a very good receiver in it. I mean, it's not just it works, but it really has a good receiver. There's a great document on the Kenwood website that I downloaded some years ago that was essentially at like a big

[00:55:06] app note, a technical article that Kenwood wrote about the design of the 480. In other words, these guys were so proud of their new receiver design that they wrote a whole technical article about it. And it was really quite interesting. So it's awesome. Yeah, so it's worth checking out.

[00:55:23] So it really is. You would give you would give a thumbs up for the for the mobile HF operations to the 480 over the 7100 because those are kind of like yes apples and apples almost. Yeah, I would I would. And the reason I would do that

[00:55:36] is is that the user interface is just better for a mobile without looking at the display. Yeah, OK. Now the 7100 is a great radio. It's a newer radio. It probably has some more features. It certainly has more modes. It's got D star. It's got VHF and UHF.

[00:55:56] The TS 480 is HF and six. So there's no two meters on it. It's really an HF radio. And you do tend to see at a given price point, let's say at a thousand dollar plus or minus price point, if the receiver is only HF versus HF and VHF,

[00:56:16] when you add the VHF stuff, you tend to compromise on something. And I don't know why that's the case, but it tends to be the case. So you may get more features, but you might be giving up some performance for a given generation of radio.

[00:56:30] By the way, I'm a big fan of the 7100, but I see the 7100 more as a portable radio, not backpacky, of course. It's more like take it to Field Day, you know, take it to the park. So it's it's got a nice control head. People either love

[00:56:46] it or hate it. And I like it actually because it's fairly compact and it's at a 45 degree angle. So it presents itself very nicely. And as you said, Kale, the user interface is pretty cool because you just touch the thing on the screen you want to change

[00:57:01] and the screen adapts to that. So if you touch the like the filter shape on the on the display, it'll pop up a little dialog box on the display to let you change the filter characteristics. So the UI is very intuitive and I think that's a big step

[00:57:17] forward. Cool. Cool. Now, so and by the way, those radios are on like super special. They are right now. I think MTC has got a special. I'm I'm pretty sure HRO has a similar special and they're they're around. I want to say they're about 800 bucks. Yeah, they're like

[00:57:34] $200 off right now. Yeah, if you're Black Friday listening and you want to HF, that may be where you want to go. So I'm looking at the HRO website on sale. OK, so they have the so oh well, what they're saying is it's a thousand dollars

[00:57:50] normally on sale for nine fifty nine. And then there's a little asterisk after rebate seven hundred and fifty nine ninety five. It's a good deal. So now put this in perspective. This radio does D star. Let's say we go back to our eight

[00:58:06] or FM mobile discussion and say, well, I want to D star mobile radio. OK, well, that's the top end from Icom the 70 the ID 50 100, which is my favorite. That's about a 500 and something radio five fifty maybe five hundred bucks at the low end.

[00:58:21] Five hundred bucks. OK, for another two fifty you get a whole HF radio. Yeah, I mean, that's true. But OK, I having owned the four eighty having currently owned the seventy one hundred. By the way, MTC radio has the seven one hundred for nine thirty nine

[00:58:38] plus the two hundred dollars off. So beating them by twenty bucks. The seventy one hundred is is interesting because as far as density, if you want an all in one radio that has all that stuff in your vehicle, fantastic. If you are going to be operating

[00:58:56] while going down the road and you're actually operating while you're operating your vehicle, you know, it is probably best to just park it on a frequency or set up the memories, you know, they're in there. You're not going to be contest hopping as easily while you're driving.

[00:59:12] The there are several things about the seventy one hundred that over the four eighty number one, the filtering, the ability to do voice recording if you wanted to do that to call CQ. But the filtering is IF DSP versus audio frequency DSP.

[00:59:29] So it is it is a higher quality filtering technology because I think actually you have to buy crystal filters or mechanical filters rather for the four eighty if I remember correctly. I believe that's right. The other thing, though, that is a little bit frustrating about I com.

[00:59:49] I'm an icon here. We go here. We go. Lay it on us. Hold on, John, you know, you drop all please. Well, you mentioned earlier, George, about the different generations of D star technology. So if memory serves, the seventy one hundred had the

[01:00:07] ability to use a GPS to find D star stuff. But they didn't add any feature beyond that like nothing has been backported to the radio. So the fifty one hundred overall does have an easier VHF UHF D star experience than the seventy one hundred.

[01:00:24] On the other hand, it looks like you can get the seventy one hundred for seven thirty nine. I paid, I think, sixteen or seventeen hundred the month they came out. So that radio has dropped a thousand dollars in about four years. Yeah, that's a pretty wicked

[01:00:43] drop. That's and that's not that hasn't been historically that common that they would drop that much. But you know, I think that sort of happens in other radios, too, like when the the FT nine nine one came out, that thing came out at about sixteen hundred bucks, seventeen

[01:00:59] hundred bucks. And I think it's it's now down to thirteen something. Now that's not as much of a drop. But they also went from the nine and one to the model, which kind of left people high and dry. So. Yeah, so things do change.

[01:01:14] And we won't bring up the fact that Jeremy still regrets selling the four eighty two our buddy. And I didn't want to talk about that. It goes out to Fox. Well, did I? Did I? Is there a raw nerve here? As George was saying, you know,

[01:01:28] I remember this. Jeremy's steam's coming out of his headphones right now. I can just it's not steam. It's sadness. I was I was crying. I was rocking in my chair and crying. Yeah. No, I when when W four E.D.F. was getting into radio, I at

[01:01:43] the time I had the disposable income and ADD when it came to radios that I was like buying a radio, keeping it for a while, you know, selling it at a loss, going and buying another one. And I was entering the market for HF

[01:01:58] and I had this radio. I actually had it mounted in my car with with a Tarheel screwdriver antenna on the Jeep Junior. And, you know, I was like, well, you know what? I want to go play with something else. And I don't even remember what it was

[01:02:13] I went to go play with. And I was like, I'll make you a fantastic deal on this radio. And Ed kindly bought it. And yeah, of all the HF radios I've gotten rid of that is the one that I regret the most.

[01:02:25] And Ed still loves it, by the way, every time I talk to him, he's like, hey, man, do you remember I bought Jeremy's 480? It's the best radio ever. When you talk to him, let him know I still love it. Yeah. Hey, yeah, I hope you're doing good, man.

[01:02:38] It's been a while. So yeah. OK, so here's where Kel's at with this. Again, I don't do mobile HF and Jeremy, I'm going to come back to you in just a second. But I am flipping a coin right now. I've got my TS 850 for sale.

[01:02:50] It's the big old school, you know, monster HF rig that sits on the desk. And I'd like to sell it and I'd like to sell it to purchase either the 7100 or the 480. And we don't have to have that discussion tonight,

[01:03:04] but the two is so funny that the two radios that you're talking about are the two that are in very serious contention if I can actually sell the other one. So without selling it, it doesn't matter. It's a moot point.

[01:03:14] But Jeremy, did you want to add anything else to the discussion of the two radios that I'm actually considering pretty heavily? Man, it's hard. You know, at the time that I had the 480, I also had a 710, I can with 710 mounted in my vehicle.

[01:03:37] Having the one head is very nice. It's very clean. It's a very good looking control head and the 7100 having just the one radio for all the capability. Plus you get a digital mode. I mean, I would definitely say overall,

[01:03:52] not even counting the fact that after the mail-in rebate, it's like 60 bucks cheaper than the 480. But the 7100 is far and away just a lot more radio, a ton more radio. Yeah. And so honestly, if I were making this decision today and I were in your shoes,

[01:04:10] I am probably leaning towards the 7100. So I get a question for you, Kale. Would you be using this mostly at home or would you be using it mostly like in the vehicle while driving? No mobile HF for kill. 7100. Okay. Yeah, no mobile HF.

[01:04:28] That's not, that's 15 years off for me. You know, honestly, it's not easy. No, it's not. There's a lot of work. I mean, we did an episode with a K-Zero BG about talking all the work that you have to do to prepare your vehicle.

[01:04:49] And the antennas get really expensive very quickly. You know, it's basically, you're starting at about 400 bucks for the tarheel, the little tarheel too. And that's really, you really need a bigger antenna. Yeah. And it's just not feasible with five kids in the car. I mean, no way.

[01:05:07] Well, and with the van you have, I mean, your van would have a 28 foot personal clearance. Exactly. So there's no mobile HF for me, but I do, you know, it's gonna replace the 850 on the bench. And the reason that it is these two,

[01:05:25] and John, the reason it's not the 72, which all of my boys love, the reason it's not is because I like the, I like it not taking a lot of space up on the deck. You know, just a small control head, whether it's the 480 or the 7100,

[01:05:40] I just like that. But it also gives me the potential to slide it down into an MTM container and take it out, set it up for field day, which we'll talk about in a few minutes, or the potential of using it with our local areas group.

[01:05:53] So that's kind of why my head is kind of going that direction. So, Kate, let me throw out just a couple of quick things. I think that in terms of functionality, the 7100 would be a better way to go. And I'll echo something Jeremy said,

[01:06:06] and that is you do get D-Star with it. So you could just have a, you know, at some point maybe a D-Star hotspot or something like that. And the nice thing about a digital mode like D-Star is you're not relying on propagation being good.

[01:06:21] You know, you're working in the shack on something and you want to just listen to something in the background, you can find activity always on the digital modes. The second thing is that for packaging up that radio, take a look at my personal website, www.kj6vu.com.

[01:06:42] I wrote an article about how I packaged up a 7100 in one of those rigid tool cases. Yeah, I remember that one. And it's really slick. We use it on field day. In fact, we ran our VHF 2 meter and 432 sideband station was a 7100. Worked great.

[01:07:00] I only have one complaint about that radio and that is that the control head is small and lightweight. And if you plug a microphone into it, like what's cool about the control head is you only need to run the control cable to the radio. Nothing else.

[01:07:18] The control head has a speaker built in and a speaker jack. The control head has the mic jack and the control head has the paddle jack for your CW paddle. So actually everything plugs into the control head. Well, if you plug your mic into the control head

[01:07:32] which you would and you move the mic around a lot, you can whip the control head around the desk because it's not heavy at all. So if I were gonna use it as a more of a base station,

[01:07:47] I would figure out a way to mount it to something like a piece of plywood or something. Yeah, so it doesn't walk around the desk. Good idea. Just remember, I feel like I know, because I have this mounted in a gator case like actually mounted whiskers.

[01:08:06] And I feel like this might have had like a traditional, what is it? Quarter 24 tripod thread in the bottom of it if I'm not mistaken. You're exactly right because I've seen people use like a lead to mount with that.

[01:08:22] Okay, well, that would be a way to solve the problem and just screw it into something. But one other thing that you did make me think of, at least with the 480, you get a one to three antenna matching unit.

[01:08:39] I mean, you're gonna need to add something external to this. I mean, I have an LDG AT100 Pro 2. There is one that's a, I forget it's like the LDG i100, it's specifically for ICOM radios. So that's something to keep in mind

[01:08:56] that you will wanna add a second tuner or add an external tuner to it probably. But yeah, I mean, just for paying for the buck, especially at 739, like it's ridiculous. Okay, so since this is my show, this is gonna be my commercial.

[01:09:11] If you want a really nice, nice 1990s vintage, it's a cherry, I'm not making it up. It's a beautiful rig, TS850, buy it so I can buy another radio. Call me, we'll work something out. I've already got the shipping figured across the US,

[01:09:24] so anyway, hey, anything else to add before we're gonna take a break right here and come back in just a moment? Are we good here on this mobile HF discussion? Okay. I think we're good. Thank we're good. All right guys, stick around,

[01:09:39] we'll be right back in just a moment. You're listening to episode whatever it is, but it's the super special number four shopping show, special edition program here, the Ham Radio 360 podcast. Back in a moment, Merry Christmas. ["Hand Radio 360 Podcast"] So it's time for the second annual

[01:10:02] Help a Ham charity giveaway that Maine Trading Company does. It's a really cool thing. It's kind of two parts and I wanna try to explain it to you just in case you don't really understand what's going on down there. Richard and Christine Lenore

[01:10:16] own Maine Trading Company in Paris, Texas. They have a giveaway every year that you can participate in it in a couple of different ways. What they're looking for is someone who is an amateur radio operator who's down on her luck, having a hard time.

[01:10:29] That might be you listening by the way. Need some gear maybe, you know, got caught up in a lightning storm or maybe one of the fires out west or even the hurricanes that came up the Gulf Coast and you lost your gear,

[01:10:41] you have a need that needs to be met. Well, they're taking nominations for amateur radio operators right now who fit that bill. If that's you, that's great. If you know someone that's in that shape, you can nominate them right now at mtcradio.com

[01:10:57] and they'll be put into the drawing, right? They'll take all of the nominations they receive. They'll go through them and they'll pick one or two that they can best serve. Now, as well as nominating folks, you can also donate as little as $1. Now I've done more than that

[01:11:19] and I want to encourage you to do the same. Not, this doesn't like get you anything for free. You're helping someone else, right? The spirit of giving, I guess is what we'll say here. And you can do that at maintradingcompany.com mtcradio.com.

[01:11:33] If you go to the show notes at handradio360.com, scroll all the way to the bottom of the show notes for this show, there's a link there. Or just go to mtcradio.com, you'll see Santa Claus there, click on him, give some bucks guys.

[01:11:46] You know, you can skip a cup of coffee on Monday morning to help another ham. MTC radio will be putting in some funds as well as working with manufacturers to try to get some price breaks on things to really make this happen.

[01:12:00] But, but, but, they need your help. They need my help and I'll probably give some more. It's a great cause, it costs a few bucks on your end to make someone really happy on the other end. And it's a great way to build this amateur radio community.

[01:12:15] That's all I'm gonna say about it now, but you can find it mtcradio.com, find help at home there, be a part of making someone else's holiday season a little brighter. So let's keep this thing rolling and speaking of rolling, we're not getting into the shack yet.

[01:12:33] Although we've talked about things that you can use in the shack as a base station and things that you could use in your vehicle mobile and then pedestrian mobile, of course with a handy talky. Actually my first base station was a handy talky.

[01:12:44] We're not going back down that road, but we are going outside and we're gonna talk about portable gear. We're gonna talk about field day gear, field radio gear, and we've got some guys right here who are just full of knowledge. George, you get out, you're skinny,

[01:12:59] you go climb mountains and talk on radios and y'all have big field day at Bay Net and all this stuff. So let's talk about some field operable gear, whether it's field day field radio gear or you're taking it on soda type things.

[01:13:13] Let's kind of just mash those together and just get some hints and what you like for those types of scenarios. We're gonna be different, of course, but because there's a lot of different variables there, but let us know what you're thinking on that.

[01:13:30] You know, that is such a hot topic now. There's so many people who are getting into operating portable, not just for soda stuff, but just go to the park portable because the radios are so small and the batteries are getting lighter. It's just such an exciting area

[01:13:44] and there are so many good ones to pick from and for me, I'd say at the extreme, soda end of things, in other words, the smallest, lightest, portable thing you can get away with. It's pretty hands down the KX2, not the KX2, the KX2. Thank you.

[01:14:04] Elegraft radio that's been out for a year and a half because it's the smallest radio that has the best performance and the feature set that you want. So that's absolutely my favorite. I like it better than my KX3, which is actually about a radio a little bit,

[01:14:19] but the KX2 is just so small and you're really not sacrificing any performance. That's the top pick. The 817 is still super popular. That thing has a longer life than it deserves because it's been in the market for what, 15 years, Jeremy, you probably know?

[01:14:37] Well, it's probably longer than that because it's actually had two lives. There was the 817 than the 817 ND. That's right. So even the ND version, I think that thing is like 12, 15 years old at this point but that's popular. And it's half the price as the Elegraft.

[01:14:55] So somebody wanting to get into soda, that's a good choice. Well, it's not quite half the price. So the 817 is still about 650 bucks and the KX2, the base model is about 800. And that's 650 bucks with no filters and no high precision oscillator. And no antenna tuner.

[01:15:20] So if you're really comparing apples to apples, it's really 650 versus 800. Now the one thing that the KX2 doesn't have, it doesn't have two meters and 440 or in 432 sideband. So if you really want VHF in the same radio then it's kind of no contest.

[01:15:39] You kind of have to go with the 817. But when you go to add the accessories like an antenna tuner, it would be built into the KX2. Whereas with the FT817, it's external. The batteries in the KX2 last much longer than the batteries in the FT817

[01:16:01] because part because the KX2 consumes less current, less power than the 817. And partly because the batteries in the 817 are typically going to be double A's or nickel metal hydrides or some similar rechargeable battery. That's not quite the energy density of the lithium ion that's in the KX2.

[01:16:24] So for a whole bunch of reasons, my pick would really be the KX2. Now one guy who has an interesting point of view is the fellow that does the TechNord video series. Julian, Julian, OH8STN. Yeah, so Julian's top pick is the 817

[01:16:47] and he made a very good point in one of his videos. He said that of all the radios, it's one of the most rugged. And I would agree because it's a pretty stout little box with a nice extruded aluminum kind of front panel.

[01:17:03] It probably is mechanically more durable. So I'd give it points for that. And they've been around for so long and there's a load of them on the used market. If you can, that direction, you can really save a lot of money,

[01:17:15] get on the side of the road and make some contacts. That's a good point. That's a good point. And those radios, they'll really last. So I think for real portable stuff, that's what I would look at for field day,

[01:17:28] drive the radio to the park kind of field day. Boy, it's like almost anything is viable. You know, that probably my two favorites would be the 7300. And I kind of have, I'm kind of going back and forth on the FT991. So when the 991 first came out before the 7300,

[01:17:53] I thought, well, that's great. It's got everything just like the older Yasu 897s, 857, et cetera. And then I realized that their spectrum scope, which is a great new feature only works when you press the button. And since then with the A model, they've fixed that.

[01:18:11] So that kind of, that feature, that kind of poorly implemented feature kind of put that radio on my not favorite radio list. I gotcha. So I didn't really care for it that way, but I've upgraded mine to the 991 by having Yasu install the upgraded pan adapter

[01:18:31] and whatever else they change. And it was 300 bucks to do it, which was not that bad. Originally I heard it was gonna be about 500, but the price came down. So I think that's not too unreasonable. So there's a case where the manufacturer actually

[01:18:50] did provide a path to upgrade. So I effectively have a 991. And so now that I've got the, or A rather, so now that it's upgraded and the spectrum scope works real time with the simultaneously with receiving and it's a slightly more compact radio than the 7300

[01:19:07] plus it has VHF and UHF. And I'm kind of going from, I can't stand this thing to, I could see where that would be a decent field day radio. So I think at the end of the day, the 7300 is a nicer looking radio, better display.

[01:19:24] But the 991 is a pretty good second best contender for field day radio, I would say. Very good, very good. Don't write it off, I guess. No, don't write it off. And I've really gone back and forth in this thing. And now I'm kind of getting back into it.

[01:19:40] So- Well, I remember when you got it and you really didn't like it. I remember that. No, you didn't like it. I really didn't. And I was just really irritated by the stupid spectral scope only running when the audio was off.

[01:19:52] That just soured me, but I'm kind of getting back into it. Yeah, so John, you do a podcast about field radio. We've talked about Julian. We know he gets out there in the snow and does crazy stuff, but what are you talking about,

[01:20:05] John, to your audience when it comes to field radio, HF gear, whether it's packing it in or driving it out, like George says, where do you fall out? Well, my idea of going light is I only take the ATV and the F-250 truck up

[01:20:22] and I leave the 16 foot and the 32 foot trailer home. So I noticed how you went to the George the skinny guy for the soda stuff and not Jeremy and I. I don't know, Jeremy, she picked up on that or not. Yeah, I know.

[01:20:37] Sorry guys, I got the point. That must have been one of them Freudian things. Sorry about that. It was George's turn to go first. No problem. What about your kid? Well, like I said earlier, yeah, it's a 7300 on field day in the 7200.

[01:20:54] You kind of talked about 7200 not really fitting in a box. I used to have the 7200, I-com 7200, I used to have it in a rack and it was nice, but that thing stands alone. I like it just on the table by itself. It doesn't, I can't really,

[01:21:09] I've tried to fit it into boxes and I don't think it needs to be. So yeah, like I said, 7300 and I think Jeremy and George are pointing out with 7300 on field day is, you do get that overload and I saw that at field day just with an 857

[01:21:26] in the campground transmitting on a different band. I saw the overload on the display. So yeah, probably you gotta do some things to the 7300 if you're going to be at a multi-operator field day. But like I said, then, you know, like I said KX3, KX2,

[01:21:47] I just, I got an interview coming up with Stuart, talked about how he, in fact, he just released that YouTube video of how he went maritime mobile with an Alex Loop and his aircraft. Did you recognize the music there

[01:22:03] was the what do you do with a scurvy pirate? When the video was done. That was very good. I didn't realize it, but after I watched the video, I walked away whistling that and I thought to myself, where did that come from?

[01:22:16] And I went back and started the video and it's under, you know, it's a sound bed there. KB1HQS, great guy and shout out to Stuart, man. He's just, he's still having fun. Actually I got a spot for him earlier today

[01:22:28] and I was at, I'll talk about my phone later but I couldn't spot him on the internet. So anyway, so you're saying 7300, I know Jeremy's gonna say 7300, we're gonna let him say it here in just a second but you're also saying the Elacraft rigs as well.

[01:22:42] As well as the 7200 on the park bench on the picnic table there in the campground, you're happy with that? Yeah and coming to like I said, I don't do that much. You know, I wanna get into more soda type stuff but just interviewing Stuart recently, he's saying,

[01:22:57] you know, it's just, even if he has an antenna fail, he has a, you know, he can just banana connect into that and she said it's just, it's what he does and what he goes to when he gets up on the hills. You know, he's real skinny too.

[01:23:10] And he's the, of course the king of it, he is. Of course he's the king of the podas. Yeah, yeah, he won it all baby. KB1HQS, what's up bro? So okay Jeremy, we know that you've had what one or two filled days now to 7300

[01:23:25] and we know that you've had the 480 you've mentioned. I'm sure you used that. You've had a 450 I remember in a box at a time so tell us, and tell us what you're talking about. Well, let me plus one the Elacraft KX2 for, for, you know, pocket portable.

[01:23:47] I think for a portable QRP rig there literally is for HF there is just not a better option between the tuner, the onboard high capacity lithium battery, all of that KX2 hands down now. I fulfilled day or, you know, like if the type

[01:24:08] of stuff that John does it might be extended to field portable ops. Yes, I think the 7300 is a fantastic radio but it is actually not going to be my first choice and there's a couple of reasons. The 7300 is a landmark radio in our hobby period.

[01:24:25] It is something that if somebody has, well actually gosh what are they down to now? Oh, there is less than 13 something like that. Yeah, less than 13 on sale. So 12, yeah, MTC list it says after mail and rebate 1248. Fantastic radio worth saving your pennies for, et cetera.

[01:24:48] It's everything that everybody says it is. However, one of the things that I was disappointed when I got mine was I was like, wow, these knobs feel a little more rickety than I'm used to on some of ICOM's other gear.

[01:25:02] You know, the front end of the radio is really designed to be operated alone as John referenced. And this is something that both he and I have experienced getting other stations at field day into the radio. I mean, it has built in protection and whatnot,

[01:25:16] but again, it's really not designed to be operated in a without some front end filtering in an area where it's going to be doing other radios. So for field days that I've done, the radios that I have run is a YASU FT 897, which is no longer manufactured.

[01:25:37] That radio was spiritually replaced by the 991 that George mentioned. It was cool because it was a box, you could buy battery packs that went into it. It had a tuner that bolted on the side of it and it was a neat all in one package

[01:25:50] and also gave you VHF and UHF. It's cool, but I also remember in a previous episode I said, let's stop talking about the 857 and 897, which are two of the most ubiquitous like portable HF radios ever. There's so much better technology now.

[01:26:06] So I have run a YASU 450, which was interesting. The radio itself is actually pretty good. Two issues that I had with it is getting levels in ALC to work properly to do PSK 31. It was like having to balance a Mac track on the edge of a knife

[01:26:25] and it was something I never really had a lot of success with. The filtering on that radio is artificially crippled. So it's not continuously variable band with settings and whatnot, like there are pre made notches. And as it turns out most of the time

[01:26:39] what I really wanted was always in between two settings. Still a decent radio with a lot of good features. Done the 7300, which I've covered that. Honestly, I'm gonna kind of agree with John I think for a field portable package, the 7200, the ICOM 7200 is a fantastic way to go.

[01:27:02] The only thing you're really missing from it is just, so folks know it does not do FM. And it also does not have a built in auto tuner. So not necessarily a big deal. I don't really, the six meter FM for instance

[01:27:16] when we would do the bull run in out in Manassas Park in Virginia we usually used six meters FM for the communications. So you wouldn't be able to use it in a situation like that. But for all other like side band,

[01:27:31] CW digital modes and AM the radio has you covered. Now, the other thing I will point out is I own and I'm a big fan of the Allocraft KX3. This radio is interesting because it's not just a radio, it's a system.

[01:27:47] And by that I mean you start off with the base radio which is 160 through six meters. There is a low power two meter module option available for it. It has an antenna tuner option. It has some beefed up front end filtering available as an option.

[01:28:04] It has internal AA batteries. It can run up to 15 Watts on certain HF bands by itself. In the system, in addition to that they make a what is called the KXPA 100 which is a 100 watt amplifier that interfaces directly with the radio. And I have used that combination

[01:28:24] at field day to great success. There is also a pan adapter available called the PX3 which last year for field day we did all QRP. So I just use the KX3 and the PX3. Of course the pan adapter just makes your HF operating experience so much more enjoyable.

[01:28:41] And this is part of the reason we all love the 7300. So yeah, my two picks are probably gonna be the 7200 and the KX3 and then the various components. I really would love to pick up a 7200 but I just not in a position where I have like radio

[01:28:59] set-asides for specific use cases like that. But those would be my picks. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna throw one more comment on your comment Jeremy. And that is in thinking about field day one more level of detail. If your field day is two guys at the park

[01:29:18] one on two meters and one on 40 meters then the receiver performance can be like almost any radio that's decent. If you're at a field day where you've got a dozen stations and there's just a lot of RF on all the bands then the performance of the receiver starts

[01:29:37] to become a really important thing which is really where the Elegraft radios I think shine. So that's another consideration. Why do they take K3s on de-expiditions? It's not just because they're a good radio but it's because they keep everybody else's transmitter

[01:29:56] out of their front end better than most. So that's a thought if you're doing kind of a really serious field day with a lot of transmitters. You know, not at all related to anything that you just said but it did spark another thought. Go ahead.

[01:30:10] So one of the things earlier I mentioned a discontinued radio that I'd recommend the IC92 AD handheld. Another portable radio that I think is still a very good option. The only thing that it really doesn't have is it doesn't have the modern IF DSP.

[01:30:27] It's still an audio frequency DSP radio but I think John mentioned this earlier but the ICOM 706 Mark IIG still has a really good receiver in it for all the radios in that class, VHF and UHF and a very densely built relatively rugged portable radio

[01:30:44] that could also operate as a mobile very well. So yeah, I'll throw that one out there too as another one. If you're not looking to spend the big bucks or buy a new radio, that's a good one to find on the used market.

[01:30:57] Although truthfully they are still so popular they can be difficult to find. Yeah, yeah and but we get back to the point that you can really save some money on those things if you can find them. I know that our local club had an auction

[01:31:12] I was unable to attend unfortunately this is the most unfortunate part of it. There was one that was virtually brand new in a box that sold for 350 bucks. Oh wow. That's a deal. Talk about making a man sick. And this was three or four years ago

[01:31:25] so this was a really good deal for 350. So yeah, there's a lot of gear out there that can be had. You just have to kind of be smart and know what you're looking for again knowing what you're wanting to do with it.

[01:31:37] And one radio I haven't heard anybody mention it's a very interesting radio to me and it's the 891 from Yesu. It's a full power HF plus six very pretty display but I don't hear in there $550 hundred watt rig it's not made to be put in the backpack

[01:31:59] and take up the side of the mountain but it could be mobile. It could be a park bench type thing with a bio-no battery but I hear nobody talking about these things. $550 is virtually a brand new release maybe two years old now

[01:32:14] and nobody's talking about it at all. Do you guys hear anything on that? That's like the 857 replacement I think. Kind of yes, it's no VHF. You know what I would say is I think that it is probably a fine radio for the money. The, it is relatively small.

[01:32:37] You say it's not made to be thrown in a backpack but it very easily could be. The display is one of the most beautiful white backlit black display. Like Icon could really use sniping whoever their front-end engineer is for that to learn how to do that.

[01:32:55] But I mean it probably is a decent example. I know a lot of people who started with, what's the low end Icon? Is it the 710? 718. 718. You know there's probably a good chance that I would say that this Yesu 891 is a better first option than the 718

[01:33:13] just because again more modern technology. Exactly, yeah. I think one of the things that may be hampering it and I've read some on the forums is that it is a Yesu, it's very menu driven so that maybe the problem is three buttons. They sold a boatload of 857s

[01:33:31] and I don't think this is any easier or I'm guessing just by looking at the layout of the front panel and the buttons it's probably similar. So I can't imagine the user interface as a big detractor to it. I'm kind of surprised I don't hear more

[01:33:45] about this radio frankly. It's $550. Yeah, maybe there's something else that we don't know in terms of its performance. I don't know. John, do you hear anything in Utah on the 891? Sorry. I haven't. Yesu like it is mostly Kenwood icon what I hear out here.

[01:34:06] And so yeah I've come and kind of and once again I think maybe everybody just ran out of money after buying all the 7300s. They bought KX2s and then they bought the 7300 and it was over. So okay we've got a really huge audience here

[01:34:21] that are still hopefully listening to us as we ramble on about buying radios. Guys if you're out there and you've got the 891 we would really sincerely be interested in hearing about it because you've heard here you've got four guys that have connections

[01:34:34] and talk to people all the time that don't know anything about this radio. So you're out there, you've got one like it, love it, hate it, want it, whatever, let us know. You can find us all online, you know how to do that

[01:34:45] but we would like to know because we could maybe suggest it or steer someone away from it if it's not what they're looking for. So I wanna talk, we mentioned it for just a minute Jeremy you kind of touched on the budget friendly thing.

[01:35:01] But before we get there I wanna ask you guys just one at a time and we'll start with John this time. What is something that you found this year that is not what you anticipated finding but you found something for radio

[01:35:20] and it really kind of lit your fire you didn't realize that it was there, you got it, you heard about it, found it and now you're crazy about it. So what I found it's and I never thought I would really kind of need one of these

[01:35:37] but it's from West Mountain Radio and it's there, I'm trying to remember the, of course the name of it, it's their power, it's not their power monitor but it's their power tester. The power check? Is it the power check that's there? It is the power check.

[01:35:54] Yeah so this is not, it's not like you put it in line to use it it's not the one that, no it's the battery analyzer. Oh, like the CBA. Yeah there we go, so the CBA battery analyzer so this is something that's not a

[01:36:10] you're not gonna put it in line and use it while you're operating. This is to test your batteries. So what you do is you hook up a battery to this and then you hook this to the computer

[01:36:20] and you tell it what kind of load you wanna give it and it will essentially drain that battery at the amperage you tell it until you tell it the voltage cutoff point and it'll measure the performance of that battery and it'll do it for lithium iron phosphates

[01:36:37] and the traditional SLAs or AGMs but one thing I found interesting and this is why I was really interested about it was it'll also map the performance of solar panels and so that's kind of a big thing for us in the hobby now is solar panels

[01:36:53] and how do you know the performance of a solar panel without just going by the specs and what's basically coming out of China with different names on it. So this will do that too. You can load up a solar panel and it'll map what you have

[01:37:11] and what your power output is and then you can do things like I had a AGM battery that was well past life so I went ahead and put it on the bring it back to life mode in it it restored it

[01:37:25] and I saw how much it was able to restore that battery and then I did it again and did it again because it was an old battery, I thought let's keep doing it until I finally saw it do ministry turns

[01:37:35] but so when you look at all the batteries you have whether they're in your go kits or whatever you have you're using you really don't know beyond just kind of anecdotal experience of that battery is that battery due to be replaced

[01:37:49] or how is it performing or AB comparison and so the computer battery analyzer has really been a fun tool for me and I plan on putting out some YouTube videos on this to kind of show what you can do with it. Yeah, yeah that's cool, that's cool stuff.

[01:38:04] George have you run over anything in the Bay Area this year that you just, since you lost your HRO? Yes. Have you found anything to kind of replace it with? I mean have you found stumbled or anything like that? I didn't know about that but

[01:38:21] what have you found this year because you're always into stuff. Gosh two things I think kind of pleasantly surprised me one thing I want to give John credit for and that is he pointed out those Wago wire nuts and I'd use the earlier version of those.

[01:38:35] That was John. Oh that's what I said, I want to give John credit. You said Jeremy. Oh did I? Yeah. It's John. I thought they were Waggle. When it's Vago. Oh what is it? Vago. Vago. It's like let the red net get it right. Vago. Thank you.

[01:38:51] Thank you sir. So I had bought the earlier version of those things several years ago and used them here and there and I didn't know there was a new version and when you talked about it on your show I looked them up and I thought oh my man

[01:39:04] those are even better and so I bought a boatload of them and I used them in some radio projects and I think those are just winners. That's a little treasure. So that was a great find. The other thing that was a rather pleasant surprise

[01:39:20] was getting a shark RF open spot and I've used a number of hotspots like Raspberry Pis and the like for D-Star hotspots and DV dongles and DVAPs and such but I hadn't played around with that and the reason I got it was Jeremy

[01:39:38] cajoled me into getting a DMR radio and so of course I had to get an open spot to go with it and the DMR radio is kind of fun but I've been using the open spot for DMR and for D-Star and it's great.

[01:39:53] It's got a nice web user interface to configure it. It's a nice user interface, works well. It's a standalone device. You don't need to run it into a PC. If you have an ethernet jack somewhere you just plug it in. So that's been a really nice pleasant surprise

[01:40:10] finding that thing. Cool. Jeremy what have you found this year? You know I think I technically found this last year actually when I was at Shelby with my wife for anniversary and we came down to visit you down there.

[01:40:29] As we were leaving on the back of this little hatchback was the cutest little disco antenna I had ever seen in my life. I ended up, the guy who owned the car happened to come by before we walked on and the antenna is a Diamond D220R

[01:40:47] and they sell it as a mobile scanner antenna. The antenna terminates to a PL259 which is of course a very common for the different like lip mounts and hatchback mounts that are sold by Diamond and Comet that's a very common termination point.

[01:41:02] But what he was using it for was basically to plug into an RTL-SDR dongle and go around and just see what signals there were. So I picked one of these things up here locally from R&L Electronics and have, you know Billy's basically fashioned a contraption

[01:41:19] to mount it to a mounting plate and attach it to a tripod. And it is now my primary receiving antenna for anything above 100 megahertz. It is technically listed as 100 to 1600 megahertz but this thing is so much smaller than like a traditional like Diamond D130 Disco.

[01:41:42] So, you know, it sells for about a hundred bucks. So that's been fantastic. Number two, and this was one of my Dayton pickups this year is so, you know, we've talked in depth about the popularity of DMR and the Titerra MD380 as the $99 gateway drug to DMR.

[01:42:06] I really become a big fan of DMR, have a hotspot in here. We have a couple of really good repeaters here in the area that I can hit with an HT. And I decided I wanted something a little bit better than the MD380.

[01:42:19] So, a Dayton this year, a company called Gigaparts is a distributor now for a commercial manufacturer called Hi-Tera, H-Y-T-E-R-A. They're not motor rollers but they don't cost anywhere near motor rollers either. But they are, I mean, they're commercial, you know, UHF DMR eargear.

[01:42:41] And there is a much higher pain point for programming them as far as like the options there in the CPS software did take a lot more research and whatnot. But as far as like a rugged, amazingly performant, just quiet, long battery life,

[01:43:01] like I can't say enough about it. It's not a must buy but it was a nice to buy and it is now, fortunately my club our talk around stuff is all UHF, we use UHF repeaters. So I have a bunch of analog frequencies

[01:43:14] programmed into a couple of zones. I have really enjoyed my Hi-Tera. The model that I have specifically is the 682. Gigapart sells a mobile in like three or four different handhelds, including this cool little handheld called the 382 that is it's USB rechargeable

[01:43:32] and it's only like two or three watts. Then it's perfect for if all you're gonna do you use this for as a hotspot. Nice, nice, cool stuff. And then the last thing, and this is something also we've talked about before in terms of software defined radios,

[01:43:50] but along with getting this antenna, I really, really, really, really went hardcore full on into setting up software defined receivers upstairs in the second floor of my house. And as I mentioned on the work bench and here I'm a huge fan of the Air Spy models.

[01:44:12] I have currently an Air Spy Mini, which is a $99 dongle that'll do 24 megahertz to 1.5 or 1.6 or maybe 1.8 gigahertz, I can't remember. It'll give you 4.8 megahertz of bandwidth in your spectrum display, but it is such a quality piece of equipment, wide bandwidth and is the perfect $99 gateway drug

[01:44:36] into software defined radios. So that continues to be at the top of my list, especially with all of the software stuff that the developer has done this year to allow remote monitoring and remote management of these dongles. I won't bore you with those details,

[01:44:52] check out the work bench because I've talked in depth about all of these and we're actually looking at having use of ComeOn to talk about Air Spy and SDR Sharp in depth. So again, SDR stuff is just a lot of fun. Cool, cool.

[01:45:07] Well, I hate DMR radio and no offense to anybody that loves it, but I just can't stand to listen to it. Just for whatever reason, I never turn my own cause it makes my skin crawl and that's my CSI and the TYT.

[01:45:21] So I don't know what, it's a ear thing, I guess. As you guys have been talking, I've been trying to figure out, wow, what if, I can't think of anything. So sorry, there's not a whole lot of new stuff hanging around here, but I do have a TS850

[01:45:38] if anyone's interested by the way. We can give me something to talk about next year but if I do have to say one thing and I've got, actually I sold my DMR radio and a couple other things this year but I did wind up with an Elinko.

[01:45:55] This is so funny, I wound up with an Elinko DR135. You heard Kenneth talk about these radios a couple of times and I guess it's really the only thing new around here to talk about. I found it, a guy bought it at Dayton

[01:46:10] and didn't like it for whatever reason. I bought it and brought it here in the shack and I've got it connected to the an older Cantronics KPC3 non-plus that have actually got working on packet right now. I'm really excited that this is happening in my shack

[01:46:26] but this radio is so impressive to me. Simply because I think my six year old daughter could come up here and figure out how to make it work and do what she wanted it to do and with the advent of all the technology

[01:46:41] that we enjoy a lot of it and we've talked about it here and there throughout the show is how it can be overwhelming at times and there's so many buttons to press and things to do but this Elinko radio

[01:46:51] and I'm a big fan of my Kenwood TM281s matter of fact, I've got a handful of those but this Elinko for what it is is the most stupid simple radio I've ever touched and I'm leaving it on running it all the time,

[01:47:06] no problems with it at all and I think that's what it's intended to do but I've really been excited about that how just simple it is to use. My unit in trunk tracker five is not simple to use but this Elinko radio is very simple

[01:47:24] and I'm still excited about it and it's working flawlessly for me right now. I can't think of anything else I apologize to be so boring but I'm on breaks, you give me a break, right? But you know, Kale, I would underscore one of the points you're making there

[01:47:42] which is that the simple to use radio could actually be one of the best biggest features. So I have one of these old Kenwood single band mobiles it's a TM, I don't know for something or another and there is no menu, there's only a row

[01:48:01] of like five buttons on it and there's a function that gives you another function for each of those five buttons and the buttons are shift tone, you know, it's the most basic features and I actually really love the radio because it's so simple.

[01:48:18] I got one of those for sale too by the way. Do you really? I do, well it's a 231, it's not a 431, it's a 231 but go ahead, sorry. No, I'm just saying that depending on what you're doing with the radio, that could be the thing to look for.

[01:48:31] Honestly, one of the best uses of those kind of radios is in an M-Com environment, in an M-Com environment when bad things are happening you tend to get tunnel vision and things that are complicated are easily forgotten in the heat of the moment

[01:48:49] and I think radios like that really are the best kind of radios to have. Why is it that commercial radios are even simpler aside from the fact that people that use them are not radio people? It's because all you can handle

[01:49:03] is volume and channel when bad things are happening. So I think there's a big psychological consideration. So if you want a radio for your public service events, you want a simple radio, you don't wanna be sitting there going, man I knew that there's a button to press somewhere.

[01:49:21] You know, it's Jeremy's menu item 432. Yeah. I think that's where the PL is. You know another thing about this radio, I'm just sitting here as you're talking, looking across the shack, cause I'm six, eight, 10 feet away. I can read the display from here.

[01:49:34] The display is so big and so bright I'm across the room and can read it. Now you won't wanna leave this on in your shack and try to sleep in there. But I mean you can sit across the room

[01:49:43] and to me, again, I mean my most favorite radio is a two meter single band handheld. You should expect a whole lot from Kale, right? But this radio is just the most simple thing ever and it should be. There should be options like that

[01:49:59] for someone who doesn't need anything but 50 watts in a microphone. So that's what I stumbled into this year. And I've got a mini by the way. I've used it some, the Air Spy Mini with some ADS-B stuff works great and I need to get back into that.

[01:50:15] But the Alinko DR-135, Kenneth convinced me to buy one when I found it on the QTH swap page. It was a good deal, I bought it and I'm glad I did. So thank you guys for all of that. We've talked some budget friendly stuff

[01:50:34] are there because there's people listening that are like, how do y'all have so many radios? I got friends of mine. God dude, what do you got 11 VHF radios? I'm like, well I've been a ham for six years and I've been trying to build an APRS

[01:50:44] and a packet network both. So I've accumulated that's why I'm cleaning some stuff out but not everybody can do all this stuff and a lot of people can get discouraged when they hear us talk about, well, I'll get my KX3 to do this

[01:50:58] and I'll get my KX2 to do that but you don't start there. Most people don't. So are there any good budget friendly ideas for somebody coming whether from the bottom to the top no Chinese handy talk is included in the conversation

[01:51:12] but anything past that that you're looking for that are a good budget conscious buy for someone maybe who has five kids or maybe they're already working two jobs and putting a kid through college. And I think, go ahead. I think it's, that's where you really need

[01:51:32] to start hitting the swap meets. Like my secondary radio is the ICOM V8000. And once again, I mean it's a two meter only 65 watt output that's a brick and like you talked about that's fairly easy to use. I don't keep a manual around.

[01:51:51] I don't use it that often except when I need a secondary radio or need the extra power for very remote operations but my father picked one of those up at a local swap meet for $10. So I don't know if it's because it's not dual band people discount it.

[01:52:10] So there's like I said, the swap meets there are fines like that out there. Yeah. So maybe if you are in the getting started and not really sure what you want once again always buyer beware for online purchases but hitting up local swap meets

[01:52:28] or making that trip to date and with a purpose of going out to the mud pits and seeing what you can find out there. Yeah. Yeah. What about you Jeremy? Well, I mentioned a couple of what were really top shelf

[01:52:44] radios in their time that can be had now. I mean the 92 that I mean the IC92 AD that I mentioned if memory serves it was like 489 to get started and now it can routinely be had for under 200 bucks. The 706 Mark 2G is still a fantastic HF radio

[01:53:05] as far as VHF radio is being able to find you know, Yesu 8 or sorry, 8800s I think are gonna start going down in price finding even the you know we mentioned the 7900 but even the 7800 which is relatively close to the same thing as the 7900.

[01:53:24] You know and I think really the key to this is that you can still have a lot of enjoyment and you can go the low cost way either by looking at a lot of the Chinese options that are coming to our shores that we mentioned

[01:53:36] and you know anything other than Bao Fang maybe but then also you know this is where knowing folks in your club who have experience with older equipment like the you know the 231 431 conversation that George and Kale just had. Like I have no idea what those radios are

[01:53:54] but I know if I were in a pinch and needed something I would go to them and say hey what's something that's a little bit older that I could get into and not you know have to worry about and they would tell me

[01:54:05] and so that's where your relationships and your Elmer's can really come to the rescue. Boy is that not the best, some of the best advice you could give is that Elmer because they've already seen the past history of a product

[01:54:20] and they can in matter of fact let me tell you how I came into the TM 231 family was an Elmer of mine in NLBT had one he said I don't need this do you want to buy it? I said sure I think it's, you know

[01:54:33] I can't remember what it was now but it was a really good deal and he said these are really good radios and another guy standing there with him was like yes those are very good radios these guys know what they're talking about

[01:54:42] I mean the radio is 25 years old right? It's got tones in it but not much more and I've had hen I don't know I might have had five or six over the time and I've whittled it down I've got one or two left now

[01:54:55] but the thing is is a really solid good just two meter rigs and that's all they do and that's all you may need them to do so the Elmer having that experience they can also say you know that really wasn't a great radio back in the day

[01:55:09] you may want to reconsider and that can end up saving you more money than you think that you're saving on the front end so that's a very good point and something I think we sometimes forget to think down that road

[01:55:20] but having someone to help you make that decision and of course you know this will sound funny to some people who won't surprise others I know you guys get them and I get questions a lot too what do you think about X? What do you think about Y?

[01:55:33] Not that we're people's Elmers but they do trust our opinions and hope that we can offer some further insight into their decisions which is the entire reason we've done this program today so you know I hope that everyone's enjoyed this and before we go

[01:55:48] Jeremy's favorite part of this show is talking about stocking stuffers and I think he's got a list so we're gonna let him get started first and then we'll just go to George and John with any types of stocking stuffers for us

[01:56:00] as we wind down the Super Gashamati Special Edition show number four for the shopping at Ham Radio 360 podcast go ahead, Jeremy So I'm gonna repeat myself number one first and foremost Power Poles Power Poles, hashtag You can't Power Poles the world if you don't have enough Power Poles

[01:56:24] Power Poles, RF adapters small jumper cables of varying kinds things that help you work on coax or to build your own cables crimp tools for Power Poles I mean all of that secondary like bits and bobs, pieces and parts kind of stuff that go along with this hobby

[01:56:47] are always good a couple of other things I'll add is I've already mentioned all of these in one capacity or another but they're all right around the $100 mark again, the Air Spy Mini for somebody who wants to get into software-defined radios

[01:57:03] and wants to get a quality piece of equipment that's there at $99 the Titera MD380 for somebody who wants to dip their toe in the DMR waters or somebody who is interested in setting up a hotspot board which again we've talked about in previous episodes

[01:57:19] it's basically a device that allows you to connect via RF from your radio to this little box, the hotspot and then to the internet in case you don't have a repeater nearby and allows you to talk on the internet-linked systems that are out there

[01:57:34] but the Titera MD380 for well under $100 is a fantastic buy of a radio and then that, well I mentioned that MD8600 the 25 20 watt dual bander that's about $100 I mean having a mobile radio in your stocking would have been unheard of two years ago for $100 yeah

[01:58:00] and it would fit in your stocking yeah it would both, both ways, yeah yeah good points, good points George what you got? Oh gosh, the first thing that I would suggest is a copy of the ARRL handbook and everybody really should have a copy of it

[01:58:18] it's the sort of thing that you'll reference in so many different ways for antennas, for power supplies, for radios just basic electronics it's just such a valuable thing to have and it's not that terribly cheap I'm not sure how much they are now but they're probably 40 bucks

[01:58:36] or 50 bucks or something like that so it's one of those things where you go well that's kind of an expensive book and then when you get one for Christmas it's like oh this is awesome and you'll have an infinite source of bathroom reading material so much information there

[01:58:53] beep that'd be my first pick I think my second pick would be a collection of stuff that is a Raspberry Pi an audio codec, audio fob and for the first time ever I will recommend and a Bofang radio maybe even the cheapest one the model 888

[01:59:17] which is a channelized radio that's only like 13 bucks why? because with that little pile of stuff you could build an all star hotspot and start playing around with the voiceover IP connected radio and that's pretty much all you need to take your common garden variety FM radio

[01:59:42] and talk to this little hotspot so when we talk about things like the Shark Open Spot that's 230 bucks and it supports all the digital modes you could build your own hotspot on the all star network for about $70 if not less can we interface my repeater with that? yes

[02:00:07] hmm yeah if you have a port like on the controller the Sierra radio controller you got on the spare port you could take the Raspberry Pi and the codec and forget the Bofang and you could interface that to the controller we have a brand new

[02:00:24] we got rid of Charter there we have a brand new U-verse connection at the station so that might be a future workbench project episode that would be interesting for all of us funny you should mention it because one of the build projects

[02:00:40] I've gotten in mind to work on in the first part of 2018 is a little combo where Peter controller or all star hotspot board set so ta-da we could do that we could all talk together and we could also talk to our buddy in Israel exactly

[02:00:58] we could get Eric on the horn yeah that'd be totally awesome alright so seriously let's talk about that between now and the next time we talk so I'm in yeah yeah John man I tell you I'm digging the camper top you put on the back of the truck

[02:01:14] or whatever you're supposed to call that I like the way that looks and I'm actually getting to sell my truck so I'm not gonna do that to mine but I'm encouraged to see all the LED lights in there and everything but I've got to ask you

[02:01:26] what are some stocking stuffers besides LED lights that the field radio podcast guy would encourage his listeners to pick up this year so I started a list when we started talking and I think I'm up to almost a page and a half so energize our bunnies

[02:01:45] so here comes the rundown but yeah that camper top that was a great local classifieds ad nice and I've been I've got solar panels on top and LED lights all the way around and so I'll be doing a show on that

[02:01:59] on how to turn your truck into a large go kit so but so here's your lightning round of stuff that I've found all under a hundred dollars so let's let's go through really quickly with antennas we've always talked about this

[02:02:16] and I think it's been mentioned on the show the N9 tax roll up I mean 20 to 30 dollars you're not gonna find a better every unit's tuned and just a great portable roll up antenna amazingly enough for if you're looking for a mag mount you go to Walmart

[02:02:37] and buy it's only online but the browning BR1035 is 25 dollars that's a dual band antenna and then the BR180 is the mag in is the mag for that the mag mount so fifty dollars you got an excellent mobile antenna I'm really impressed with Arrow their J-Pole antenna, $59 Arrow

[02:03:01] I tell you I contact I bought this thing four years ago five years ago and I lost a little tiny screw that fits between the two because if you get one that's cut in half the J-Pole so you can pack it

[02:03:14] emailed him and said hey I can't find this and I've actually done this with the other Arrow antenna and the guy just sends you stuff he's like oh yeah I'll send you that part and so Arrow antennas I really appreciate their support but yeah J-Pole antenna

[02:03:29] which is just a rock solid antenna when you're talking about going in the field for VHF, UHF of course we can't not mention the Pac-10 and Mini I mean $90 I know that guy the best antenna you're gonna get for field portable

[02:03:45] just throw that thing up in a tree with an Arbor's weight and some rope and you're on the air just amazing and then last for antennas signal stuff they were on the Dayton show KD7 BBC Richard Bateman with hamsteady.org he was interviewed on the Dayton show

[02:04:04] signal stuff that's that little antenna that's made out of that really signal that really tight wire $20 and it's a high performing antenna for your HT I just texted him while we were on the on the recording here and he is doing a 25% off

[02:04:22] starting Thanksgiving and going through Cyber Monday so that'll save you some some on that and so it'll bring it down off the $20 and he offers a lifetime warranty on those so even if you break them due to damage you know whatever you just contact him send it back

[02:04:39] and he'll he'll ship you a new one so that's kind of my rundown on antennas the last couple cheap things is I've really been liking you talk about LED lights Goal Zero has two sets of lights light a life mini this is a USB light

[02:04:56] that's only $20 a light and they can they're chainable and I've tested these not they don't have RF hash on them but they're also their Goal Zero Luna light and that's just a little USB stick light it's meant to light up your keyboard $6

[02:05:13] and you plug that into your Go box and you can light up your radios you can light up whatever you need I use it in the car to kind of give a nightlight so just some little tiny things but let's see what else oh and lastly

[02:05:29] you wouldn't expect when you hear the word Hile you wouldn't expect something to come cheap but interestingly enough their Hile sound has a HT headset single ear headset that's pinned out for either Yaseo iCom or Kenwood $28 for a really good HT headset

[02:05:47] if you're looking at work in advance or using your HT in the field that little headset is just a great great find for that price Excellent, excellent well I don't have a whole lot to add to any of that

[02:05:59] but I will tell you that I do have the signal stuff antenna George on the Oshin Handy that's my go-to grab type radio and it really, man it makes a huge difference of course now it gets, you know it's longer than the typical antenna

[02:06:15] but down here in the country that makes a big difference and it works really really well so we'll make sure we link that and you guys showed him some love back after Dayton and hope you will do that as well

[02:06:30] especially folks like George who's out there doing it big with the Pactenamini so pick a part of those if you guys are operating in the field HF portable and you don't have a Pactenia yet you're really missing out so don't keep missing just get her done

[02:06:45] you know I I shop for kids you know I don't really know and this year is going to be a really different Christmas around here anyway so I'm not my wife told me last night let me just be very transparent like I'm not always transparent

[02:07:02] but my wife told me last night I'm so tired of you taking the joy out of holidays last night I was complaining about having to cook all this food that I'm really not going to have to cook on Thanksgiving

[02:07:13] but the holidays just wear me out for some reason I don't know why, I'm not a big fan but anyway there's a lot of cool things out there to be had again I'll go back to George the Raspberry Pi thing I'm wanting to build a field expedient type

[02:07:28] portable computer to do FL Digi on so I'm thinking for me it would be a Raspberry Pi 3 the official 7 inch display and the little $12 case that holds the screen, the Pi and everything together and get somebody smarter than me

[02:07:44] to help me figure out how to write an image for FL Digi and some cool ham stuff and that would probably make me real happy and that's on my wish list by the way because the real Johnny mentioned in his blog post the other day

[02:07:56] that we should have wish lists so I spent all morning trying to figure out what to put on mine and I didn't realize I didn't need as much as I thought I wanted so you never know, you never know so wow I don't think it's been 4 hours

[02:08:10] but we have been here a while so I want to say a big thank you to George and Jeremy and John for coming and spending time with us here together on this special edition of the Ham Radio 360 podcast and wish everyone listening a very happy Thanksgiving

[02:08:26] and a very merry upcoming Christmas but gentlemen thank you all before we go and it's hard to kind of end these things sometimes and I don't want to go too quick but is there anything that we might have forgotten that it just hit you here

[02:08:40] that you wanted to get out to the audience before we go or do you just want to tip your hat say goodnight and keep going on with the life at the house how about Jeremy I want to say it's been great to hear you again

[02:09:00] has my voice changed have I gone through puberty yet you've gone soft in your break here now all joking aside it's been great to get everybody together I always look forward to these touch bases every year it's hard to believe that this is the fourth one

[02:09:20] that's pretty awesome no I would say that no matter what Santa brings you or you get for yourself etc make sure to practice Ham Radio safely and everybody have a fantastic holiday enjoy the fellowship and the family and the food and the other things

[02:09:42] that this season brings about for us and we'll catch you in the new year or next week if you're a workbench listener well no it'll be a week after next unless they're listening like binge listening in a few hours it could be tomorrow

[02:10:06] thank you for listening see you next time go ahead George I don't think I have anything to add to the list I echo what Jeremy said I'm really looking forward to what's going to come down the pipe next year I think there's a lot of really great topics

[02:10:24] when we first started talking about the workbench podcast we were trying to figure out how in the world we'd do six episodes and we're up to like 37 and there's more things that we can think about talking about and I'm just excited about John's podcast

[02:10:40] I'm just really grateful that you guys are around I have a chance to learn from you and share things and hang out from time to time so this has really been fun I hope we get to do this together again some more this year

[02:10:52] well it's been cool man and it's actually going to be 38 but they don't have to know that yet but it's close it's 37-38 how you look at it I guess you know how I know stuff like that no I had to change it this morning

[02:11:08] you think I would know if you would ask me tomorrow I couldn't tell you but so congratulations on that by the way if you're not a content creator and most of you aren't you don't realize the amount of work that it took to get to 37

[02:11:24] to 7 to 12 to whatever it's a lot going on so congratulations guys y'all are killing it keep up the good work and John before we go anything else for us bro? well I found what I felt like the new one

[02:11:38] I'm a kid on the block this is my first thank you for welcoming me into the 360 family I'm 10 episodes down and I joke because someone did ask me did I take Cal out the minute I start you go on hiatus no I promise I didn't so yes

[02:12:06] no I appreciate being here this has been great and I'm looking forward to continuing on we're going to try and do some dating plans also I think it's just going to be fun it's interesting to talk to different people that have come forward

[02:12:22] and volunteered to be on the show and just finding out all the amazing things you can do in this hobby it's just great to hear people's story and people getting out and getting things and just enjoying this hobby so I appreciate you letting me be part of this

[02:12:38] oh absolutely man thank you very much everyone for listening it's been a lot of fun we hope you've enjoyed it this is our fourth shopping show so if you haven't heard the others we will encourage you to go back the easiest way to find it

[02:12:52] there's two easy ways type in shopping into the search bar ham radio 360 dot com we'll start here page and we'll have them all listed in order there so if you're just coming into the hobby or brand new somebody handed you this thing to listen to

[02:13:08] start here at ham radio 360 dot com and it kind of goes through the steps of how to become a ham, what to buy what not to buy, what we'd encourage you to buy what we'd encourage you to stay away from so with that

[02:13:20] we're going to let the music close us out here and say thank you again happy thanksgiving merry christmas happy new year and kell will see you in the new year god bless you guys thank you so much for listening 73 y'all