Foundations of Amateur Radio How to get the best Amateur Radio gear? A recurring question for new entrants to our hobby, and truth be told, some experienced ones as well, is: "What's the best hand held to buy?", or the best antenna, or the best base station, the best coax, the best mount, the best software, the best something. There's a principle in Engineering, Good, Fast and Cheap, pick any two. You can have Good and Fast, but it won't be Cheap. You can have Fast and Cheap, but it won't be Good. You can have Good and Cheap, but it won't be Fast. The concept of Quality is balanced between these limits. With that in mind, answering the question in search of the best is already a trade-off. To muddy the waters further, there is an economic principle related to pricing. It goes a little like this. If you sell an amateur radio gadget for $50, there's a group of people who will buy it. There's a group of people who would have paid more for the same thing and a group of people who can't justify $50. If you make the price higher as a manufacturer, say $75, you'll get more money from some people, but the group of people who can't justify the price will get larger, so you'll sell less gadgets. If you make the price $25, you'll sell more gadgets, but you won't capture the income from those who were prepared to pay $50 or $75. So, as a manufacturer, you make three gadgets, one for $25, one for $50 and one for $75. They're all essentially the same, but the market will lap it up. Of course, between $25 and $50, there's a group of people who would have been happy to pay more, etc. etc. Ad-infinitum. That's our amateur radio gadget market place today. The price points might not all be taken up by the same manufacturer, but the market price for say a hand held radio goes from somewhere around $40 to over $1200. You'll find the range completely filled with offers. As an aside, your local telco is doing the same thing, as is your mobile phone manufacturer, your internet service provider and your car manufacturer to name a few. So, now what? We're looking for the best gadget. Since you're going to be the one using it, your definition of best is going to be different to my definition. I care about my hand held being waterproof, but I don't care about having a torch, a compass, a thermometer or a GPS on board. You might want to take it hiking, where I'm more likely to use it on a field-day. This means that asking another amateur, "What's the best?", is a recipe for discussion. Some will be adamant that their selection is superior to that of another amateur, but you should now already know that this is completely subjective. If you go down the scientific route, you might use receiver sensitivity as a metric. If that's all you care about, the choice is easy, list them all by sensitivity and pick the one that's the most sensitive, but the battery life might be abysmal, or it might not use the frequency you care about, or it might have some other extra function you are paying for, but don't care about. We get down to picking from a list. If you're anything like me, and let's face it, we're all amateurs here, you'll get to a point of making a list of the options you have. Selecting the best antenna, the best power supply, the best base station, hand held, mobile, car, service contract, you name it, it always comes to a list. Here's how to pick. Is option A better than B? Yes? Remove B. Is option A better than C? No? Remove A. Is option C better than D? No? Remove D. Is C better than E?, etc, etc. You might be concerned about the ones that you've removed. You already decided that there was a better option than the one you removed, so ignore them, they're just muddying the water. If you want to ask another amateur what they bought and why, that's a whole field of exploration, but if you ask them what's the best gadget, that's just asking for trouble. I'm Onno VK6FLAB To listen to the podcast, visit the website: http://podcasts.itmaze.com.au/foundations/ and scroll to the bottom for the latest episode. You can also use your podcast tool of choice and search for my callsign, VK6FLAB, or you can read the book, look for my callsign on your local Amazon store, or visit my author page: http://amazon.com/author/owh If you'd like to participate in discussion about the podcast or about amateur radio, you can visit the Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/foundations.itmaze Feel free to get in touch directly via email: onno@itmaze.com.au, or follow on twitter: @VK6FLAB (http://twitter.com/vk6flab/) If you'd like to join the weekly net for new and returning amateurs, check out the details at http://ftroop.vk6.net, the net runs every week on Saturday, from 00:00 to 01:00 UTC on Echolink, IRLP, AllStar Link and 2m FM via various repeaters.
There are high ends radios and there are low all radios, but the best choice is likely one that is just good enough for what you want to do with it. I overlooked what I thought to be a low end radioFT-857d for years but found it(with ssb and cw filters) was a very adequate enjoyable radio(with computer interface) for my. Digital and cw pursuits. If I had spent the 4-8K bucks for a Flagship radio, I would have overspent for what I needed. On the others hand, I felt my tricked out KX-3 was as bargain considering the technology and performance. That's what good engineers do, design to requirements and not over engineer costly in unnecessary features. YMMV. K3FHP, Dave
Example: one of the oldest radio designs still marketed, does 12 bands at good power levels, will do digital with some add-ons, Satellite, excellent reliability and overall finely engineered is now in the $1400 range +/-. Would it benefit from some modern upgrades in the receiver? Yes, but learn how to use what the radio has and be surprised. (DSP) As an experienced uses for the last 8 years I have no urge for another radio. Many have put this radio on the shelf, criticize it for one reason or another because they run after the latest greatest just to have it. Some say it can't hear. Not true. It has the same sensitivity as any other. The S meter is on the low display side without the Pre amp on so that is not an indication it is lacking sensitivity. This radio is the Kenwood TS 2000. I don't need a 590 or 990 to be satisfied. The audio is 3k wide, sounds first class on the air if set up right. One thing it has going for it is Narrow Band FM setting. It narrows the receiver for increased sensitivity on FM that most others don't do. Has second VHF/UHF receiver plus remote control ability and cross band and many other capabilities.. It's the one for the first radio that will do it all. Good luck.
The get the best value go to a ham fest or auction and if you can't fix have a good Elmer look at it first. and read the reviews online so you avoid the junk. For the best receiver see the Sherwood list But always start with the best antenna you can get, then best receiver and then power Of course if you are really cheap, you can just go with Hamsphere and spend your money on something important!
I have only "vintage" equipment. Sure it's 20+ years old but it also was pennies on the dollar, and all is first class. Of coarse my Collins doesn't perform like my IC-781 and I'm sure my 781 isn't like an new SDR. But they all make QSO's and are fun to operate, and I didn't spend a fortune.
Onno, Another great podcast - I look forward to each new one - short, sweet and relevant to the hobby. Thank you.
I also noticed the low S meter reading.First radio that I have owned that readed on the low side.2 meters the worst.
