Radios & Antennas For Technicians

After weeks of studying you passed your Technician test and are now on the hunt for a radio and/or antennas. Question is which on do you get. I can seem a bit confusing or overwhelming sifting through all that Yaesu, Icom, Kenwood, Baofeng, Wouxun have to offer it can boggle the mind. Radios like the FT-60, FT-70, KG-UV8E all offer something different. You can use strictly analog or step in the digital world with DSTAR, Fusion or DMR. This video will show a few radios, antennas and other equipment to get you off to a good start without filing for bankruptcy.

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We have such a bad phone system that we got some baofengs. Was either a baofeng or nothing. The other brands didn't fit our budget.

Only after ordering them did I realize that we needed to get licensed to use them. So radios came first, then we took the tests.

Turns out handheld worked for planned usage. Good enough for farm comm but little else. needed a better antenna to hit the nearest repeaters of 19 miles distant.

It took a year but we settled on an endfed half wave flower pot antenna. Easy to make from a stick of pvc pipe, cap and some RG58 or similar coax. Strong return loss at resonance. It has no outside joiner to get moisture in Making it very weather resistant.

 

Buy this Buy that. Used to be we built things and taught others to. Past rubber ducks I made all my antennas. Not that I couldn't buy them but I needed to learn.

 

City radio shop made UHF rubber ducks from speedometer cable. Depending on the entry level, Novice or Tech, I helped my friends build their first antenna. For the Novice we built an inverted V for 40/15. Cut it long and play with the angle and it will cover both bands. IF you have a tube final. For the Tech we built a 1/4 wave 2 meter antenna.
No trees? Three 10 foot sections of mast and a house clamp. Inverted V with a 2 meter 1/4 wave VHF antenna. All from the local Radio Shack.
In 1979 most had factory rigs. But some built Tuna Can transistor transmitters. My favorite was the junk TV special. Our club had a Novice transmitter that used parts form a tube TV. We salvaged the tubes, sockets, sweep tubes and transformer. ACK Radio had the rest of the parts. Coils, variable caps and crystal holders. Neat radio.

So I gave a friend an old Genave crystal controlled 2 meter radio that would not transmit. It had RF but no audio. A couple of days later he showed up on the local repeater. Repaired radio, home made mag mount and a Yagi.

Now get some of the old hams who came of age in 55 to about 65 and find out what they begged borrowed and stole. The local juke box company was a source of amps to build modulators with the change to stereo they were junking them. They added them to the CW transmitters of the day. Some borrowed microphones from pay phones. Dummy load was a light bulb.

 

"Buying an Amateur Radio Transceiver"
Slideshow - http://tiny.cc/buyar and
Accompanying spreadsheet- http://tiny.cc/buyar-ss

 

I have been teaching Tech & General licensing classes over the last few months and the students had questions about buying radios so I have put together a slideshow "Buying an Amateur Radio Transceiver"- http://tiny.cc/buyar and corresponding spreadsheet- http://tiny.cc/buyar-ss.
My other presentations are available at http://tiny.cc/k8zt-p

 

Great slides and info! Wish I had this when I was first licensed.

 

I worked a Tech on 40 CW a couple of days ago. Not many are going that route, but it’s there.

 

I need this. KO4USA

 

Need that comment on YouTube.
Thanks for watching!

 

Thank you for the interesting report.
It will be helpful.

73 JF1IRQ

 

A Yaesu FT-818 would be a good first radio for a Tech. It could be used like a giant HT for portable purposes with the included rubber duck antenna or as a base station for repeater access. However, it would also allow the Tech to try other modes in the VHF/UHF space and expand to the limited HF Tech rights (10m SSB, CW at lower bands, etc).

The Icom IC-705 would do the same, but at twice the price.

Anyway, just an alternative to the constant refrain of getting a VHF/UHF FM radio as a tech. A "DC-to-Daylight/All-Mode" radio not only gives the Tech everything they can do as a tech, it will grow with them if they progress through the license scheme.

ETA: Just checked, Techs have SSB access on 10m rather than FM.

Chris

 

This is not promoted as it should be. Though many newcomers are only interested in how many repeaters they can hit with their new HT, there is a greater hm radio world out there that COULD be promoted and encouraged. Though it's hard to beat a $30 radio to get on a repeater, there are not very expensive ways to on HF and 6 Meters. Significant enjoyment and education can be obtained on 6 & 10 in many modes even with a low SFI. A good used older xcvr can be had for the proce of a new fancy mobile VHF/UHF unit from a major manufacturer. This sampling of frequencies and modes was the initial intent of the original Novice license to motivate upgrading and I believe can still be a valid objective.

 

I can't "like" this enough. We do a horrible disservice to our Techs by only talking about FM repeaters and pushing them to upgrade so they can get on HF, as if HF is the only way to have fun on amateur radio. Even with FM alone, there are plenty of things a Tech can do (APRS, Satellite, mountain-topping aka SOTA, etc). As I mentioned above, the FT-818 makes a great radio for a new Tech and gives them plenty of room to grow. Worst case, they can use it like a big HT, but if they're curious about other bands and modes, they have them all there in one box. One can find used 818s and 817nds for not much more than a high end HT.

I've been playing about with VHF (6m and 2m) FM a lot lately. I haven't made a lot of contacts on 6m (none outside the recent VHF contest but I persist), but my 2m work on summits has been very fruitful and interesting. Seeing how far a decent antenna and 5w can reach has been about as satisfying as making a new contact on HF, especially when you factor in the smaller and lighter radios+antennas.

Chris

 

The first thing I thought about after reading the title was- What HF rig and antenna would I recommend and help a Tech out with? Techs have HF privileges too