Personal Opinions of Ranger 5054 6m Rig

I am a six meter SSB enthusiast and strongly considered getting a RCI 5054 for mobile use. A friend is a dealer and got two of them pretty soon after they were introduced. He kept one for himself and another friend bought the second. I was impressed with the quality of the transmit audio, but both units are chronically off frequency. Often when I work either of them, I must help them get their RIT/XIT adjusted so that they are transmitting on the correct frequency.


One can make a lot of contacts on six with 25 watts and a small beam, but you have to be on frequency. One friend has become very frustrated...the last time I spoke with him he said, "I never know where the hell I am with this damn thing."

Needless to say, I am pretty leary of the rig now.


73, Brad AA5CH

 

I'm a truck driver, I have owned 2950's and 2970's in the past. Good radios but poor road conditions beat them up too much. I wouldnt own a galaxy if you gave it to me. Who cares who uses what radio? Every HF rig I've ever used could tune up 27.185. Yes, the CB shops in truckstops do sell galaxy, ranger, connex, et.al. radios but is only a small minority that buy them. Amplifiers? Even easier to buy than the rangers, but not worth it. My cobra 29 does what i need it to, the truck in front of me, the truck behind me and the truck on the other side of the median strip are all im interested in talking to. I see those quick to jump on truck drivers,,, what about all the garbage on Calif. area two meters? What about all the vulgar language and hostility on 80/75 meters? That to me is a far more detrimental problem to ham radio than a few illegals on ten meters.

 

AMEN!!!

 

That might be because they did the TX mod to the "clarifier" (RIT). TX is normally locked to the VFO and you adjust receive only. If you mod it, it varies the transmit with the recieve and the VFO doesn't change, so yes you would be lost then. I would suggest undoing the mod, and make sure it is realigned with the VFO. This is a common mod in some shops to cut the clarifier loose, and a big error on a rig that doesn't track XIT shift. Use the VFO to tune transmit, and RIT to tune the other guy's of frequency signal, or you will just chase each other across the band.

73, KD5KUF Joe

 

Your comment is correct but if we became their primary market they would make them the way hams want them.(modifiable for commercial frequencies for the ones who don't want to buy commercial radios, and to pick up airband and other non ham bands because we don't want to buy a seperate receiver) Gee, we "legit" hams should get it our way but no one else should, right?

They (Ranger and others)are out to pay the bills and buy groceries just like everybody else, and they can only do that if they make what people will buy. If hams continue to ignore their products they will be forced to deal with the dreaded CBers only. So boycott away and see even more illegal ops on 10 & 12 meters. Because our boycott will not put them out of business.

And remember enforcement is a tricky thing. If they put the manufacturers out of business, there won't be any illegal mod shops and illegal ops to fine and they will be out of a job. Then how will Riley and crew pay their bills. This is why only enough enforcement to make occasional headlines is all that happens. Am I the only one who can figure these things out? We've only had capitalism for just a little over 225 years is all.

 

With all due respect, it's the opposite. These rigs come with 100Hz increments on the VFO and the RIT, as it says, varies RX only and maybe offcentered against the VFO because of the poor frequency stability of these rigs. Doing the modification that allows the RIT to become RIT/XIT is a good thing (if it's well done) and will serve two purposes. 1st, it will allow you to transmit on the SAME frequency that you're listening to(even if you don't know very accurately where you are). Second it will allow you to tune your TX freq in a linear way as opposed to 100Hz steps. I will also suggest that you reduce the span of the pot control using some kind of resistor bridge to allow it to tune +/- 75Hz around the center freq., not more, doing so you will always know that your are not more than a few Hz away from what you see on the display and the RIT/XIT control will be nothing more than a "fine tune" control. Of course, after this mod. you won't have a RIT anymore but then again, it's a Ranger not a Kenwood. 73.

 

As I always say: If you hear a station so bad that you don't even know when he's finished transmitting, HOW CAN YOU HEAR WHAT HE SAYS???!!!DROP THE DARN QSO!
Jeeezz!!!

 

>What about all the vulgar language and
>hostility on 80/75 meters? That to me is
>a far more detrimental problem to ham
>radio than a few illegals on ten meters.

Minimize the problem itself (it's only a "few" illegals) and say that there are other more important problems (hams swearing on 75 meters! OMG!).

This is the kind of lame rhetoric that the illegal gear retailers have been using to lull hams to sleep for years. But only this year has it come home to roost. This year we hear MANY bootleggers on 10 meters on a REGULAR basis. Not a "few".

The 10 meter bootlegging problem is GROWING.

 

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Your comment is correct but if we became their primary market they would make them the way hams want them.(modifiable for commercial frequencies for the ones who don't want to buy commercial radios, and to pick up airband and other non ham bands because we don't want to buy a seperate receiver) Gee, we "legit" hams should get it our way but no one else should, right?
================

I say keep matches on store shelves but don't intentionally "market" them to pyromaniacs.

Hams aren't bootlegging on commercial frequencies or airbands! The "modifiableness" of ham rigs is not presently being exploited on a large scale by hams to break the law.

Conversely, CBers *ARE* using 10 meter rigs to get on 10 meters and other places where they shouldn't be, and they are doing it in great numbers. I would say that in this case, questioning the "modifiableness" of 10 meter CB-type gear is appropriate.

 

I wish I had had one of these fine little rigs back in the late 60's. The only feature I would like would be for the memory's to remember the mode setups. The noise blanker/anl is far better than my IC706 (original). I also have the 10/12 meter version and have had a ball with it mobile. For those who modify their transceivers, you might read Rangers policy on repair work if it should happen to die on you. Modify it at your own risk. "Radios that have been modified will be returned to the original factory condition when returned to us." I will be waiting for the 15 meter or two meter version if they come out.

 

No, neither rig has been modified.


73, Brad AA5CH

 

First, bear in mind that the local oscillator is the SAME for RX and TX. The way it works is that in RX mode the control voltage passes trough the RIT pot on the front panel and in TX mode the control voltage passes trough a fixed trimpot inside the radio(usually labeled TX FREQ.). Now if you manage to have the same STABLE and constant voltage applied to this oscillator in both TX and RX mode, there is NO WAY you will have a frequency shift between TX & RX. Of course the modification has to be well done, even if it sounds simple, a slight variation of the voltage in TX mode due to internal current drain by the PA section will obiously affect the transmitting frequency.

 

The point is not that a radio can or cannot be modified; I wouldn't buy a radio that couldn't be modified if there were such a thing. Besides, I can build a transmitter, receiver, or transceiver for any band/freq or mode I really want to operate on.
The point is that the Ranger "10M" rigs were not designed nor marketed seriously as ham radios, but as "export" CBs. That was their entire raison de etre. Seriously, how many hams do you know who bought a Tiawanese, Malaysian or whatever, 25 watt 10M rig for $300, when he could get all HF bands at 100 watts with a much higher quality Japanes rig for only double the price new, or a used Japanese or American HF rig for $200-$300 at the next hamfest, or an HW-101 for $100? If Ranger had intended their rig to be a ham radio (rather than just using that as a cover), we would not even remember their name because they would go out of business immediately.
The fact that the majority of them are sold at truckstops, they are easily "opened up" and then display the CB channels, and that they never even bothered to advertise in the ham magazines until hordes of former (and maybe still) CBers who were familiar with the name and had a new Technician license in hand, authorizing them to use 6M; is proof enough that the "10M" Rangers were INTENDED to be CBs. Anyone who claims otherwise probably didn't inhale, either.
Don't get me wrong, this is not (at least on my part) a condemnation of their radios; as I feel that those who misuse anything are to blame for their actions, not the supplier of the tool they use. If the Ranger 6M rig were $150 and I needed a 6M rig, I might try one. As it is, for the price, I would rather look for a used FT-690 or other used 6M rig for the same price (and much higher quality) as a new Ranger; or buy a new MFJ-9406 for less money (and also higher quality, besides being US-made) for SSB and CW, or save my pennies a little longer and buy an FT-817.

 

Hams don't bootleg? What planet are you from?

 

All I know is that MARKETING is a big part of the picture of what's going on with our ham bands lately.

The fact that RCI has come out with a CB-sized 6M rig at a CB-sized price and designed it with a roger beep and channelization means that we will probably soon be hearing CBers on 6 meters.

Let's see. Do we think the distributors who sell RCI "10 meter" gear to truck stops will hold off selling this new rig in those venues? The phrase "no way" comes to mind.

The sure sign of success for RCI will be if you suddenly start noticing car mount antennas cut for 50 mHz on sale at truck stops and your local Radio Shack.

Yeesh.