What is the WORST rig you've ever had?

Yaesu 7100.  Locks up enough to make you want to give up amateur radio and go back to tin cans with a string. Thankfully that level of quality has not been reflected in the other Yaesu products that I've purchased.

Hey Yaesu -- ever thought about paying people for shipping back products that don't work.  Extra expense may be enough to generate an interest to make it work the first time. May want to listen to your test engineers when they say something is not ready for market.

 

Yeasu VX-5R, lousy reciever and poor modulation. Yeasu service matches it. Bought it with what little savings I had so I would have a good radio since I am unable to work and the wonderful SSA keeps losing my disability forms. So no income and no decent radio.

 

Worst rig... the Heathkit HW-7.  I don't know why they called this a transceiver... transmitter only would be more like it.  I could hear more signals by opening up the window and standing by it.

Best rigs... I don't know if I've found my 'best' rig.  My K2 comes close, although the QRP version doesn't like running ragchews on HF digital modes... it gets very hot.  The new 100w final kit should fix that, though... and otherwise it's a great rig for CW, HF digital, and SSB.

Also, despite the Ten-Tec bashing... I've had nothing but good luck with my Omni VI/Opt1 that I bought used (I'm the 3rd owner).  Has a little drift until it warms up, then works FB.  

"A statistic of one is useless."  It's clear that the rigs which keep on coming up probably have problems... but if a rig is mentioned once or twice I'd probably try it.  For instance, the Ten-Tec Jupiter looks interesting, as does their new Orion.  The Yaesu FT-1000 MkV looks interesting, too.  Of course, the question is... will any one of these rigs let me work a station that can't be worked with my K2/100 or Omni VI?  The answer is... I (and most of us with the basics) would probably be far better served by putting some money into our antenna systems rather than our radios.  It's just that radios are neater to play with...  

73 de KD7KGX SK AR dit dit

 

I've had good luck and enjoyed almost every rig I've owned.....except the YAESU FT-7100, what a piece of crap.



Thanks to HRO for letting me exchange it after 13 days for a Kenwood 707.

 

At this point in the thread I feel behooved to mention my Icom 281. This semi-dual band mobile (it receives but doesn't transmit on 70 cm) suffers from the most annoying case of desense I've ever seen. A solid full quieting simplex QSO can immediately turn to noise when a VHF or UHF radio (or sometimes a cordless phone) is keyed up.
I shudder when I see Radio Shaft selling Vectronics gadgets. A particular Vectronics VHF/UHF cross-needle SWR/power meter I got suckered into buying presented death to the radio I transmitted into it with. Disassembly led me to discover the center conductor of the PL259 on the radio side was shorted to the case.

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (kd7kgx @ July 16 2002,19:23)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Also, despite the Ten-Tec bashing... I've had nothing but good luck with my Omni VI/Opt1 that I bought used (I'm the 3rd owner).  Has a little drift until it warms up, then works FB.  

73 de KD7KGX SK AR dit dit[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>


Ten Tec bashing my foot. I thought ALL the rigs mentioned were being "bashed". Ten Tec owners whine more about someone writing something the least bit negative about their brand of radio than any other group.
   
I thought it was understood that this thread was about a person's worst radio. If it was a Ten Tec then so be it.

wd0ct

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (KD4LEI @ July 07 2002,04:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> From what I have gathered, that (the 8100) rig has lots of problems.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Hmm.  I had one for about a year and a half and never
had one iota of trouble with it.  Perhaps I was just
"lucky".  Mine was the 8100R, if that makes any diff.

My worst HF rig was a Kenwood TS430s... worst
VHF was a Kenwood TH215a handie (darned buttons
on the front stopped working! Took it apart
and cleaned all the connections to no avail)

 

Most of the radios I've had were decent, but my first Novice setup (in 1977) was definitely not optimal for HF CW.

I had a (very) used Hallicrafters HT-44 transmitter and brand new Yaesu FRG-7 shortwave receiver. Neither was a dog, but the HT-44 modulated every fluorescent light in the house when transmitting on 40 meters or above. It also had a neat trick - it could cause my dad's AM radio to emit horrible noises and completely lose any station it was tuned to. On 15 M, the HT-44 did this even when the radio was off! Boy, was that fun!!!  

Now, the FRG-7. I know there are many folks out there who love these things still. That's fine, but they are NOT suitable ham radio receivers. I can remember calling one loud station for 20 minutes with no luck until I tuned around and realized he was actually about 25 kHz away from where I was hearing him. It took me a long time to understand how this could happen. Also, the FROG-7 didn't have a mute during transmit, which is no problem on CW as it gives you a nice sidetone. When I got my General ticket, I started getting bizarre signal reports, like, "OM, you sound like you're underwater" or "Quit the sound effects". After almost a month, one of my QSOs suggested turning the RX volume down when transmitting - voila!

But best of all was my Dentron 10-80AT antenna tuner. I used it with a long wire that started in my shack (bedroom) and passed through a hole I drilled in the window screen frame to the outdoors. I can't imagine how much RF I was exposed to with that setup! Everything was fine until I tried to transmit on 10 meters and then all hell broke loose!! The first sign of trouble was the crackling sounds and awful smells from the tuner (now, why was it doing that?). Being about 13 and not too smart, I continued to tune up. What caught my attention was the smoldering window screen - wow, aluminum can burn??? OK, so that was my fault. I put a nice dipole properly fed with RG-8 coax and fired 'er up on 10 M. LOUD BANG from tuner! Opened the case to find the broken pieces of something all over the inside of the tuner.

To this day, I wonder what happened. As a side note, I cleaned out the exploded remains from the tuner and plugged everything back in. Used it for a few years before selling it all to a new ham who loved it.

So, I'm not blaming any of the components, but it's amazing the things I did (and survived) when getting started so many years ago.

 

 

Hmmm...where do I begin??

Well, let me say that whoever the Einsteinian brainstormer was to build amateur HTs with milliwatts of output should be publically beaten into unconsiousness with day-old loaves of French bread  

The worst rigs I ever had the misfortune of using:

1. Alinco DJ-S11T and S41T (turn the number 4 upside down and you get what they are). These two HTs are way too underpowered to perform as they were designed to do, a royal pain in the backside to program, and, did I mention their extremely low power output? You absolutely ***had*** to be PHYSICALLY LOOKING AT THE REPEATER (standing next to it was a plus&#33, with your left leg up and your right hand in the air, while standing in a puddle of water (to make a good earth ground), and thinking good, pure thoughts, all the while HOPING that you could actually trip the receiver (even while standing next to the repeater). Although the design was innovative at the time, the power output was what turned me away from Alinco products. Thank God I didn't have to pay for either one (they were door prizes).

2. Radio Schmuck HTX-404. Maybe I just got a bad radio (I tend to think so, since I know someone who is STILL using an HTX-202 some 4-5 years later), but the PLL of this 440 version kept unlocking after about 5 minutes of use. I would shut the radio off to reset it, and it was good to go for quite awhile (about an hour or so of normal use.) Then, the PLL finally unlocked completely, and no amount of resetting the radio would do any good (good thing it decided to do die right then and there in the showroom as I was explaining the problem to them.) After fighting with RS for 6 months to get the concrete cork (dam&#33 thing fixed, they finally offered, as a replacement, an Alinco DJ-S41T. I about had a coronary right there in the showroom...but I kept my composure long enough to kindly ask for a refund.

I've had only good experiences with Icom rigs (well, not always...I had an IC-211 that had a offset problem, but that was the exception...it was a well-used radio, and probably should have been sent in for a good tune-up). In fact, my first rig was an IC-2GAT 7 watt HT. Although the front end is kinda weak on Icom rigs (I get some intermod on my 2100H, and that's when I'm passing by the higher-powered public service and pager repeaters), it's not so bad that I'm gonna pitch the radio out the window. Standard radios are good, too. Azdens are a pain to program, and the lack of a tuning knob is a definite minus (on the mobiles). I have a couple of minor problems with my Pryme PR-52...sometimes the display blanks out just for a quick second, but it's nothing compared to how quickly the battery drains.

I can't say anything good or bad about other radios, mostly because I haven't used them, or I know someone who swears by their particular choice of radio. It's just a matter of *your* particular choice...if you have a good experience with a particular brand, you'll tend to stick with it.

E-mail bombs and "I Hate Icom" e-mails can be sent to...



Doug KB7RKY

 

Mine was a ten-tec Scout 555, I have had 5 Ten Tech rigs, being about 20 min from the factory, to tell the truth I've never had one I liked, it's that old PTO, it never seems to settle down and get stable. Anyway the 555 I had would move up and down Like I was tunning it, and all those band modules to change out, I'm a Yaesu user now and that is where I'm staying, other than my find homebrew.

 

TEMPO 2020.......Very disappointing radio.

 

Although I did not buy this rig new, the experience I had in my early days makes a good story.

I purchased at a swapfest a National Radio NCX3. Supposedly a mobile HF rig, it was bigger than some modern day compact cars and twice as heavy. This particular gem came with a home built power supply free for nothing.

The NCX3 had one major fault. It drifted A LOT. You could turn it on and set the VFO to 14.225, and within a couple of hours it would drift right off the band edge at 14.350. The only cure for this was to let the rig warm up for several hours before operating. I quickly got in the habit of leaving it on all waking hours that there was any chance that I could get in 15 minutes of air time.

One day I turned it on and proceeded to forget it completely. So badly was it forgotten that I got on an airplane the next day and flew to Puerto Rico for a 2 week business trip. Now at that time I had the power supply sitting on the floor under the ham shack desk. I figured that was a safe place for it. However, I did not count on running the supply for 2 weeks non-stop.

Upon returning home, I smelled a burning odor. The shack carpet had a 2 square foot burn mark in it, the power supply had apparently sent various voltages to the rig, and every circuit I could identify was burned out. The only miracle was that the house had not burned to the ground.

The rig went into the garage, the carpet to the junk pile, and I went shopping for a decent rig. Moral of this story, do not buy junk.

Bob W0BFK

 

lets see now, i reckon the worst "so far" is the ADI AR 146 with its sometimes heiroglyphics display.. Usually after it has set for 3-4 days without use.  But a lite tap on the front end, and it straightens up and is readable.. It makes a good loaner radio as most people willingly return it. hehehe

 

Without a doubt the Heathkit HW-5400 was the biggest piece of junk that I've ever owned. It was Heath's attempt to keep up with ricebox invasion in PLL all soild state circuitry. Never worked properly and it was Heath's beginning of the end. They should have stayed in the simple kit market------ DX-60B transmitters, etc... just look what an unbuilt kit goes for on eBay!

 

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (K2WH @ July 04 2002,10:34)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I've been a ham for 33 years and except for early on when I bought Ameco equipment, I do not recall ever having a "Worst" rig.  Of course back then, there wasn't much to compare rigs to except home brew stuff.

For the past 20 years or so, I have only bought ICOM equipment and to tell you the truth, they all worked as advertised.  I am somewhat puzzled by the posting though.  When you say worst rig, I say worst compared to what?  Most hams do not know how to compare rigs or, have only 1 rig and to them that is the very best rig because they haven't heard anything better.

Personnaly, I think todays ham is too demanding of amateur equipment.  There are so many sites that compare or review equipment that it is all a little overwhelming.  Owners of equipment complain about the color, the heat, the audio, programmability, flexibility  etc.  Apparently hams know whats best for hams not the manufacturers.

I recently purchased the Kenwood TH-F6A handie talkie and I think it is the best HT on the market.  Go to Yahoo.com TH-F6A group though, and all they do is bitch about what the radio is lacking or some other nebulous short coming.  I personnaly have never compared one rig to the other, and when I buy a new rig, it is the best rig I ever owned, the worst rig doesn't exist.

K2WH[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Huh? I think you're thinking this one through way too deeply. Good rigs and bad rigs out there, just like anything else in life.