farah nur wrote:
Gurus,

My brother who is working for an NGO is east africa wants me to buy
him an HF ham radio where he can communicate with his colleagues in
other parts of the world. His colleagues use CODAN, but he can't
afford that brand.

A local dealer is recommending that I buy FT-857 with ATAS-120.

Here are my questions?

1- Is this combination a good fit and how reliable is it?
2- Can he communicate with other radios as far away as 3000 miles?
3- Do I need a duplexer if he is using just the HF band?
4- The radio will be mounted on a land cruiser? Where you recommend
the antena mounted on?

Many many thanks for your help.

- Nur

Hi,

I use an FT857 & the ATAS120 on my vehicle and it works fine, but the
antenna does need a good ground, mine is mounted on the roof. I also put an
extra ground wire from the vehicle chassis to the radio and it works fine
from 40M upto 70cms using a Diamond MX62M di-plexer. The antenna also
prefers to be mounted high on a vehicle rather than on the side where it has
the body of the vehicle next to it. As for contacting stations 3000 miles
away that will depend on freq and propagation, although I have worked US
stations on 17M from the UK when mobile.

Hope this helps.