On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:57:13 -0700, Dick LeadWinger wrote:

On Tue, 21 Mar 2006 16:15:29 -0500, "Jerry"
wrote:


"Noon-Air" wrote in message
...
Whatever happenet to a simple to operate 100watt HF rig that transmits and
recieves??... something in the way of an inexpensive, baseline, HAM band
*only* rig... maybe along the lines of the re-production of the TS-130S.

-n6ojn


In a nutshell it boils down to demand. Do you still drive a non-air
conditioned, stickshift, non power steering, non power brake car? Right.
Few other people do, either! If you had a choice for driving a 100 mile trip
which would you choose, a 2006 Impala or a 1931 Model A Ford? Not trying to
be a smart aleck, but it answers the question! People just don't want
that anymore. Same applies to ham radios. I MUCH prefer my IC-706 MKIIG's to
the old 85 lb transmitters and receivers of yore!

Best 74

Jerry
K4KWH

Yes, but he has a point. Our cars have had those features since the
fifties. Ham radio on the other hand, has gone crazy with the bells
and whistles since that time. Just look at radios like the Icom 7800
and the Yaesu FT DX 9000MP ($12,000 for crying out loud.) I'll bet
people who owns these things don't use half the knobs and buttons.
The owner of a new Impala would probably use everything on the car.

Dick - W6CCD

I was sitting on the phone at Icom when the original 706 did not
receive the weather channel very well. I can tell you the hams would
not have it that way. I can remember hearing over and over an amateur
transceiver that works in the 2 meter VHF range just has to be able to
reveice the weather channel otherwise it was useless. Take the W32A,
receives the weather channel like gang busters on the supplied rubber
duck, it was done by design.

Someone came up with a as I remember the " Yellow " wire mod for the
original 706. That mod actually enabled the 2 meter bandpass filter
when tuning above 148 MHz where it was turned off stock form the
factory.

Seems today's amateurs want a amateur transceiver and one that has a
wide receive too. I have often wondered how many rigs would be sold if
one could not alter the transmit range. Both seem to be pretty
standard on the check lists when purchasing a new rig.

I purchased a brand new IC-730 in 1982 at Dayton. Then I longed for
shortwave coverage and 10 FM. I did find an aftermarket FM board for
it from a person at Dayton the next year or two It worked great.
So with a quadruple conversion receiver I was not real happy as I
could not tune the shortwave bands. I now have an IC-718 and hardly
ever tune outside of the ham bands now that I can.

I agree if the companies could build a nice helical filtered ham band
only front ends the overload and adjcent channel complaints would go
away mostly.

Its an interesting hobby and also to listen what users seem to want in
a radio.

Thanks for the memories.

Gary K8IZ