On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 02:56:51 GMT, Andy Entrekin
wrote:

I passed my Element 2 exam last week and am eagerly awaiting the posting
of my Tech ticket on the FCC site. In the meantime, I have been doing
research on radios. I have considered as many factors as I know of,
including TX power, physical size, and portability. My needs have led
me to look for a good handheld unit. Before anyone chimes in with a
recommendation to go for a mobile, let me say that being able to carry
the radio with me wherever I go is a must, which rules out mobiles.

I am looking for opinions about HTs that cover the 2meter and 70cm bands
and have at least 5 watts output. I value the opinions and experiences
of other hams, so I figured that these newsgroups would be a good place
to solicit them.

Whatever HT you choose -- I'd recommend a couple of things.

Put up a decent outdoor antenna at home -- a j-pole or 1/4 wave
vertical at a good height. That will give your HT greatly expanded
range around the house.

Another thing, make sure your HT will run on an external 12-volt dc
power supply. Buy a small power supply, and at home, you'll be able to
use your HT for long periods of time without running the batteries
down -- and you'll have more signal output than you will with partly
discharged batteries. Save the internal batteries for when you're on
the go away from the house.

Bob
k5qwg



Please either post your opinions here, or feel free to email me at
"entrekin-at-iname-dot-com" with the appropriate symbols (low-tech
anti-spam measure). I look forward to getting lots of input!

Thanks,
Andy Entrekin
Bedford TX USA



For any of you who frown on cross-posting:
Sorry for the cross-posting, but I wanted to get as many responses as
possible. If I hadn't cross-posted, I would have just copied this same
message in to each post to a single group. This just seemed smarter.