In article , Edwin Johnson
wrote:

Which rig you choose should probably be dictated by
what use you will make of it.

THAT is where I run into trouble, with my emotions.

For example, on a totally different subject, namely
computers, I have always chosen battery-powered units,
even though they are inferior in performance.

I expect the same stupid choice will "win out" when I
finally choose a ham rig. sigh


Makes me wonder, when scientists fnally get around to
duplicating a flesh-and-blood human as an artificial
hardware item, and we download our brain into the
"artificial human" - - - will we make the same mistake
by downloading all our emotions also. g

Creating "improved" artificial humans opens up several
nasty cans of worms:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0267.html?printable=1


Skip to the sub-section:
"Building HAL 's Language Knowledge Base" near the end,
it will downright frighten you.



Back On Topic -
*********
Thanks very much for your detailed post, I will give serious
consideration to the Elecraft K3 because of the high regard
that rig enjoys among its users.

I have almost decided to get a very used temporary rig
at first, until I get a chance to renew my knowledge of
"modern" ham radio - - - THEN pounce on my final rig,
when I am finally fully aware of what I am doing.

Mark

Mark Conrad wrote:

Really looking forward to getting back, only hope my
ancient brain is up to the task.

Most of my neurons have mutated into morons,
my synapses have not snapped in ages. My brain has
shrunk so much that I am afraid to shake my head,
for fear of hearing a rattling noise.

Search the web for CodeQuick. It's a Morse code course that teaches you
to copy code in the language part of your brain instead of the "beep" part.
This has two advantages, one it is independent of speed, so you don't have to
learn 5,13,20,35,etc, you just learn it once and work up your speed.

The second is that since it works in your language center, it works in
a part of your brain that is still in use and still active.

The disadvantage is it uses "sound alike" phrases to help you learn code
and you need to put enough effort into the practice that you stop using them
automaticly.

I like to say that I have a photographic memory, but I ran out of film
about 10 years ago.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.

Mark Conrad wrote:

For example, on a totally different subject, namely
computers, I have always chosen battery-powered units,
even though they are inferior in performance.

I expect the same stupid choice will "win out" when I
finally choose a ham rig. sigh

You are in luck. Tubes are no longer used in modern rigs except for power
amplifiers. If you stay with anything made since 1980 and 100 watts or less,
it should take 13.8 volts DC.

Some rigs used 24 volt front ends and finals to get more gain with less
noise, but they are fairly rare.

The question is how much DC are you willing to put into your radio? If you
look at a 100 watt rig, it's going to need around 20 amps of DC to transmit
at full power. That kind of limits how you power it. Note that some rigs
use far less than others in receive mode, but at a 20:1 or 10:1 ratio it
does not matter a lot.

I.e. if you radio uses 1 amp on standby, then it uses the equivalent of
20 hours of reception for one hour of transmit time.
Lower power rigs use more proportionaly for standby because they use less
for transmit.

If you really want to conserve battery life, look at something like an old
Ten-Tec Argonaut (the 505,509,515) or the MFJ 90 series (9020, 9040, etc),
which have no microprocessor, no digital synthesythesior (pardon the bad
spelling), no led or lcd display, etc.

They put out 2-3 watts which is more than enough for CW, and will "work
the world" on SSB if the band is open and uncrowded. Forcing a signal
through a "closed" band or the middle of a pileup requires 1kw output radio,
if you hope for success and that is not going to run off a battery.

For a 1kw radio, consider a generator. I am a fan of gas grills, and therefore
think that a propane generator would be a good idea. I also am comfortable
with propane (or in my case propane/butane mixture) tanks around the house
but am not comfortable with gasoline or kerosene (diesel fuel). But then
I live in a big city.




Makes me wonder, when scientists fnally get around to
duplicating a flesh-and-blood human as an artificial
hardware item, and we download our brain into the
"artificial human" - - - will we make the same mistake
by downloading all our emotions also. g

You should watch the first and last episodes of the re-imagined Battlestar
Galactica that was on the Sci-Fi channel.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.

In article , Geoffrey S.
Mendelson wrote:


Search the web for CodeQuick. It's a Morse code course that teaches you
to copy code in the language part of your brain instead of the "beep" part.
This has two advantages, one it is independent of speed, so you don't have to
learn 5,13,20,35,etc, you just learn it once and work up your speed.

One of my heros was a MARS station operator in the army.

He sat leaning back in his spring-back chair listening to what I would
call random static. Somewhere in that static was a 60 wpm CW
station that he was listening to as if it was a language, not just CW.

Best I could muster was 40 wpm, on a fairly strong CW signal.


BTW, my books finally arrived, I jumped right in studying for my
extra class exam'.

I have a plan, I am going to start at the top, then work my way
down to novice level. Great Minds are like that.

It should take me at least a 2 months to reclaim my extra class
license, so I will have plenty of time to decide on what kind
of rig to buy.

Mark

In article , Geoffrey S.
Mendelson wrote:

For a 1kw radio, consider a generator.

Yes, I guess that is the only practical option,
if one is contest inclined, and has to fish contacts
out of the bottom of a pileup.

That is the nice thing about ham radio, it has
something to offer everyone, the QRP guys who
use one watt of RF, and the rabid contest guys
who enjoy the rough and tumble competition.

Even something to offer the moon-bounce guys, who
can now contact other hams almost a half-world
away using UHF rigs and parabolic antennas.

Hmm, I wonder how the FCC keeps those hams from
frying a regular communications satellite with their
strong moon-bounce signals.

Mark

On Mar 21, 3:54*pm, "Geoffrey S. Mendelson"
wrote:
Stuart Longland VK4MSL wrote:
My only gripe is that Yaesu for some reason decided that it would use
NiMH cells in its battery packs... Li-ion would have been lighter and
higher density. *Heaven forbid, gel-cell batteries would do better
than NiMH! *But that's the choice they went with, and we all have to
live with it.

It's because lithium cells are a disaster waiting to happen. If you charge
them improperly they will catch fire. If you discharge them to "empty" they
are permanently dead.

Well, there are several types of Lithium ion battery. Some are
chemically unstable, such as Lithium-Cobalt, and are prone to taking
off thermally. Then there are others which are far more inert, such
as LiFePO4.

Any battery will die or explode if abused, lithiums and NiMH cells are
not immune to this.

They also die after around 300 charge cycles. ANY power put in is a charge
cycle, so laptops made in the last couple of years will no longer "float"
a lithium battery. They let it discharge to at least 95% left before
recharging it.

The latest NiMH batteries will go through 1000 cycles. Compared to litium
batteries they are bulletproof. They are also a lot cheaper.

Many of the cells on the market are well past the 1000 cycles.
Particularly in the electric vehicle sector (which is where I'm
employed at present).

The main reason they are so common is that people don't understand their
problems and like them because they are so light in comparison to
NiMH cells. The lightness disapears when you find out a 450mAH battery will
be trash if you use it anywhere near that amount.

BTW, they are dangerous corosive trash, much worse than NiMH cells.

Companies like them because they can claim the device has a long battery
life, low weight and in 6 months to a year be back buying a new battery.
Since the battery is proprietary at best and permanently installed at worst
it's a win win for them either way.

Again, I see these batteries used in far more demanding environments
than portable HF radios, and see them outliving that 6 month
boundary. Indeed, my netbook, which runs about 15W off a 3-cell Li-
ion pack, had about 1.5 hours battery life when I bought it about 2
years ago... and still has much the same capacity now.

In the case of the FT-897... the battery packs are proprietary in
nature, and I've found NiMH cells don't last as long for me as Li-
ion. So I'll probably find myself coming back to Yaesu for more when
the two I have sign their resignation letters.

The bigest problem I have with NiMH batteries is that they no longer sell
large size batteries to the general public. Yes you can get real C or D cells
from battery specialists (which are rare here), but generally all you can get
is AA batteries or C or D cells which are just sleeved AA cells (with the
corresponding capacity).

I would not mind if I could get the sleeves, but no one carries them here.. :-(

After all, in my 290RII which takes a lot of C cells, sleeved AA batteries
with 2700mAh capacity would far out last the NiCad ones I had in it.

Yeah, I guess they don't see a market for the C/D cells in your
area... which is a shame. Interestingly...
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView...SUBCAT ID=583
http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView...SUBCAT ID=583
http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.st...uct/View/S3163
http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.st...uct/View/S3169

The latter two being from a mob run by the supermarket giant,
Woolworths. (Dick Smith Electronics is pretty much useless these
days. My FT-290RII was originally bought from DSE many moons ago,
these days they barely sell CB gear. Woolworths ruined both them, and
Tandy Electronics.) I think they still sell them in their
supermarkets too. So they're still in the "easily obtainable"
category here in Australia. I understand the situation could be quite
different in the US.

In article writes:

It's because lithium cells are a disaster waiting to happen. If you charge
them improperly they will catch fire. If you discharge them to "empty" they
are permanently dead.

Fortunately there are new Li chemistry designs that don't seem to catch
fire/explode.



They also die after around 300 charge cycles. ANY power put in is a charge
cycle, so laptops made in the last couple of years will no longer "float"
a lithium battery. They let it discharge to at least 95% left before
recharging it.

Hmmm. My cellphones (with Li batteries) have somewhere in the 1000 cycle
range on them now, and are still going strong.


The last laptop I bought (3 months ago), charges when connected to power,
without waiting for a discharge. Waiting for a discharge just leaves you
dead if you disconnect at the wrong time in the cycle.




The bigest problem I have with NiMH batteries is that they no longer sell
large size batteries to the general public. Yes you can get real C or D cells
from battery specialists (which are rare here), but generally all you can get
is AA batteries or C or D cells which are just sleeved AA cells (with the
corresponding capacity).

I would not mind if I could get the sleeves, but no one carries them here. :-(

After all, in my 290RII which takes a lot of C cells, sleeved AA batteries
with 2700mAh capacity would far out last the NiCad ones I had in it.


Actually, C and D size NiMH seem pretty rare here, except by mail order.
Presumably, mail order works there.

Alan
wa6azp

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
They put out 2-3 watts which is more than enough for CW, and will "work
the world" on SSB if the band is open and uncrowded. Forcing a signal
through a "closed" band or the middle of a pileup requires 1kw output radio,
if you hope for success and that is not going to run off a battery.

Just as a comment here is a YouTube video which adds some information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbz9yv9VQVc

He has several videos of his working stations during contests using his
Argo 509 (4 watts SSB on a good day). This is one of my favorite rigs,
although I really prefer the Triton 4 digital, which is a very similar
rig with 100 watt output (if you need it), and a digital readout instead
of the dial string.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.

In article , Geoffrey S.
Mendelson wrote:

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
They put out 2-3 watts which is more than enough for CW, and will "work
the world" on SSB if the band is open and uncrowded. Forcing a signal
through a "closed" band or the middle of a pileup requires 1kw output radio,
if you hope for success and that is not going to run off a battery.

Just as a comment here is a YouTube video which adds some information.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbz9yv9VQVc

He has several videos of his working stations during contests using his
Argo 509 (4 watts SSB on a good day). This is one of my favorite rigs,
although I really prefer the Triton 4 digital, which is a very similar
rig with 100 watt output (if you need it), and a digital readout instead
of the dial string.

Geoff.


Thanks very much for that follow-up report.

In a weak moment, I fell victim to my emotions and
ordered a brand-new 100 watt Yaesu 857D.

Hey, nobody is perfect! - I blame it all on the stress I am
presently suffering from studying for
my extra-class license.

I bought the "look-alike" (Collins) 300Hz CW filter on a
seperate order from WART electronics, because there were
no articles on the web about any narrower CW filters
being available.

(ones that do not "ring" excessively, that is)

I hope the passband of the Yaesu's last IF stage can be shifted to
one side, as I forgot to examine the spec's of the Yaesu in detail.

If I can cock the IF passband to one side, that might reduce the
interference from another CW station somewhat, I hope.

How does the Triton 4 digital compare against the Elecraft K3
in your opinion?

Mark

Mark Conrad wrote:
How does the Triton 4 digital compare against the Elecraft K3
in your opinion?

Not at all. the Triton 4 is around 30 years old. It is very different
in operation, instead of being a computer that has a radio wrapped around it,
it is just the radio. The only thing digital is the frequency readout, and
just in case you don't like it, there is an analog scale on the tuning knob.

As for sound, it's just pure clean sound, with no noise from all the digital
electronics inside. The oscilator is a PTO (a brass slug moving in a coil),
so if your hand is steady enough, you can tune it exactly to match the
frequency of the sending station.

The K3 has very fine tuning and it may not be noticably different.

The Triton 4 has true QSK, you can hear any time the transmitter is not
actually sending carrier in CW mode.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
New word I coined 12/13/09, "Sub-Wikipedia" adj, describing knowledge or
understanding, as in he has a sub-wikipedia understanding of the situation.
i.e possessing less facts or information than can be found in the Wikipedia.