In article .com,
Dennis wrote:
Hi All,
New to ham, former CB'er in the process of obtaining my license. Would
appreciate any feedback, advise or suggestions on what is best 10M base
station rig. Don't have a lot of $$ but was looking at the Galaxy-2715
or Ranger-2890WX.

Don't be taken in by the flash of the Galaxy and Ranger. They are
really freeband radios. Some are sold to hams, most are modified to
work on freeband an used illegaly.

10 meters is truely a "magic band". 10 meter propigation is only there
when the sun is "hot". In the summer you get some international propigation,
during the late day (just before sunset is best). During the peak of
a sunspot cycle, you can get worldwide propigation all day and night.

When it's open 25 watts on SSB or CW and you are cooking. When it's dead
1000 watts on CW won't do much.

There are also 10 meter repeaters. Many of them existed before 2m
repeaters and are linked to them. Almost all of them now require a CTCSS
(PL) tone to work them.

When I lived in the Philly I had several conversations with people in
their car in Florida and the midwest using 2m and 440 fm rigs. I
was working them with a 10m FM transceiver. (TS-430). I also brought
my 10m FM handheld with me when I spent some time in D.C. and
worked a linked repeater on it.

If you don't want the FM capability, you should be able to get a Radio
Shack HTX-100 used pretty cheap. They have hot receivers and excelent
transmitters. They only do SSB and CW, but they do it well.

You might also look for a good used miltiband rig. I have a fondness
for Ten-Tec. You can get a Triton IV digital for less than $300.
It was made a long time ago, but there are many that are in good shape.
They lack the bells and whistles of more modern rigs, including
general coverage receivers, WARC bands (5mHz, 10mHz, 17 and 12 meters)
and FM. They do CW and SSB very well. Nothing IMHO beats tuning in
an SSB signal with a PTO (permably tuned oscilator (analog)).

Since you will have passed a morse test, you can get on CW and the
TenTec rigs do QSK (being able to hear the band) between dits and das,
better than anyone else.

If you haven't started to learn morse yet, buy a copy of "Code Quick".
It's the best way of learning morse code ever made and it's about $50.
For me it was the best investment in ham radio I ever made.


Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM
IL Voice: (077)-424-1667 IL Fax: 972-2-648-1443 U.S. Voice: 1-215-821-1838
VoN Skype: mendelsonfamily. Looking for work as a CTO or consultant in
handheld gaming, large systems development, handheld device construction, etc.
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