"Sim" wrote in message
ink.net...
Richard,

I also am a Newbee to Ham but I got a Kenwood TH-F6A HT and love it. I'm
in the L.A. area so I find 220 more open than 440 but I figure where ever
I go I'll all three bands covered with this little HT. I too am looking
into an mobile for the truck and/or the home. The Yaeshu FT-8900 dual band
or the 8900 quad band looked nice to me. Good luck.

The Yaesu FT-7800R is a great (and inexpensive) dual band mobile rig. It has
a removable face that makes it easy to mount just about anywhere. It also
has the capability of being programmed from your computer*with the
appropriate software and cable). If you do any traveling, you can
pre-program one of the memory banks for the repeaters in that area, along
with the machines along the way with just a couple of keystrokes. BTW...it
has 1000 memory slots avalable :-)
I don't know of any places across the US that don't have some kind of
2m/70cm repeater coverage.

Now on the HF side... This is going to depend on a couple of things.... are
you going to be operating primarily from a land based station?? or mobile??
Each has several ways to go depending on budget and real estate.
Try something like a TS-140S or simular....nice starter rig...simple, basic
and will do most anything you want it to do(can be used mobile also). A 20A
power supply can be had for a reasonable price. for the antenna(s)... If you
have the real estate, wire antennas will work well. With the addition of a
tuner, a G5RV is a good starter antenna that will pretty much cover all the
HF bands. If you don't have a lot of space, you might look at a
verticle...maybe something like the Hustler 5BTV. If you are handy at all,
and with the guidence of your Elmer, you can reasonably expect to get a
nice, functional HF station on the air for as little as $350 - $400.
OTOH.... if you got lots of real estate, and more dollars than sense, you
can easily sink more money into a station than a lot of folks make in a
year. :-)

-n6ojn

--

Steve @ Noon-Air Heating & A/C


Life is what happens while you were making other plans