I suggest that any transceiver manufactured within the last 15 years is adequate to start hamming and DX chasing but for DX, the ability to work split frequencies can be critical. I would place this capability high on the list of important features. Next in importance in my opinion is the antenna and the adage if you can't hear them, you can't work them. So the higher the better and preferably with directivity and front to back. Since most DX activity for the beginning ham will be 20 meters and higher in frequency, a basic tribander-type yagi at 50 feet or so is not unreasonably expensive and will give noticably better performance than a dipole whether installed as a flat top or as an inverted V. But as previously mentioned a lot a DX can be worked with the dipole or a multiband vertical.
I will never forget during 1968 while living in Midland, Texas, I had an inverted V on a push up pole at about 40 feet fed with parallel feedline thru a tuner, and a Swan 350. I would constantly hear US hams working the Soviet Union and far into Europe but absolutely could not hear the foreign stations. I eventually bought a used 50 foot tower and installed a three element tribander at about 55 feet, and like magic, there they were. The ability to hear the DX was astondingly better and obviously made a believer of me regarding a basic tower-yagi set up. Fun times. 73 Jan Rehler, W5KNZ, Corpus Christi, Texas Subscribe/unsubscribe, feedback, FAQ, problems http://njdxa.org/dx-chat To post a message, DX related items only, [EMAIL PROTECTED] This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org
