One of my favorite all time radios is the Kenwood TS830. It has an EXCELLENT receiver with cascaded filters. Variable Bandwidth and Variable Pitch can be realized using front panel controls. A separate VFO is needed for split frequency operation.
The Yaesu FT990 is another oldie but goodie. There are a lot of used decent radios from the 80's that can be purchased at attractive prices. My favorite simple antennas are an 80M dipole and 20M dipole fed with ladderline and oriented N/S. The 80M dipole acts as a current fed Long Wire on the ODD harmonics which include 30, 17, and 12 Meters. It acts as a voltage fed pair of wires on 40, 20, 15, and 10M. The 4 main lobes on 10, 12, 15, 17, 20, and 30M are roughly 30 degrees from the ends of the wire. Smaller lobes fall inbetween. Using only dipole antennas, I have worked over 320 countries on each of the WARC bands (and 80 / 40M). The 20M dipole will produce a figure 8 pattern from 10M through 30M, filling in the NULLS of the 80M dipole assuming both wires are parallel or in line. I recommend a height of 40 to 60 ft for high band operation. Most of the radiation at these heights will be refracted by the ionosphere during daytime hours. Flat Horizontal orientation is preferable. Inverted Vee installation will reduce performance, especially on the harmonic frequencies. Tom N4KG (RF Design Engineer / Avid All Band DXer) On Wed, 31 Jul 2002 "k1my" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I recently gave a presentation on beginning DXing at our Arizona > State > Convention. At the end of the presentation several newbie's > approached me > and ask for my recommendation as to a beginning DXer station. These > are > brand new hams who really don't know anything about DXing. > > What are your thoughts for: > > * an "economical" station (xcvr, antenna, etc), probably a used > xcvr, but > which one? > > * a "best value" station for someone with a little more money > > Remember that we don't have a heck of a lot of trees out here for > dipoles or > wire antennas. > > Suggestions would be appreciated and I'll incorporate them into my > presentation for the next time. > > 73, Bruce, K1MY/7 > Sun Lakes, Arizona > > > 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 > ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/. 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
