Which Amateur HF Radio / antenna

Gday Jim,

OK I gather you mean an Icom 706............well I had one and I also have an FT857 as well and I find them difficult to work off road with all the menus. Sure you can always programme up all the channels but its still not the easiest radio to use. My 857 is attached to an ATAS. THe 706 was attached to an Outbacker.

But my radio of choice for the car is the Yaesu FT-900 combined with a Codan 9350 auto tuning antenna.

Im just buying a new caravan and Im pretty sure Im going to buy a second FT-900 and put it in my second 4WD and put the 857 in the Caravan.

Check the reviews on Eham on the internet for the FT-900.........its and FT-1000 for your car but it has full functionality from the front head.........no annoying Menus........

Cheers and 73s

Geoff
VK6NX

I have an FT857D as a mobile rig but it's not mounted in the vehicle. Whilst I, mostly, agree with Geoff about the menu issue you don't actually use them much once you have the rig set up. Additionally if you buy the remote mic you can control all the functions of the radio from that and it provides another 3 programmable buttons, making six in total. It's a more modern rig than the Icom and, I believe, the general consensus is that it's a better rig in many respects but it's a bit of a Toyota/Nissan debate, as you might expect :) Overall I am very happy with the FT857D and the more I learn about the rig the more I like it.

By doing an internal jumper mod it is possible to open the Tx capabilities of the radio to include a very wide range of frequencies, including VKS737.

The 857 has very good support for digital modes.

This Amateur Radio club make an excellent series of antennas:
www.qsl.net/vk3frc/
and there are plenty of dual band 2m/70cm units available.
www.andrewscom.com.au/

I am not a member of VKS737 because I've never found the need; when I go bush I arrange a sked with my son (who also has a licence) and have never had the slightest difficult contacting other Amateurs in Oz at various times of the day/night who, I'm sure, would phone my son if necessary or offer help themselves. As you know the Amateur Radio community is _very_ supportive.

Having said that; depending on the kind of places you go it may be worth the $70 or so per year for VKS737 however as you are not permitted to use Amateur Radio gear on those frequencies (excuse me whilst I smirk) the cost of a Codan et al (which looks pretty poor in features when compared to Amateur gear half it's price) would make it an expensive option.

Mike Harding

mike_harding@fastmail.fm

Jim, check the archives as there's plenty of info. Search for HF or amateur radio.

Hi Jim. I have had various setups in my Landcruisers.

The first was a Yaesu FT747 with the remote head mount kit fitted. Used this via an ATU to a 6' whip. It was a heap of crap. The radio couldn't cope with the vibrations & developed numerous dry joint problems & the RF efficiency of using a tuner at the radio instead of the antenna was not good. Also had numerous RF feedback issues.

The second was a Yaesu FT100 & a Terlin antenna. The FT100 was a niice radio to look at but it didn't work well or often. I took it back & received a full refund after 6 months of use & replaced it with an Icom 706IIG.

The FT100 had better DSP and menu system. Various functions had programmable front buttons to access various menu options or settings. My pet hate with the 706 is having to fully scroll through the menu system to change from memory to VFO operation & then switch from VFO A to VFO B. The receiver on the 706 is quite sharp. A ferrite core is required on the 706 seperation cable to avoid problems when operating on 20 metres. With something like the 706 or the FT857 you get alot of features for your money.

I have the 706 set up for memory operation & generally leave the menus alone. Using the Terlin antenna was OK but usually meant sticking on one band. General receiving out of band was compromised as the antenna only works well when operating on or near the tap settings. Note that 6 metres worked on the 40 metre tap! The 706 will work with a Codan 9350 auto tune antenna.

The current set up uses a Codan 8528 & 9350. Thus far, the radio has survived many hard outback & mountain trips. The receiver is excellent although a decent notch filter would be nice. May get a DSP speaker one day. The auto mute on the 8528 is great. I have a headphone socket fitted plus option M & an edited Amateur eprom. An advantage of the Codan over the others is the low current consumption on RX (400mA squelched against 1800mA) and that (wait for it Mike) it is legal & compatible to use on VKS737 etc as well as Amateur bands. It is also more simple for non radio buffs to use & this is what prompted it's purchase.
A downside is only low power operation above 15 metres due to output filter tuning and no 160 meter opeartion and also no split VFO operation is possible.
That aside, most of my operation is from 40 to 17 metres.

Any HF radio can be setup for Digital operations. Codan do make an HF modem but it is probably pricy. I had regular skeds with a yacht sailing over from South America to Melbourne & he used a marine version Codan, modem & WinLink through a ZL server & also played SSTV with me.Receiving live pictures from the middle of the Pacific Ocean is pretty cool. HF operation did play havoc with the auto pilot. This type of interference can also occur in vehicles - cruise control & electronic engine management. I haven't bothered with HF APRS, only VHF.

The 9350 auto tune is great. Tunes quickly & is an active RX antenna. Being able to change bands on the move becomes more useful when you have a lot of bands to play with. I had an earlier 8550 antenna but this broke & no parts are available.
The 9350 is mounted off the spare wheel swing arm at the back.

I also have a FT1500M 2 metre FM radio in the Landcruiser. 50 watts output from the Bullbar mounted antenna with this radio gives me a headache

Points to consider.
When purchasing anything (in this case an HF radio) it is easy to be led astray by the bells, whistles & bonus items. Having learnt the hard way, look at what the predominant requirements of the equipment will be and purchase something that excells in those requirements. Treat any other features as a bonus. Examples of this are wide band and really wide band receivers, memory keyers etc.
Do you want everything in one box like the 706 - means monitoring only one thing at a time.
Too many controls in a mobile is a minus. You probably will never use them or forget how. Less is more.
Unless travelling in company or in habitated areas, Amateur VHF & UHF FM bands are next to useless although SSB is a different thing but requires reasonable antennas to work A/E & other scatter modes.
HF use in built up areas is difficult due to noise & low trees & rail bridges.

I mainly use the HF radio for Amateur use although I do regularly check in on VKS737 whilst outback. My eldest son also has an A/R licence. The most useful thing with VKS737 is the road & WX conditions which are often updated by users on the skeds. If help is needed, there is a good chance that another VKS737 user is not too far away. You don't get this with a Sat phone or A/R. VKS737 shares its 5 channels with 2 other similar services but is by far the most used service.
I also have an outpost Station Licence but have hardly ever used it. For about $30.00 it is pretty cheap. It does allow use of many more frequencies that are very under utilised than the 5 VKS737 ones but as most users aren't licenced for them, they remain under utilised.

The great thing about A/R is being reliably able to communicate to /from somewhere in Australia (VK) at any time on one of the usable bands which are not channelised and not being forced to use compromised mobile antenna systems. You can also work the world from your vehicle. Overseas stations are pretty keen to work mobile VKs.

I hope that this has not been too long & is of some help.
Tony VK3CAT, Victor 5715, VZU494 (i think!!)

Sorry for taking thread slightly OT..

I haven't been active for a number of years now but that WILL change shortly due to a round Oz trip next year well in the planning stage!!

I've read the above remarks with interest...when I used to operate A/R mobile, my band of choice was 6m, but that was many moons back.

Thanks guys for the rig recommendations, time this little Gibber started looking in earnest!!

Cheers
Red (VK6OX)

Barrett HF550 with 610 auto tune works as well. The radio s S/W openable to enable it to be manually tuned across 3-30 Metres and has hundreds of memories for your HF net frequencies etc as well as RFDS, VKS ABC etc. Also easy to change to a dipole or just an end fed random wire when at rest.

VKSFCDA