Hi all,
I took a break from all things radio related to focus on other projects, but recently decided to get back on the HF bands. I had sold all my old equipment, the last time I was active on the HF bands the FTdx-5000 was relatively kid on the block, and I don't think Icom had released the 7851 yet or if they had it was pretty new. The Kenwood TS-990 had just come out (owned one briefly) when I just lost interest in the hobby. But I decided to get back on the air recently and things have certainly changed a bit even in the short time I've been away. Now everyone is SDR (it used to be just Flex and MAYBE Apache Labs). That suits me just fine, things march on and that's important for amateur radio to carry on. People are still mad that eSSB is a thing so, some things don't change.
I'd be very interested in knowing what some of you out here on the forums are running in your shack, tent, car, etc. Below is what I put together for my new shack and because of the world wide delays in manufacturing due to the human malware some won't be here until 2022. That's ok, I'm not in a rush. 73's to all of you, and thanks for reading!
My shack kit:
I'm using an Alpha Delta 2000W surge protector, and put a surge setup on my control cable for the SteppIR along with a 1;1 Choke Balun. My microphones for the two radios are and Electro-Voice RE20 (on the Yaesu) and a Shure SM7B (IC-9700) on Gator Frameworks mic booms. I know this is overkill for both radios, but I own several of these microphones from other work I do and decided to use a couple here. I did have to buy the mic booms and while they're not the cheapest they're the best and aren't all wobbly like the cheaper ones and you can hide the XLR cable inside the boom. I also ended up attaching a 13.3" LCD panel to the Yaesu for a larger display. Since it maxes out at 800x600 it just looked ridiculous on a 24" which is the smallest panel I had, so I ended up with a relatively inexpensive 13.3" monitor that works perfectly for me.
I was originally going to use the Ameritron AL-80B but the delay to get one of those is nearly the same as the delay to get the KM3KM 1.2KW amp and I just decided I liked the KM3KM product better. Also my soldiering skills are good enough to put it together well enough.
I took a break from all things radio related to focus on other projects, but recently decided to get back on the HF bands. I had sold all my old equipment, the last time I was active on the HF bands the FTdx-5000 was relatively kid on the block, and I don't think Icom had released the 7851 yet or if they had it was pretty new. The Kenwood TS-990 had just come out (owned one briefly) when I just lost interest in the hobby. But I decided to get back on the air recently and things have certainly changed a bit even in the short time I've been away. Now everyone is SDR (it used to be just Flex and MAYBE Apache Labs). That suits me just fine, things march on and that's important for amateur radio to carry on. People are still mad that eSSB is a thing so, some things don't change.
I'd be very interested in knowing what some of you out here on the forums are running in your shack, tent, car, etc. Below is what I put together for my new shack and because of the world wide delays in manufacturing due to the human malware some won't be here until 2022. That's ok, I'm not in a rush. 73's to all of you, and thanks for reading!
My shack kit:
- Yaesu FTdx-101MP
- Icom IC-9700 (with Leo Bodnar board to fix frequency stability)
- MFJ 998 Legal Limit Tuner (Maybe not needed, will sell or return if not)
- KM3KM 160M-6M 1.2KW solid state amp (Not here until 2022)
- Samlex 30A PSU
- West Mountain Radio 4005 RIGRunner
- Vectronic DL-2500 Dummy Load
- SteppIR BigIR (with 80M coil) 80M-6M vertical antenna with 40 radials 20-32' in length
- M2 SatPack1 2M/440CM "Eggbeater" Omni-Directional Satellite Antenna setup
- Comet GP-98 Tri-Band Antenna (2M/70CM/23CM)
- SSB-Electronics DBA-270 (Dual Band GaAsFET Ultra-Low Noise mast mount preamp)
- LMR-600 to VHF/UHF Antennas (approximately 40-45 feet)
- DX Engineering LMR-400MAX to SteppIR BigIR (approximately 75 feet) (I buried this in PVC pipe along with SteppIR control wires)
- MFJ Window Feed through Panel (Didn't want to drill many holes in house)
I'm using an Alpha Delta 2000W surge protector, and put a surge setup on my control cable for the SteppIR along with a 1;1 Choke Balun. My microphones for the two radios are and Electro-Voice RE20 (on the Yaesu) and a Shure SM7B (IC-9700) on Gator Frameworks mic booms. I know this is overkill for both radios, but I own several of these microphones from other work I do and decided to use a couple here. I did have to buy the mic booms and while they're not the cheapest they're the best and aren't all wobbly like the cheaper ones and you can hide the XLR cable inside the boom. I also ended up attaching a 13.3" LCD panel to the Yaesu for a larger display. Since it maxes out at 800x600 it just looked ridiculous on a 24" which is the smallest panel I had, so I ended up with a relatively inexpensive 13.3" monitor that works perfectly for me.
I was originally going to use the Ameritron AL-80B but the delay to get one of those is nearly the same as the delay to get the KM3KM 1.2KW amp and I just decided I liked the KM3KM product better. Also my soldiering skills are good enough to put it together well enough.
