Icom R-75 - what a great receiver

[ka3jjz]

Interestingly SWLog has a DDE interface to Ham Radio Deluxe - that should tell you something

73 Mike

 

[ka3jjz]

Thank you. That helps tremendously. I think your choices are exactly the choices I would want.

Per your previous recommendation I've already fiddled with the Twin PBT and in many instances it has had a tremendous effect on my ability to understand the weak ones. Very nice feature.

Imagine a 100 foot dipole, just thrown out on the lawn. That's what I have for an antenna right now (I have to pull it in when I'm not listening), so it's very ineffective. I'm hoping to get some assist to get something deployed with the top end at the top of a 100 ' tree about 50' away from the house, which would then slope down to a point near the top of the single-story roof and attach for the coax.

I haven't done any research on the best receive wire configuration yet... just haven't had time. I don't have the room for a serious longwire, beverage, etc. But I think i definitely can find the room to get a decent wire up - A simple dipole may not be optimum and I'm going to look into that.

Mike

There are many choices in our HF Antennas wiki - and problem with Yahoo groups aside (if that's because of spam, there's a simple, but not very well documented, procedure for turning that off....) the SWL Antennas Yahoo group has several possibilities for indoor attic antennas as well. Outdoor is always better, though. And I wouldn't ignore the PAR EF-SWL antenna, either. 73 Mike

 

[mtindor]

I'm going with the EF-SWL. Thanks for the tip. The reviews from people on here and on Eham and the MT article are pretty stellar. I currently use a dipole, and it's an eyesore to have coax hanging down the center when you're trying to deploy it in a somewhat stealthy way. The end fed will fit my needs nicely and will allow me to get an antenna up quick and then swap out to a longer wire down the road if I manage to get an achor point near the top of a 100 ft tree nearby.

Mike

 

[mojavedxer]

I control my R-75 with HRD and it runs flawless with it in Win XP. I use SWL Log radio control through HRD only when checking freqencies from the DB and it's also my logbook.
HRD also has a nice decoder app called DM780 to get you started in the digital modes. While HRD is free it's a crime not to send the developer a few bones because the program is just that good.

 

[mtindor]

Ham Radio Deluxe is a great piece of software for controlling that rig. Also picked up a Icom CI-V / CT17 / CAT Interface cable from http://www.g4zlp.co.uk/unified/IcomCAT.shtml it's the cheapest I found for hooking the rig to the PC.

Thanks for the tip. I ordered one today!

Mike

 

[mtindor]

And I wouldn't ignore the PAR EF-SWL antenna, either. 73 Mike

I didn't ignore it. I ordered one last weekend and it was on my doorstep Wednesday. I'm planning on putting it up in a permanent location this weekend. Likely one end will be about 10 feet off the ground while the other end will be as high as i can get it. I'm not sure of the optimum angle to deploy a sloper - but that's the configuration I'm using.

I am interested in trying out the various grounding methods to compare the difference, if any, at my location.

I had thought about a longer wire, but really this is just about right . Any longer and I'd just have to have it hang down over a a tree limb or across multiple tree limbs. So many antenna choices, but only a few fit for my current location/situation.

I think this will do the trick. Just having it thrown out on the ground for the past few days it has worked well enough. All of the utilities around here are underground, and the first few days it was pretty silent. But after a little rainfall I'm hearing some noise, so it'll be interesting to try to figure out where that is coming from. It just so happens that the antenna is lying flat on the aground and crosses over every utility (power / cable / telephone). I don't know how likely something buried that far in the ground could be interfering (unless it's not actually buried that far at all) and I'll be interested to see if the noise lessens as I get it off the ground and thus away from the utilities a little.

I've got neighbors with pools and such all around me, so there is all kinds of equipment from the neighbors that could induce noise at some point or another.

But so far I love the antenna. Couldn't be easier to set up or deply.

Mike