prcguy
Member
Had the TX-500 been shipping and the Icom 705 not come out, I would have ordered a TX-500.
Non Chinese QRP
- Thread starter QMAZE
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I just did put in my order for the Elcraft KX3. The bundle except the amplifier.
Saw one in use a couple years ago at a field day and liked a lot. Takes a bit to impress me, and this did.
My SDR equal is SSB electronics Zeus (ZS-1) Buried in the dark reaches of storage. They are pricy but worth it(up near $1000 now) My problem is having 200 Sq. foot already dominated with my radio shop.
Already have a case for the Elcraft for those field days.
Saw one in use a couple years ago at a field day and liked a lot. Takes a bit to impress me, and this did.
My SDR equal is SSB electronics Zeus (ZS-1) Buried in the dark reaches of storage. They are pricy but worth it(up near $1000 now) My problem is having 200 Sq. foot already dominated with my radio shop.
Already have a case for the Elcraft for those field days.
prcguy
Member
When you get the KX3 run the extended VFO temp compensation routine and you will have a rock stable transceiver. You have to feed the radio a super stable source in the 6m band during the cal and a 50MHz harmonic output of a Rubidium standard or similar source will work fine. After you freeze and heat the radio during the routine it will measure each 1deg C temp change then write a custom temp vs correction freq and store it. There is a lot of smarts involved in the firmware to do this.
I also recommend these replacement side panels and cover to make the radio more bullet proof during transport and operation. https://ftp.elecraft.com/KX3/Mod Notes Alerts/KX3 Custom VFO TC rev A9.pdf
The radio does ok on long digital transmissions but I put on this heatsink which really extends its transmit time before rolling back the power due to heat. Kx31 Basic Heatsink Kit for the Elecraft™ KX3 - Pro Audio Engineering
I also recommend these replacement side panels and cover to make the radio more bullet proof during transport and operation. https://ftp.elecraft.com/KX3/Mod Notes Alerts/KX3 Custom VFO TC rev A9.pdf
The radio does ok on long digital transmissions but I put on this heatsink which really extends its transmit time before rolling back the power due to heat. Kx31 Basic Heatsink Kit for the Elecraft™ KX3 - Pro Audio Engineering
prcguy
Member
Long story short, 6m receive failed a week before the warranty was up but I didn't get it over to the Yaesu facility until a few weeks after the warranty was up. Yaesu had the radio for many weeks and found a failure within the multilayer circuit board they could not fix. Factory defect but they would not honor the warranty.
I spoke to Chip Margelli who was the Yaesu service manager at the time (turned out to be a big pompous A hole) and told him the details of the time of failure and he just walked away. The other service people were kind of shocked and they offered me a B stock radio at a much higher cost than the street price of the radio. I didn't buy any Yaesu products for many years after that.
Did I mention a big A hole?
I spoke to Chip Margelli who was the Yaesu service manager at the time (turned out to be a big pompous A hole) and told him the details of the time of failure and he just walked away. The other service people were kind of shocked and they offered me a B stock radio at a much higher cost than the street price of the radio. I didn't buy any Yaesu products for many years after that.
Did I mention a big A hole?
As of late, Yaesu support is still not forthcoming when things go in for repair. I mean when talking with the tech doing the fix, not just what the paperwork says. My feeling is when there are reoccurring issues, perhaps factory issues, they become vague. Additionally, their actions of late by releasing devices and then later re-releasing with a hardware fix and giving it a new model number is not endearing. I avoid purchasing any thing new from Yaesu because they do that. I may wait a year or more now which opens the door for other brands. Still, when a Yaesu radio is under warranty, they have taken care of the issue.
About a decade ago there were problematic Toko filters being installed in various radio models by different manufactures. Kenwood later started accepting radios with the bad serial number batches back, fixed them, and shipped them back. I had two Kenwood D710's that I purchased used which had that problem and zero trouble with Kenwood fixing them and my cost was $16 to ship to them. Again this was almost a decade after they were made. Once I knew of the Toko filter issue I avoid radios with them, unless they are Kenwood. Fortunately, a Yaesu 897D I own was a late build and past the bad filter date, but I knew that before purchasing.
Also, I do not recommend a Yaesu 897D, even though it is portable, unless you have power available. It pulls 0.6A just on RX. When transmitting is uses 4.1A at 5 watts and 5.4 amps at 10 watts. With a solar panel and a large enough LiFePO4 battery, I do enjoy using it at 20 watts (7A) if I am rolling gear out of the back of the vehicle. Actually, I do not recommend any 100 watt radio be used for QRP. The RX and TX on those radios will use much more current for doing the same thing as a radio designed for QRP. I expect I will be selling my 897D and 817ND radios. Still, they are fun radios.
About a decade ago there were problematic Toko filters being installed in various radio models by different manufactures. Kenwood later started accepting radios with the bad serial number batches back, fixed them, and shipped them back. I had two Kenwood D710's that I purchased used which had that problem and zero trouble with Kenwood fixing them and my cost was $16 to ship to them. Again this was almost a decade after they were made. Once I knew of the Toko filter issue I avoid radios with them, unless they are Kenwood. Fortunately, a Yaesu 897D I own was a late build and past the bad filter date, but I knew that before purchasing.
Also, I do not recommend a Yaesu 897D, even though it is portable, unless you have power available. It pulls 0.6A just on RX. When transmitting is uses 4.1A at 5 watts and 5.4 amps at 10 watts. With a solar panel and a large enough LiFePO4 battery, I do enjoy using it at 20 watts (7A) if I am rolling gear out of the back of the vehicle. Actually, I do not recommend any 100 watt radio be used for QRP. The RX and TX on those radios will use much more current for doing the same thing as a radio designed for QRP. I expect I will be selling my 897D and 817ND radios. Still, they are fun radios.
Lab599 just replied to my e-mail saying orders will arrive in the US the week of May 3, the next batch is coming the second half of May.
n5ims
Member
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2004
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While it's an exciting mode to operate, QRP is more of a niche mode although many folks appear to be getting a QRP radio since they're a bit less than a normal power radio with the same feature set. They'll often be disappointed when they can hear lots of stations but get few responses to their calls since their power level is so low (combined with a minimalist antenna gotten for the same lower cost reason). They'll often purchase an amp to boost their power and end up spending more money than if they'd gotten the right radio in the first place. (Hint: you can still run QRP with the typical 100w radio by simply changing the power level down to 5 watts or so if you want the fun of working QRP.)
I think a lot of folks are wanting to get into POTA/SOTA and portable and it's not that easy lugging around a 7300+power supply, etc. Personally, I'd rather have a portable rig + amp if I was only going to have one radio.
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