What's a good HIGH END HAM rig?

[acyddrop]

Hi all,

I've recently come into some money and decided I'm going to purchase a nice high end ham radio rig.. I've got permission from the wife to also put up a couple of Antennas on "reasonable" tower(s). I've looked around and my current favorite is the IC-7800 from Icom with a rather distant second in the FLEX-6700 Ham radio transceiver/SDR thing at this point I don't think that the FLEX-6700 is even out yet. I like that the Flex transceiver is about 1/2 the cost of the Icom but I doubt the Flex is anywhere as "good" as the Icom either (though I have nothing to base this on).

If anyone has any comments on this matter I'd appreciate it. I have a maximum of $20k to spend on this entire project (minus towers, I already own the tower components from a previous attempt to build a couple towers before the wife put the breaks on that project). So I'd need coax, antennas (20m & 40m for sure [as beams?]) and some sort of antenna & tuner combination (though I think the Icom has an automatic tuner) to cover 80 and 160m. I was thinking a slinky dipole for space reasons might be good for 80 & 160. I'd really like to do 80 & 160m but I _DO NOT_ have permission to run massive ground planes all over my wifes flowerbeds and topiary's so a reasonable solution for 80 & 160 would be needed too I'm just going to have to live with compromise. I already have a Jpole for 2m & 440 from Arrow.

Primarily I'd be looking for advice on a a really great high end ham rig, right now I'm willing to spend the bucks to get something that will not soon be easily replaced.

 

[kayn1n32008]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Go with the flex. From what I have seen about them they will be as every bit as good as the icom. You are lucky to have a buget that big. Wish I had that cake for radio gear

 

[drdiesel1]

The only thing I don't like about buying a 7800 now, is it's a 2004/2005 design. I was hoping this past Dayton ham fest they were gonna release an updated version of their flag ship rig.

As for receiver performance, you can do better than the 7800. All of the Flex radio perform well and the 6700 could be a game changer with their sub receivers. At close to $13k for the Icom I'd wait for the Flex to be released, or even the new Kenwood TS-990 and see what they bring to the table.

Keep in mind, ground/counterpoise wires can be easily hidden.

While you wait order an Elecraft KX3 and enjoy some QRP action! Not long ago my KX3 arrived, my first experience with Elecraft, I'm loving it. Knowing what I know now I would have ordered a K3 instead of my FT-950. You haven't mentioned what your HF goals are, but it seems the K3 is a favorite of the contesters.

Whatever you decide, post back and let us know how it works out.

73

 

[kevin2525]

Ic-7410

I just got the new Icom IC-7410. It sure is
a sweet radio & the price was wright.

73's: Kevin.

 

[AK9R]

Interesting proposition.

No matter how many whistles and bells your radio has, you can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em. That said, concentrate your efforts on your antenna system first, then find the radio with the best receiver.

Rob Sherwood has been testing the receivers in HF ham radio rigs for years and has compiled an extensive database of receiver performance. You can view that database at:

Receiver Test Data

If you do some Google searching, you can probably find presentation he's made at various club meetings, Dayton forums, or Contest University sessions. They are very interesting reading.

Flex and Elecraft seem to be the darlings of the ham radio hobby right now. One of their best features is that the firmware in their radios is user upgradeable and either the manufacturer or the users are constantly making tweaks to the firmware. The Big 3 (Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu) have been slow to adopt this feature which means their radios have built-in obsolescence. If you spend big money now on a transceiver, you probably don't want to fall behind the technology curve too quickly.

 

[acyddrop]

I agree absolutely on the Antenna systems. Here's some I've been looking at (AESHam is right up the road from me [read: 3 hrs away]) so been looking at them:

AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!
AES Price list!

I like the dipole for $110 for 160M & 80M and could be suspended between two towers (approx 50-60ft up) which would give reasonable height for it.

Interesting proposition.

No matter how many whistles and bells your radio has, you can't work 'em if you can't hear 'em. That said, concentrate your efforts on your antenna system first, then find the radio with the best receiver.

Rob Sherwood has been testing the receivers in HF ham radio rigs for years and has compiled an extensive database of receiver performance. You can view that database at:

Receiver Test Data

If you do some Google searching, you can probably find presentation he's made at various club meetings, Dayton forums, or Contest University sessions. They are very interesting reading.

Flex and Elecraft seem to be the darlings of the ham radio hobby right now. One of their best features is that the firmware in their radios is user upgradeable and either the manufacturer or the users are constantly making tweaks to the firmware. The Big 3 (Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu) have been slow to adopt this feature which means their radios have built-in obsolescence. If you spend big money now on a transceiver, you probably don't want to fall behind the technology curve too quickly.

 

[drdiesel1]

What are your operating preferences? Which modes, bands do you wish to use?

The 7800 sure is a nice sexy rig, but I think for the price I'd really suggest a K3 or a complete K-Line. Spend the left over on a quality rotor and HF beam.

 

[acyddrop]

I'll probably do a lot of 20M and 40M QSO's/nets and some 160M & 80M DXing. I've found beams for 20 & 40M and can get those installed with rotors no problem. I think I can get the distance between the towers to string the 82' (I think it was 82 feet) dipole between the two towers up about ~60feet or so for 160M & 80M. I can put in grounding and all the stuff required to support the towers and a ground plane for the works (provided I can keep the ground plane from being an eye sore, again; so says the wife).

As far as modes of operation, I'd do RTTY and PSK and possibly SSTV where ever it's allowed as well as voice USB & LSB on HF frequencies. I might brush up on my CW (it's truly been 20 years or more since I even practiced CW) and try my hand at that, but it's not high on *my* list of things to do. This is all HF I'd stick to my JPole for 2m and 440 which is attached to my house up about 20ft over the eves.

What are your operating preferences? Which modes, bands do you wish to use?

The 7800 sure is a nice sexy rig, but I think for the price I'd really suggest a K3 or a complete K-Line. Spend the left over on a quality rotor and HF beam.

 

[acyddrop]

I do like what they're doing with the FLEX but I want something "monkey simple". What I mean by that is, I don't want to jump through a million hoops to accomplish my objectives. I want to push a button or turn a knob (even if it's virtual) and get the job done. I also want something that will last me _at least_ 5 years in terms of functionality and flexibility. I don't mind if there are 100 buttons and knobs to figure out what they do, I just don't want to have to hunt down some obscure piece of software or application to accomplish my goals. It seems SDR (at least for receiving) seems you're always having to hunt down something to do a certain mode and that is frustrating.

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (BlackBerry; U; BlackBerry 9780; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.8+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0.0.600 Mobile Safari/534.8+)

Go with the flex. From what I have seen about them they will be as every bit as good as the icom. You are lucky to have a buget that big. Wish I had that cake for radio gear

 

[acyddrop]

Since they will take the longest to setup I'm planning on starting with the towers and antennas and all the associated support and functional infrastructure first (ground planes, grounding, running coax, erecting towers, setting up rotors, etc etc etc). The plan right now is to settle on my antennas and all that and get the ball rolling and have work begun on that side of things in ~2 weeks. I just have to select the antennas going up on the towers which I'll do this up coming week and get those ordered.

I think if I going with the FLEX I'm going to pick up the Elecraft KX3 and perhaps another relatively inexpensive HF rig as well. Even if I get the Icom IC7800 at it's high cost I'd probably pick up the Elecraft KX3 as a second radio. I said all that Antenna stuff to say I will have the ears (antennas) up before I get any radio choices nailed down and can pickup the Elecraft ahead of any primary radio.

The only thing I don't like about buying a 7800 now, is it's a 2004/2005 design. I was hoping this past Dayton ham fest they were gonna release an updated version of their flag ship rig.

As for receiver performance, you can do better than the 7800. All of the Flex radio perform well and the 6700 could be a game changer with their sub receivers. At close to $13k for the Icom I'd wait for the Flex to be released, or even the new Kenwood TS-990 and see what they bring to the table.

Keep in mind, ground/counterpoise wires can be easily hidden.

While you wait order an Elecraft KX3 and enjoy some QRP action! Not long ago my KX3 arrived, my first experience with Elecraft, I'm loving it. Knowing what I know now I would have ordered a K3 instead of my FT-950. You haven't mentioned what your HF goals are, but it seems the K3 is a favorite of the contesters.

Whatever you decide, post back and let us know how it works out.

73

 

[Token]

I have not had hands on the Flex-6700 but I do own the Flex-5000A and am very pleased with that, so I assume the 6700 will be an excellent performer. However, my absolute favorite stand alone rig, indeed my favorite rig for any HF/6M ham use right now, is my Yaesu FTDX-5000MP. It has a more or less traditional feel to it with modern technology performance.

T!

 

[AK9R]

Since they will take the longest to setup I'm planning on starting with the towers and antennas and all the associated support and functional infrastructure first (ground planes, grounding, running coax, erecting towers, setting up rotors, etc etc etc).

If you have some time to kill, do a Google search for "Building a Super Station". This is the story of the K1TTT contest station. There's lots to be learned from this guy about towers, antennas, feedlines, etc. It's also somewhat entertaining.

 

[COMINT_NE]

I would go with an Elecraft, Flexradio, or Ten Tec.

 

[zz0468]

I'd add to the small list of posts recommending the K3. It's the best, bar none, HF rig currently on the market. If price is no object, and performance is the defining requirement, then there's no other choice but a K3.

 

[prcguy]

The Rob Sherwood site is great for sorting out all the BS in choosing a radio based on receiver performance and its surprising to see some popular radios rank fairly low on the list. With that said I also wanted the best HF radio possible and I chose the K3 and am extremely pleased with every aspect of the radio.

Elecraft also has the best customer service in the business and they are constantly designing and improving software and send out periodic updates and give you new features and improved performance. I'm also happy Elecraft is a US company and my money is helping our economy.

I also have the really excellent Elecraft P3 spectrum display and will soon be purchasing the Elecraft KPA500 500w amp, matching antenna tuner and probably the second receiver full of matching filters to my current setup.

When I first got my K3 I loaned it to a good friend who is a big VHF/UHF/Microwave contester who previously used a TenTec Orion II with transverters for his high end station. After spending a week with the K3 doing A/B testing against the Orion II he concluded the K3 can hear signals that the Orion II or any other radio he has seen cannot. He now owns a K3 and P3 and KPA500.
prcguy

 

[Token]

I have had an opportunity to use the Yaesu FTDX-5000MP and the Elecraft K3, fully equipped, side-by-side. Keep in mind I own the -5000MP, but I will try to not let that cloud what I say about the two of them. A good friend of mine had the K3 when I got my -5000MP and we each took turns trying them out side by side, a couple weeks for me at my place and a couple weeks for him at his place. My -5000MP is equipped with the DMU-2000 but I will try to not consider any features that unit brings to the table.

Raw cost. At first glance the K3 wins this category hands down. But looking closer the difference is not quite that simple. By the time you add all the features needed to bring the K3 (factory assembled) up to the same level of features found on the -5000MP out of the box the cost delta becomes less than 10%, still in favor of the K3 but pretty close. Add the cost of the required power supply for the K3 and the delta gets even smaller. Despite the fact that the delta is around $400 I am going to call this insignificant because of the price point of both systems. One thing to consider might be that you can add some of the features to the K3 after you own it, so you could spread the cost out over time.

Receiver performance in the real world. If one really wants to read measurebation results there are multiple sources to look at lab measured data, the manufacturers data, Sherwood Eng, QST results, etc. All of this data will indicate that both radios are superb machines, top notch without a doubt. You can find areas where each radio is ahead of the other, the -5000 is ahead in more measured areas than the K3, so on measured data the -5000 is probably the winner. But to me the real results are what happens when listening to real signals on the air.

I prefer the sound of the -5000MP quite a bit. But remember, mine is the MP with external monitor and speakers, so some of that advantage might be those speakers. In an attempt to level this a bit I did use the MP without the external monitor speakers, just using the regular shack externals for both, I still found I preferred the -5000MP, but the difference was smaller.

At times it seemed as if the K3 had the advantage on signals, and at other times it appeared it was the 5000MP. In the end, in my mind, I decided the K3 seemed to perform better (by a very small amount) with CW signals under very difficult conditions and that the 5000MP had a similar performance advantage with SSB signals under very difficult conditions. The guy who owned the K3 arrived at a similar determination after his period with them both. This might be the difference in the 250 Hz optional filter installed in the K3 and the 300 Hz standard filter in the 5000MP, and their associated skirts.

Transmitter performance. Here I believe there is a pretty clear advantage with the -5000MP. The radio can do 200 Watts out of the box, this is nice to have but not Earth shaking. It means you can get more AM carrier power if that mode has any draw for you. It also means you can derate to 50% for high duty cycle modes and still get 100 W out, if you want to keep things cool. And you can run the final as a Class A amp and get an exceptionally nice signal out of it that is adequate to run many amplifiers to full legal limit. The transmit audio is more adjustable on the -5000MP and if ESSB or AM is your thing this might be important.

Aesthetics and in the shack. The radios are very far apart in this area, the -5000 is a hulking brute with knobs, switches, and displays fairly bristling, while the K3 is a much more pedestrian looking radio. Personally I like the -5000 because some of the features that require multiple pushes on the K3 are on the front panel of the -5000. Also, I came to the -5000 from an FT-2000, and the layout is similar and familiar.

The -5000 runs on its own power, no external power supply needed, further reducing the small cost delta between the radios. However, this does cost you more real estate on the radio bench. The footprint of the K3 with a nice linear supply might be very slightly larger than the -5000 by itself, so not much of a consideration if everything is up on the bench, but you can opt to put the PS under the bench or out of the way with the K3, not an option with the -5000.

I by far prefer the displays and meter of the -5000 to the K3. There may be no performance consideration here but the sight of the back-lit meter movement is much more pleasing to me than the LCD meter on the K3. I also like the feel of the most frequently used knobs on the -5000 over the K3, the main tuning knob in particular is very nice.

The optional P3 panadapter for the K3 (added in, in my cost comparison paragraph) is superior by quite a bit to the spectrum scope of the 5000MP, there really is no comparison between the two. However use of the DMU-2000 narrows this gap (DMU-2000 adds to the cost of the -5000 and is still not as good as the Elecraft panadapter for signal detection, although it brings a wider panadapter range and lots of other neat features). Use of something like the SDR-IQ with the -5000 levels that field, in fact in my opinion shifts the advantage over to the -5000, however at the added cost of the SDR-IQ and a PC to run it, but who does not already have a logging computer in the shack these days?

The upshot of my two+ weeks of using the two radios on the same bench was that I pretty clearly liked the -5000MP over the K3. I tried to be as level headed about it all as I could be, as I was still in the window to send it back On the other hand, the upshot of my buddies two+ weeks with both radios was that he preferred his K3 over my -5000MP. It is pretty easy to look at those results and say that yeah, I felt that way because I was vested in the -5000 having paid for it, and he was the same in the K3 for the same reason. However I think it might also come down to he is primarily a CW operator and I am primarily an SSB and AM operator. (edit) I might add, he had used his K3 for several months prior to this, and I was brand new to both radios, although as I said the FT-2000 is similar in some was to the -5000.

T!

 

[acyddrop]

Update:

Been talking with Don (K4ZA) about the tower install, and have been going back and forth with him on that. Nothing is finalized yet but will be moving forward on antenna and tower installation. I've gone up in height from ~65ft to closer to 100-130ft. Haven't finalized the exact antennas yet but will be 2 (or maybe 3) towers. The wife is going to throw a fit no doubt when she hears this, but it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission (besides I honestly doubt she'll be able to eyeball the difference between 65ft and 130ft, she's terrible with measurements anyway).

 

[drdiesel1]

Hard to beat the beauty of a nice tall tower, several long beams and miles of Heliax....

 

[acyddrop]

Antennas are going to be ordered after Isaac storm goes away, which at this who knows when that'll be (2-3 weeks?) . Here's what's I'm going with:

Beams:
CUSHCRAFT 40M 2 element (6DB)
Bencher Skyhawk Yagi: 20M, 15M, 10M (No traps!)
Bencher Skylark Yagi 17M and 12M (No traps!)

Going to use an Alpha Delta tri-band DX-LB (100ft) dipole for 160M and 80M (it covers 40M as well).

Will probably wind up putting a Cushcraft 2m/440 vert (Model AR270B) on a 100ft tower as well.

Going to run Heliax from the shack buried underground in a PVC pipe right up the towers. The distance is such that Heliax will be perfect for this and was actually recommended as the ideal choice. It's what I wanted to use from the start anyway.

Right now for sure I'll have two towers. 130ft and 115ft. I'm not sure if I want the added expense of a 3rd tower just to put up a 2m/440 antenna and height. But if I did it would be at 100ft and use a smaller tower type.

I pre-ordered the FLEX 6700 tonight but still want a couple other rigs to go with it.

Not that this related but I'll be listing a couple of HT's for sale soon too I need to get rid of them. Will be selling a Kenwood TH-F6a and a Kenwood TH-d7ag both in great condition and both for about $300/ea with extras.

 

[John599nj]

I can get a 20 year old radio I paid 300.00 to sound great with the right mic but when it comes to a great receiver LOOK at theYaesu FT1000mp