[amsat-bb] Re: Re : Ham HT

[Margaret Leber]

Like a lot of us, I started off with HTs....an Alinco DJ-C5 (2m 70cm
300mW) because it was insanely small and cute (it's low power wasn't a
huge issue when portable because our area have a lot of repeaters) and
almost immediately a Yaesu VX-5 (5w 2m/70cm/6m) because the aliinco
was nearly useless in a car.

The VX-5 did sort of work in the car, but even with a speaker-mic it
was cumbersome and difficult to hear. And by the time you
connected/disconneced a speaker-mic, and extrenal antenna and external
power...well..."handi" wasn't a good word to describe it.

I *did* manage to get a few sat contacts with it, after I borowed an
Arrow antenna. As others here have observed, working sats without
full-duplex (rare in an HT) is very tricky,

But I didn't have my ticket for long before stepping up to a Yaesu
FT-90 (50w mobile 2m 70cm) in the car. And when I upgraded to Extra
and got HF privileges, I went straight to a Yaesu FT-847, which is
still in my shack today. This all happened in about the space of less
than a year.

(Of course none of these radios is in production today...but there are
some near equivalents.)

I guess what I'm saying is: don't kill yourself trying to get a lot of
features on an HT that doesn't have the size or power budget to
support them, since you're likely to be stepping up to something
bigger sooner than you may think.

--
73 de Maggie K3XS
Editor, Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club Blurb - http://www.phil-mont.org
Elecraft K2 #1641 -- AOPA 925383 -- ARRL 39280