[amsat-bb] Re: Linear birds with an IC-706MkIIG

[Thomas Doyle]

Greetings from the frigid north country,

I have used my single IC-706MKIIG with the linear sats. Back in the day I
had a table full of receivers, transmitters, transverters, preamps etc to
operate full duplex on AO-10 and the other sats. Since I had not been on
the sats since then it almost seemed like cheating using the tiny
IC-706MKIIG. Immediately the disadvantages of not having a full duplex
station became apparent. Even though I had made hundreds of contacts back
in the day they were all full duplex. I seized the excuse to buy a new
radio and bought an IC-7000 to pair up with the IC-706MKIIG for full duplex
operation and have been very happy with the pair. The receiver on the 7000
is much better than the receiver on the 706 so I use the 7000 for receive
and the 706 for transmit. In my opinion most of the mysterious QRM on the
linear sats is due to not using full duplex. With the high doppler shift
and the narrow passband filters in most modern radios it is easy to call CQ
and not realize people are trying to return your call because you are not
listening on the "right" frequency. The fact that there are many expert
opinions on using doppler correction on uplink, downlink, both uplink and
downlink or none of the above makes it even more difficult. Obviously it is
possible to make contacts without full duplex but in my opinion it is more
difficult. Hopefully the Chinese will come out with a decent low cost
HF/VHF/UHF all mode radio with CAT control that will make it possible to
operate full duplex on the linear sats without breaking the bank or having
to resurrect some old radios.

W9KE Tom Doyle


On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 12:15 PM, Bob Herrell <bob72601 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Does anyone have experience working the linear birds with a single
> IC-706MkIIG?
>
> Thanks
>
> Bob Herrell HI4/AJ5C
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