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Best radio for a new ham?

liljoe

Member
Jan 24, 2007
8
0
11
Nashville
I wil be getting my Tech class at the end of June, what is the all aroud best radio for my first one? Hand held, base, mobile...Brand? Icom, Yaesu? :LOL:
 

It all depends on what YOU want to do. What's "best" for me might not be even "good" for you. Read the specifications. Read the reviews on eHam. Figure out which features you want and which you don't, and then pick out one that meets YOUR criteria, not anyone else's.
 
liljoe,
'Beetle' is right, get a radio that suits you. It does help if you can get your hands on, or at least listen to a few to sort of get an idea of how 'things' work. For instance, there are a couple of microphones that I just hate the feel of. Nothing wrong with them, or the radio, I just don't like them.
Where do you think you'll be doing most of your radio stuff? The house, car, walking around, that sort of determines what type of radio is needed. An 'HT' is sort of limiting. Nothing wrong with one, just won't 'do' as much as a 'real live' radio will, sort of.
'Nuff'a that. Have fun.
- 'Doc
 
For a base/mobile, if you can afford it, get one with dual-receive and crossband capability. It might not make much sense right away, but it is very handy and useful as you get into it.

Yaesu 8800, Alinco 635 are great buys for the money and have all the nice features.

For a handheld, the dual-receive is handy too if you have two active local repeaters...you can listen to them both at once or make the secondary band scan while listening with priority on the main repeater...even mute the scan if the main channel keys or overlay both audio feeds at the same time... My Yaesu VX-7R does this.

There is no 'one' radio, they all have compromises and strengths. Try to get out and get your hands on them in person if you can, go by your gut for which one makes the most sense to you. All the specs don't mean as much if you don't like to use the rig.
 
i would be willing to bet that the best radio for you will be a vhf/uhf radio. check your local repeaters out and see whats there. all these radios mentioned before are good. I looked at the alinco 635 yesterday as a matter of fact and she was a sweet lookin radio.
 
I have the 857 and love it for what it is. One rig to rule the mobile.

You will need to spend some time making sure your grounds are all in order to run HF in a mobile well. Not rocket science, but it's tedious. Also the antenna is important. I would highly recommend going with an auto tuner or an auto-tuning antenna like a Hi-Q Sierra or a Tarheel, one of the 'screwdriver' types.

I run the SGC-237 auto-tuner and a 102" whip and it's really decent down to 40m. I haven't tested it below that yet and have a scheme to add another 22" mast to the whip that I'm going to test soon and see if it helps with the lower bands.

On VHF/UHF it works well too, takes a bit of fiddling to learn how to setup the PL tones and get the memories labeled but the performance is great. This needs a second antenna. HF-6m is one, and 2m/70cm is the other.

If you are going to swap it in and out of the mobile, spend some time wiring in your own quick disconnect for the power cable. I wouldn't trust the stock connector to frequently be plugged and unplugged. Just wire your own a foot or so back from that one.

For mobile use, the Heil Traveler headset works very well with this radio too. I've got a stick and having a mic headset is handy.

Takes a while with any of these multi-banded rigs to get used to all the settings. I finally got out and spent several hours with a contest recently on SSB and got a solid grip on how to setup all the speech processor and DSP settings. I did pretty well for a 100W mobile in my first contest and had a blast playing with it.

The only thing I wish it had is crossband repeat capability for VHF/UHF and a more involved mic EQ just so I could experiment with more oddball mics.

I'd buy it again for sure.
 

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