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Congrats on the new radio. It is always awesome to unpack a radio after it's delivered.

The FT450D has 6 meter coverage and also has a built in antenna tuner. 6 meters can be a fun band during spring / early summer to easily work stations all over North America. The internal antenna tuner will be a big help with tuning antennas that have an SWR of up to a 3:1 ratio. The 450D...

This is not my listing. But I thought it was interesting to see that someone held onto a Moonrake 6 all these years. http://desmoines.craigslist.org/ele/4791371863.html

That looks good. Even if you have other antennas outside I think it is good to have a dipole in the attic. That way if a branch comes down with ice or wind and takes out your outside antenna you aren't out of action. I tried a 5 band fan dipole and had some wacky interaction. I need to remove...

Interesting stack of radios: http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/ele/4729835979.html

The CQ World Wide Contest was a lot of fun this weekend. I was only able to be on during the day Saturday and Sunday. I spent most of my time on 10 meters and made over 200 QSO's for 60 countries on that band. The other 3 bands (15, 20 and 40) were good for roughly another 100 contacts. I...

Yes 10 meters is HF. With the technician license you can run SSB from 28.300 to 28.500. There is a lot of good DX in that frquency range. In the last 4 years I've worked almost 100 countries on 10 meters running a 100 watt Yaesu and either a ground mounted vertical or a wire antenna at 25...

+1 It would seem like the nearest competitor would be the Icom 7100.

The Softrock RX Ensemble is a pretty decent receiver for the price. The feed back from people that have spent some time with the various receivers is that it is big jump in performance over the USB dongles. You can get the kit prebuilt for a reasonable price...

Do you have a speaker plugged in? The DX160 does not have an internal speaker. Also if you tune on the AM broadcast band does the signal strength meter move or show signals from a local AM broadcaster?

There are some videos showing setting up Flex & SDR for digital. Digital Modes for Flex Radio, Part 1 - YouTube Digital Modes for Flex Radio, Part 2 - YouTube It's all done with software... you will need the VAC ( Virtual Audio Cables ) program to the digital audio streams between...

I replaced an FT950 with an Icom 756 pro 2. The Icom is a very nice receiver and the band scope is more useful then on the Yaesu 1200's. I really liked the 950 and would still have it but the chance at the Icom came along. The Icom has a good receiver. The point about the Kenwood 590...

This was an interesting contest weekend. 6 in the midwest started off very slow until mid afternoon Saturday when it opened up mainly to the southwest US. Then on Sunday a few flurries of activity - this time more to the southeast US. I shut down mid afternoon Sunday for family time, but I...

If you are talking an original 102 foot G5RV I would never use that for a 10 meter antenna. If it is the 51 foot "half size" G5RV that is a lot of wire for a stealth installation. Also keep in mind that the 450 ohm matching section can't be coiled up or laying on the ground. For a low...

Congrats - the General class license opens up a lot of HF fun. I remember being very psyched up when I passed that.

I agree that a Flex 3000 would be a big improvement over the 1500. Yes you can make contacts with 5 watts but it will be a lot more frustrating. Especially if your first HF antennas are compromised as you learn to build and improve antennas. With the Flex 3000 you are starting out with a...

+1 It would make things painfully slow if the w1aw portable operator looked up each contact to confirm the license class before completing the QSO.

Years ago I had a President Madison (second generation). I thought it was very nice SSB rig and kept it until I was licensed and moved to 2 and 6 meter SSB. This site might help with identifying the different versions of the Madison and Washington. Uniden & President Washington Madison Grant...

Remember that the K40 has the metal of the car body as a counterpoise. Mounted as a base antenna you won't have the counterpoise. Because of it's short length that mobile antenna will have compromised performance. You would be better off to make a simple half wave dipole and tie one end up...