Ham gear comments:
If you are a new comer I am sure you are somewhat dismayed at the myriad of ham radio gear on the market. I have often been asked as to what transceiver to buy and how much money I should spend for my first HF rig?
Let’s use the same analogy as buying a car; some of us are Rolls Royce, while others prefer the Fords, Chevies, or Toyotas for our first car. Same thoughts on ham radio gear, while some of us cannot afford a Rolls, we can afford a modest priced radio. So, what is good on the market these days, well you have Kenwood, Icom, Yaesu, Ten Tec and Flex. All touting their gear’s features, claiming it is better then the competition, we have heard this sales pitch before.
As to how my ratings are of all major brands of transceivers I rate them in the following manner as to dependability, service if needed, and customer relations.
I also rate a rig on how it sounds on the air and the general comments others may have as owners.
1. Kenwood
2. Yaesu
3. Icom/Flex 5000
4. Ten Tec.
So now some explanation on my ratings: For fifteen years I owned a Kenwood TS 950SDX this rig made thousands of contacts for me, contests, long periods of operating was left on for twenty four hours. Only two minor problems ever developed, one the DRU would not hold its memory, you could reprogram it, but a few hours later the only audio on it was noise. I had contacted Kenwood about this problem and it was suggested total replacement of the DRU module. To be honest, it was not worth the effort, it had only three channels and a short memory in each channel. My MFJ voice keyer was far more versatile.
The bandwidth control became a little scratchy over time; since this was an optical control a cleaning of the contacts cured the problem. Otherwise, this was a totally trouble free unit. Only reason I traded it off was the fear that Kenwood would fail to support it since this model was no longer produced.
Granted I have heard some pros and cons about the TS2000, this rig was not really accepted due to its odd looking front panel. I at first thought someone had taken a hair dryer to it and melted down the panel, it was a daring concept and in effect limited the sales. However, one problem that has surfaced is the crystal filters, many have reported they fracture and this disables the radio. To be honest, if the radio was subjected to big temperature swings then this would be a contributing factor in the failure. I have a friend of mine who owns one of these rigs, his remains at room temperature and no problems have ever surfaced in over three years. The radio sounds good, performs and does what it should, the owner is about as critical as I am .
2. My number two choice is Yaesu, they have come a long way in the last few years, since I have not owned the FT 5 K and FT 2 K for 15 years I cannot vouch for the longevity of the radios. However, in nearly two years no problems have surfaced with these rigs. The dreaded white line in some of the window panes due to faulty OLEDs have appeared only once and just as the line appeared, it vanished never to be seen again, or at least for the last two months. The line vanished after a few hours, so who knows about this problem? However, the performance of this rig has been fantastic. Yaesu has a fast turn around on warranty and service if needed, I did have one rig serviced by Yaesu and that was the FT 897. Good rig, but subject to static discharge, the front panel knobs are conductive and a static charge takes the spark right to the front panel, it destroys a small chip and shuts the rig off. This happened twice and on the second time I sold the radio, not worth the hassle.
3. Icom is impressive as of lately with the 756 series and the 7800,7600 7700 series rigs, but many have reported failures in the finals and these rigs being returned for warranty several times. I for one had a 756 for several years during that time I had failure of filter capacitors in the plus and minus 15 volts rails. This caused the screen to distort, lose focus and hum bars rolling through the display. Upon talking to Icom in the state of Washington, they suggested a service center that was close to me. Namely a center in Michigan was the closest center and per instructions off it went.
Well, I did not see the radio for eight months yes, I did not stutter it sat at the service center for eight months! Another problem developed similar to the original problem within two months of its return. This time the rig was gone for four months, once returned I never opened the box, instead I made a trade for the FT5K Yaesu.
Quite frankly, Icom does make good rigs, but the service on the 56 Pro left much to be desired, plus the fact these failures should not have happened in the first place.
Only reason I do not attempt to repair this my self was you have surface mounted microelectronics and unless you have the proper tools to remove bad parts, you do more damage then you repair.
Flex 5000, I have heard a few of these rigs on the air using cw, they are clean and sound good, but the ones I have heard on phone have a raspy and over processed sound. This may be the way the op is setting up the audio, but so far the sound on ssb has not convinced me to go out and buy one. I am not one who wants a radio that depends on a computer to run it. If you lose the computer due to a crash, well no radio either. I prefer to have a radio and a computer and not a computer radio. Guess that is just my preference. Perhaps if I had the chance to operate a Flex I might change my mind, but so far it has no appeal to me. You may have more airtime with this rig and you may want one, if so and it appeals to you by all means give it a try. I hear tell the receiver is very good and the features are great. However, in the past the Kachina and Ten Tec’s entry with computer radios were marketing failures and have vanished. Ten Tec quit production and Kachina died quickly.
5. Ten Tec, well they have the distinction of a dismal last and this is my story on Ten Tecs. Prior to owning the TS 950 I had on spur of the moment decided to give Ten Tec a try for a transceiver. I purchased the Ten Tec Paragon and this was the worst decision in ham radio I had made. This rig was plagued with problems from day one, not only the rig, but also the power supply as well.
The power supply did not supply enough current to run the rig at 100 watts, it was supposed to do that, but in addition to this problem there was a horrid AC hum on the cw signal of the Paragon. This was not the only troublesome problem, the P.LL would unlock in the middle of a contact and the VFO would just roll through random numbers. Only cure was to shut off the rig for a few seconds, and then power up this would last for a few minutes.
Ten Tec suggested adjustment of the P.L.L. and this would cure the problem for about a week, then the same thing again.
Finally after several phone calls to Ten Tec about the power supply, I replaced all the filter caps with larger MFD values. This cured the AC problem, the crowbar adjustment was not correct and the power supply would turn off once you approached 100 watts on cw. In fact, more like 75 watts. Adjustment of the crowbar cured this problem.
In time a problem developed with the control board, this resolved down to a bad transistor on the board. By this time, after nearly two years of problems the Paragon was traded off for the 950SDX. Light years ahead of the Paragon.
I also noticed the speech processor on the Paragon was a non-functional item; regardless of whether it was on/off no one could tell. I performed this test several times with on air contacts turning on the processor and then off, no one noticed any difference. I also checked my signal with my Kenwood monitor scope and saw no difference in the modulation pattern, or the rf envelope. You do see differences with Icom, Kenwood and Yaesu.
Ten Tech offered only a lot of commentary about minute differences, when questioned about where the differences were in comparison to the rf envelope and the modulation the reply was rather vague. The processor in the Paragaon simply did nothing, waste of time to even turn it on since it made no difference in the signal.
Several years before the Paragon disaster Ten Tec touted their Omni 5 this also was a bad experience for Field Day. This rig had noisy RF and AF controls, an intermittent band switch, they still used mechanical ones during that time. The s meter worked sometimes and the digital readout numbers were minus the last two, or at least they worked sometimes.
The crowning achievement an attempt to operate cw, we could not get any replies to our calls, it was then discovered this rig had no 800hz offset on cw. It was adjusted to zero beat for any station tuned in and of course they could not hear you, if they did it was thumps. This radio was quickly replaced with an Icom and no Ten Tec was never used at future Field Days. Apparently, the Ten Tec came from the factory in this condition and either final check out did not catch all these problems, or they were never checked in the first place.
Hopefully, Ten Tec has improved, but I have never been so inclined to try another radio from them and have no plans of any future purchases. Two duds were enough and glad my second expearience with Ten Tec was not a purchased rig.
As to those small rigs, namely FT 857, FT 897, IC 7000 there is a lot packed into these small packages, but there is only so much room. The end result is a compact small rig ideal for mobile, or portable use, but the big problem is are you able tos see the small icons, the tiny read out screen, the frequency readout clearly?
Consider also you may want some features on the larger radios that simply cannot be fitted into the smaller rigs. Consider also these rigs require an outboard power supply to run them. Roughly a 20 to 25 amp unit that adds more expense to the radio, of course you can run them on a car battery and have the burden of charging it on a regular basis.
To be honest I prefer the FT 897 this little rig gives you 160 to 70CM and lots of features. I also used this rig on Field Day and indeed it does perform without the slightest problem. You have 100 watts on all bands to six meters, the transmitter output is 50 watts on two and about twenty five watts on 440. But, for an all band package, all mode, compact rig this one is hard to beat. In fact, if I find one again now that my static discharge problems are gone, I might be tempted to pick up one on the used circuit for a third rig.
Another rig that impressed me with excellent audio quality was the FT 3000 I have heard several of these rigs on twenty meter SSB and the audio does sound fantastic. Nice well rounded response, just right in the mid range using the hand held mic that comes with the rig.
I found the IC 7000 to perform well, but the small Icons and readouts are indeed for younger eyes, this does make a good mobile rig and I have heard a lot of these rigs in mobile, or suitcase operations. You may find with comparison of features the 897 does offer more for a smaller price.
One rig you may like, but consider one feature it does not have. The Icom 718 is not bad, good receiver, but I could not believe Icom turned out a model with no AGC adjustment. Even the small rigs have your choice of Fast, Medium, or Slow AGC select.
It is normal in an AGC circuit to have a fast attack, but the decay is what you have the option to adjust. I prefer the slow mode. In the 718 they left it with fast attack and fast decay. The end results were hard pumping action on ssb and cw signals, after a short time of this it became annoying. Much more relaxing to have a slow decay once you become used to this action it is annoying to listen to a fast attack AGC.
If this is not problem for you, then the 718 is not a bad rig.
These are my thoughts on various radios, you take your choice, if you do not like a certain radio for what ever reason, well time to trade. Good luck on your choices and hope to see you down the log.
