Posted: 3/25/2011 11:51:57 AM EDT
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i havent even started yet, but i picked up a 751 and powersupply for a good price
is this a good starter radio or not worth the time? need an antenna |
| not really unless you plan on taking the tech and general test at the same time. as a tech you have limited use of SSB on the 10m band. if you learn CW then you have a little more access. if you get your general then its worth it but if your only planing on tech, its just about useless. |
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You can listen on the HF bands to see what you're missing by not having the General...
If you have any interest in the "weak signal modes" on VHF and UHF, or in working through satellites (although I'm not sure what satellites may be available right now) you could probably also pick up some transverters that would let you use the radio to operate on those bands (although transverters are a bit more difficult to work with than a transceiver that is designed for the VHF and UHF bands, I have used transverters on 2 meters and 70 cm. for both SSB and CW, and you may even find out that the quality of reception is better with that type of setup than it is with a dedicated VHF/UHF transceiver, because you can choose components with superior performance). For some of the higher UHF bands, most people would be using an HF rig with a transverter anyway. So it just depends on what interests you. |
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Quoted:
i havent even started yet, but i picked up a 751 and powersupply for a good price is this a good starter radio or not worth the time? need an antenna Although if you only get your tech license you will only be able to use 10 meter for phone, but the upside it you will be able to listen and learn how to use the radio. 10 meter will continue to get better, and 10 meter antenna's are compact and easy to make. Study for the tech, once you are comfortable move to the general and try to knock them out on the same day. You have a radio for HF so you might as well go for it. When you make that first DX it is worth the effort, plus you will learn a lot. My first QSO on HF was with a guy in Croatia. |
| The 751's are a great rig. They did however have some trouble with the digital/memory board IIRC. Alot of them have been fixed over the years but there are still some floating around that have not been fixed/upgraded. The 751A model is the later model and supposedly resolved these issues. I had one some years back that was trouble free. I wish I still had it. |
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I had obtained a manual for our 751A, and the club pres said, You don't need it, everything is marked.
She was right... it is not "menu driven" (too many features with too few buttons), everything is clearly marked, a button or switch for each feature. We also have the matching automatic tuner. 
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I have two of the -A variants and am looking for a third.
These are paired with R-71As, IC-2KL amps and AT-500 tuners. Master/slave TRX/RX tracking is accomplished via HRD or similar rig-control programs. The third transceiver is going to be used with another R-71A and an AH-2 remote antenna coupler for Field Day operation. From an operational standpoint they'll do everything my high-end HF rigs can and offer respectable RF performance to boot. The only gotchas to watch out for are the aforementioned battery-backed RAM/firmware memory arrangement (which can be fixed by replacing the stock board with any one of several aftermarket units) and the plastic trimmer caps that are used in the VCO circuitry (which can be fixed with less than $10 of parts from Mouser, Digikey, etc). The -751 doesn't sound as good as a high-level-modulated rig when TXing AM but if you're mindful of carrier and mic gain adjustments it can be made to do a passable job. I always get good reports when using SSB and an SM-6 or SM-8 mic. It also has FM TRX capability and can accommodate a tone encoder for use with repeaters which require one. (I recommend ComSpec's TE-32 or equivalent, as the Icom option is long since out of production.) Both of mine have the 250hz CW filter installed. I might install one in the FD rig when I get it. The onboard iambic keyer is a nice touch as well. Best of all is that you don't need an SMT rework station to fix the things, and they're pretty reliable. These rigs hail from the pre-DSP days but one can always retrofit an internal or external unit. I installed SGC's ADSP2 in two of my R-7000s and will probably go with the BHI units (NR only) in all of the HF stuff. |