Showing posts with label IC-7000. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IC-7000. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2016
Monday, November 21, 2011
IC-7000 Mobile
Not mine, but a sweet setup... KF9ZA - HF Mobile 2004 Chevrolet Blazer and a cool video of it in action. Bonne chance DX!
Friday, August 26, 2011
Win a $20 Gift Card to Nifty Accessories! | AmateurRadio.com
Win a $20 Gift Card to Nifty Accessories! | AmateurRadio.com
I've got a couple of the Nifty cards - one for my Wouxun KG-UVD1P and my IC-7000. They are handy to have around. AmateurRadio.com is giving away five $20 gift cards - all you have to do is leave a comment (assuming you are licenses ham) to have a chance to win. At the time of this posting, you would have about a 1 in 20 chance of winning! Much better than Vegas odds!
I've got a couple of the Nifty cards - one for my Wouxun KG-UVD1P and my IC-7000. They are handy to have around. AmateurRadio.com is giving away five $20 gift cards - all you have to do is leave a comment (assuming you are licenses ham) to have a chance to win. At the time of this posting, you would have about a 1 in 20 chance of winning! Much better than Vegas odds!
Thursday, March 17, 2011
LDG IT-100 Tuner Unboxing
I ordered the LDG IT-100 autotuner from Ham City. The delivered price was $171.14 and was the cheapest I found from the big players. It gets good reviews on eHam.net and it should work well with my coax fed dipole antennas.
In the box, you get the tuner, a coax jumper cable, a manual, and a control/power cable. The front has a single button that starts the tuning process. The tuner has 2000 memories, so it won't need to repeat the tuning cycle as you run through your favorite frequencies. There are two LEDs. The red one indicates that tuning is in process. The green one indicates SWR conditions.
The rear of the tuner has 50-ohm coax connectors (SO-259) for both the transceiver and the antenna. There is a wing nut to allow for a ground. Lastly, there is a 6-pin mini-DIN for the power/control cable.
I'll update once I've actually connected it to the radio and used the thing.
LDG is giving away a free SP-200 Surge Protector with any tuner purchase before April 15, 2011. The rebate form is here (PDF).
In the box, you get the tuner, a coax jumper cable, a manual, and a control/power cable. The front has a single button that starts the tuning process. The tuner has 2000 memories, so it won't need to repeat the tuning cycle as you run through your favorite frequencies. There are two LEDs. The red one indicates that tuning is in process. The green one indicates SWR conditions.
The rear of the tuner has 50-ohm coax connectors (SO-259) for both the transceiver and the antenna. There is a wing nut to allow for a ground. Lastly, there is a 6-pin mini-DIN for the power/control cable.
I'll update once I've actually connected it to the radio and used the thing.
LDG is giving away a free SP-200 Surge Protector with any tuner purchase before April 15, 2011. The rebate form is here (PDF).
Monday, February 7, 2011
Echolink near Knoxville
From the 470 ARG Newsletter:
Also, Paul (W4PGM) will be talking about the Flex Radio on Thursday night. And, they are thinking about doing an Extra class. I'd really like to do that, but I'm not sure I have the time.
"Hopefully we will have our ECHOLINK up and running by this WEDS going through our club repeater of 443.225, thats one reason the news letter is a little early.. the link will be KJ4HPM-R on the search bar at ECHOLINK."As I mentioned earlier, I think that EchoLink is a good way to get into the hobby without a lot of expense. We are just waiting for TNJeff to get his ticket, so he can sign-up. The air waves will never be the same. I believe both my IC-7000 and the KG-UVD1P will work on 70 cm.
Also, Paul (W4PGM) will be talking about the Flex Radio on Thursday night. And, they are thinking about doing an Extra class. I'd really like to do that, but I'm not sure I have the time.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
N6R - Playing with HF on the IC-7000
Well, I've been listening for N6R on 20M at 14.255 MHz. I can barely make out some activity. As I mentioned, they are celebrating Reagan's 100th Birthday. I can't really hear N6R from Thousand Oaks, CA. I have heard a couple of stations from Oklahoma City and somewhere in Colorado working him.
I've been playing around with a lot of the settings on my IC-7000. I'm taking my best guess with:
Noise Reduction (NR) - it does eliminate some of the noise, but it keeps me from hearing N6R at all.
Pre Amplifier (P.AMP) - the Pre Amp does help me hear him as it magnifies the weak signal. According to the manual, it improves the signal to noise ratio and is useful for weak signals.
Attenuator (ATT) - The attenuator blocks undesired signals, which doesn't help me at all.
Noise Blanker (NB) - The noise blanker did not help and given the description in the manual (eliminates pulse type noise such as from a car ignition), I'm not surprised.
IF Filter (FIL) - I tried the IF Filters, too, but none of the 3 default passbands filters seemed to help either. There are some step size adjustments, but I didn't understand them enough to play with them.
IF Filter Shape - I did try the "soft" and "sharp" filter shapes, but they didn't seem to help.
And now, some Net has started on 14.255 MHz and run off the special event station. I'm spinning the dial to see if I can find him again.
Looks like I need to check out the Reagan Library website, too.
I've been playing around with a lot of the settings on my IC-7000. I'm taking my best guess with:
Noise Reduction (NR) - it does eliminate some of the noise, but it keeps me from hearing N6R at all.
Pre Amplifier (P.AMP) - the Pre Amp does help me hear him as it magnifies the weak signal. According to the manual, it improves the signal to noise ratio and is useful for weak signals.
Attenuator (ATT) - The attenuator blocks undesired signals, which doesn't help me at all.
Noise Blanker (NB) - The noise blanker did not help and given the description in the manual (eliminates pulse type noise such as from a car ignition), I'm not surprised.
IF Filter (FIL) - I tried the IF Filters, too, but none of the 3 default passbands filters seemed to help either. There are some step size adjustments, but I didn't understand them enough to play with them.
IF Filter Shape - I did try the "soft" and "sharp" filter shapes, but they didn't seem to help.
And now, some Net has started on 14.255 MHz and run off the special event station. I'm spinning the dial to see if I can find him again.
Looks like I need to check out the Reagan Library website, too.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
New Ham Radio Setup - A Short Checklist
After we got the ICOM IC-7000 connected and powered up, my father-in-law/elmer suggested a few best practices.
1. Turn the transmit power down. This is good for a few reasons. If you don't have a good match to the antenna you might burn out your finals. When you are doing basic testing, you don't need to push max power into a dummy load.
2. Set the microphone gain. It is always a good idea to make sure you aren't too hot into the mic. The other hams will let you know if you "need to back off the mic." The IC-7000 has an ALC (Automatic Level Control) to smooth out the peaks. (We actually transmitted into the dummy load to adjust the settings - see #3).
3. Transmit into a dummy load. My father-in-law brought his Bird Wattmeter along with a MFJ Dummy Load and we connected it to the radio. We watched the meter and checked that the expected output matched what the meter was reading. The Bird can do forward and reflected power readings, so you could calculate SWR if you like. We got good readings during our testing - 5W out looked like 5W on the meter.
4. Check the SWR on the antenna. He also brought his MFJ-259B SWR Analyzer, so we used it to check our work on the dipoles and the ground plane install. You'll want to make sure your power is turned down, the frequency is clear, and that you are transmitting within your privileges. An ideal transmission line would have a 1:1 SWR. On the 10M and 20M, we were close to 1:1.5. The 15M wasn't as good as of a match. I need to play with the length, but I've not had time. Of course, I've not tried to do much on HF, so it hasn't mattered a whole lot.
1. Turn the transmit power down. This is good for a few reasons. If you don't have a good match to the antenna you might burn out your finals. When you are doing basic testing, you don't need to push max power into a dummy load.
2. Set the microphone gain. It is always a good idea to make sure you aren't too hot into the mic. The other hams will let you know if you "need to back off the mic." The IC-7000 has an ALC (Automatic Level Control) to smooth out the peaks. (We actually transmitted into the dummy load to adjust the settings - see #3).
3. Transmit into a dummy load. My father-in-law brought his Bird Wattmeter along with a MFJ Dummy Load and we connected it to the radio. We watched the meter and checked that the expected output matched what the meter was reading. The Bird can do forward and reflected power readings, so you could calculate SWR if you like. We got good readings during our testing - 5W out looked like 5W on the meter.
4. Check the SWR on the antenna. He also brought his MFJ-259B SWR Analyzer, so we used it to check our work on the dipoles and the ground plane install. You'll want to make sure your power is turned down, the frequency is clear, and that you are transmitting within your privileges. An ideal transmission line would have a 1:1 SWR. On the 10M and 20M, we were close to 1:1.5. The 15M wasn't as good as of a match. I need to play with the length, but I've not had time. Of course, I've not tried to do much on HF, so it hasn't mattered a whole lot.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Unboxing the ICOM IC-7000
I posted some time ago that I had ordered an ICOM IC-7000 radio. Below is the unboxing video. The IC-7000 covers both the HF bands as well as 2M and 70cm. It will do 100W on HF and 50W on 2M. One big selling point was the nice color screen. If I'm gonna have to struggle to learn something like this, I don't want to be messing around with a tiny screen and little buttons. It has a removable head unit and I got the separation kit for free with my order. For now, I will be using this as a base station.
Next up, a video of my rig connected and running in my shack.
Next up, a video of my rig connected and running in my shack.
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