Saturday, December 23, 2017

Bands Dead?

Who says the bands are dead?

It's Saturday morning the 23rd of Dec around 10.00 am and on 14.190 I'm hearing ZL3JAS Jason in Christchurch in conversation with Roy VK7ROY and a station in Chile CE3YG! God I love this FTDX 9000!
Once again, just being patient and quietly listening to what's about, you can hear some amazing stations.

The interesting thing is I've been playing around with the Kenwood 950SD for a few weeks, deliberately keeping away from the Yaesu. So after a few weeks I thought I'd give it a try today and boy what a difference!

The Kenwood is an extremely good radio, but it's a whole different ball game when listening with the Yaesu. The clarity is amazing, I'm using the same antennas, just changing the radio. You can hear stuff on the Yaesu that just wont come up on the Kenwood no matter how hard you try.
I must admit at one stage I had my doubts about keeping the FTDX9000 simply because of it's size and of course the cost. It would be easy just to let it go and have some spare room on the desk and pick up a load of cash.

But on hearing and reminding myself just how good it is, I find myself thinking I must be nuts! ...........Happy Christmas everyone.

2 comments:

  1. Comments on a few posts... I have a Mini-33A that I got just for portable operating, Mosley just let me know I can use the director and driven element as a Mini-32A for less weight. I am wondering how your experiment with the Carolina Windom 80 balun and line isolator worked for 40m? I have a Carolina Windom 80 that I have also used portable and the info would be useful. Tnx!! Glenn AE0Q (ex GM5BKC 1974-78, US Navy at RAF Edzell)

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  2. Hi Glenn, yes I used a Carolina Windom 80 balun for my 40 meter Windom antenna. To be honest, there was no outstanding difference to my other 40 meter antennas like the W3DZZ. I thought I might get something extra out of it but there wasn't a lot of change out of the two antennas. So yes you can convert but sadly no miracles! But it was good fun to have a play about and in the end I sold it to a newly qualified ham, who still has it mounted between two trees in his garden, he says he still very pleased with it, so I think it's "swings & roundabouts"!
    73s - Richard

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