Hi, Jim, Grant, and everyone else,
First, I agree with everything Grant said about why general coverage
can be important. Most general coverage transceivers could also be
modified when changes in amateur frequency allocations come along. My
Icom IC-723S (JA QRP version of the IC-728) meets NTIA standards for
frequency stability on 60m with the CR-64 installed per the NTIA
website. A simple mod made it 60m ready. Most rigs without general
coverage would have required much more extensive modification to add a
band. Of course, a software defined like the Ten Tec Argonaut V and
Jupiter got a firmware upgrade and all was well.
I am an avid shortwave listener and I was before I was a ham. I have
family overseas, mainly in Israel and Europe. I like getting news from
those places directly, not filtered through American press bias.
Shortwave is invaluable to me. One of the things that has impressed me
with Ten Tec is their early adoption of DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale),
something the big three have ignored. I'd love to see that capability
in the ham line as well so a separate radio wouldn't be necessary.
There was a time, as Jim correctly points out, when general coverage
meant sacrificing receiver performance on the ham bands. At that time
rigs like those offered by Ten Tec, the Icom IC-740, and a handful of
similar rigs I could mention by the big three, were far superior to the
rigs with general coverage. That is no longer true and there really is
no advantage to ham bands only rigs at this time.
Just my .02...
73,
Caity
K7VO
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