I bought my first Argonaut II back in the 1980s when they first came
out. I had been using some Heath QRP rigs, such as the HW-7 and the
HW-9. I also was campaigning my National NCX-5 MkII. I quickly fell in
love with the little Argonaut. I used it mostly on CW, but was also
able to make occasional SSB contacts. It performed very well, and is
relatively easy and intuitive to use. I then put it to work as the IF
rig for Ten Tec VHF transverters. There, it excelled. The little rig
has the best noise blanker I have ever used. During the last F2 peak, I
managed to work all continents with the 8 watts out of the transverter
and a 4 element yagi. I wired in the T/R switching circuit so that I
could hard key the Elecraft transverters and brick amplifiers later on.
The transmit audio is superb, and the speech processing works well.
The keying is good, and you can select the QSK speed easily. The tuning
rate is decent, and with some playing around with the variable filter
bandwidth and the passband tuning, you can separate closely spaced CW
signals reasonably well. Is the receiver as good as my Corsair II or
the OMni V.9? No. But, it is a great little radio nonetheless. I like
mine so much that I bought a spare off of this list. I am planning to
bring one of them up to my camping trailer in north Central Wisconsin,
and have some QRP fun up there. Ten Tec Service has only had to work on
mine a few times, and as it is small, the shipping is less. The main
problem with this radio is that it has been hard to get new LCD display
backlights, but there is a good source in the UK, and I have bought a
bunch of spares. The Delta II has a lot more transmitter power with the
same receiver, and while I have never used one, I suspect that it would
give fine service for most uses. It is not a contest radio under most
circumstances, but would be a lot of fun on field day. I am hoping to
run my Argonaut II rigs off of solar charged batteries on field day next
year and see how well they do under those conditions.
73,
Steve WA9JML
On 6/3/2010 6:27 PM, Bill Acito W1PA wrote:
> I've read the 8 reviews on eham, so I'll pose this to those of you who have
> the rig and use it on a regular basis: Why should I own this rig?
>
> Let me re-phrase that: Considering the rigs Omni VI and older, is there a
> reason to own this rig, versus say an Omni VI, a Corsair, an Omni C, or the
> original Delta, other than the general coverage receiver? Anything "special"
> or "classic" about this rig? Was this a "gem" despite the QST review?
>
> I wanna hear it from the folks that own them now, or owned them and sold
> them... not second hand. (I have a VI+, OmniC, Argosy, Scout, and a couple
> of Yaesiconwood rigs with general coverage RX's, btw.)
>
> Bill W1PA
>
>
>
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>
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