IMHO, if it will add to the price and delay availability, DON'T DO IT.
I operated QRP, mostly portable, for about 25 years.
I've been to many islands and mountain tops in Europe and even took a first
place overall in the QRP class of the European Field Day contest (operating
from HB0).
At no time did I ever have the need to work 160m and rarely had the space
for the antenna.
Price is very important, because there is already a good 10w rig on the
market - the K2.
It has already set the stake in the ground in this class.
It is only available as a kit, so clearly there is a niche here for a good
fully assembled radio with great performance.
I haven't checked exactly but I believe the 418 is smaller and lighter than
the K2.
That's good because the K2 was huge for a portable QRP rig.
My rig for that time period was the old Argonaut 509, which I modified by
adding a good quality 8-pole SSB filter and a 500 Hz crystal filter as well.
It was fairly big, but very light and didn't have much current drain on RX -
about 150 mA with the lights switched off.
For all of you who will reply saying you think it MUST HAVE 160 meters,
please also reply with your answer to the following 2 questions:
1. Are you seriously thinking about buying this or another QRP rig?
2. How much are you willing to pay extra to have 160m included?
OK, I will also answer those two questions (to be fair).
1. Yes, but not until 2013.
2. About 10 bucks. Maybe twenty.
Dah di dah.
Rick, DJ0IP
_______________________________________________
TenTec mailing list
TenTec@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec
|