When you REALLY get hooked on it, you want more and more bands. I started
out by building a 2m transverter in 1990. Then added 50 MHz. Then added
432. Then added 222. All homebrew transverters and antennas. I eventually
ended up with ALL bands from 50 MHz through 76 GHz, all built by myself,
and the VK's 122 GHz module.
A couple years ago I got an FT-857D and FT-897D. Since I primarily operate
QRP Portable in contests, these rigs were fine for me. I still use my same
222 transverter with one of the above rigs as the IF rig. I use an FT-817ND
as the IF for all the bands 902 and above. Up until the IC-705 came out,
the FT817 was the IF rig of choice for many microwave ops.
I have found that building transverters isn't all that expensive. It is,
however, time-consuming and requires a certain minimum of test equipment,
like an accurate frequency counter and power meter. I got an HP435B power
meter and an EIP545 frequency counter (0-18 GHz) for not much money at
hamfests. And when you get to 47 GHz and above, a machine shop is nice to
have access to.
I currently don't have a way to operate FT8 when I'm portable. I'm glad
they created the "Analog Only" category for ARRL contests.
73, Zack W9SZ
On Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 10:59 AM Josef 'Jeff' Sipek <jeffpc@josefsipek.net>
wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 13, 2022 at 03:33:24 -0400, Doug Bates wrote:
> ...
> > Yes phone VHF contesting may have been more fun before FT8 came along
>
> I think another way to put it, is that correlation does not imply
> causation.
>
>
> Anyway, I thought I'd chime in with a new ham perspective. I got my
> license
> two years ago which means that I got to build a "shack" from scratch
> relatively recently. When I started surveying the market to figure out
> what
> transceivers existed that'd get me on air, it became painfully clear that
> there is essentially no "cheap" way to get SSB 2m and up with double-digit
> watts.
>
> I definitely wanted 100W HF, and while I liked the idea of VHF/UHF SSB, I
> wasn't sure if I'd use it enough. Aside from some diehard VHF/UHF hams,
> nobody seemed to care about VHF/UHF other than for FM.
>
> At the time, the two obvious transceiver options were the FT-991A and the
> IC-7300. Translating that into practical terms:
>
> 1. IC-7300: HF+6 only, very popular choice, transverters get expensive
> quickly, IC-9700 is even more expensive
> 2. FT-991A: $100 more than IC-7300 for 2m and 70cm all-mode capability of
> "ok" quality (the 2m/70cm frontend is somewhat "bolted on")
>
> So, I had to decide between a very popular radio that seemed to get just
> about everything right but had no VHF/UHF and a radio that few talked about
> but had a reasonable VHF/UHF capability for $100 more - without having no
> idea what I was going to like. (After agonizing over the decision for a
> while, I ended up going with the Yaesu and it has served me well during
> both
> HF and VHF contests - both at home and as /R - as well as POTA/SOTA/WWFF.)
>
> I'd argue that the vast majority of new hams will either (1) stick to FM
> repeaters and never venture beyond, or (2) not consider *any of this* and
> get the very popular IC-7300 unknowingly cutting themselves off from other
> modes on VHF/UHF (without additional investment).
>
> So, I think I primarily blame the lack of readily available hardware for
> the
> underutilization of VHF/UHF. I don't know what things were like before,
> but
> I get the impression that there were more choices when it came to VHF/UHF
> SSB.
>
> Just my 2 cents,
>
> Jeff (AC1JR)
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