My 1st Radio.
Proud owner of a secondhand Kenwood TS120S radio (photo below).
Very happy with this purchase as it is very simple to operate. An experienced member of the club came with me to check the radio before the purchase however it was found that the seller knew a longtime working colleague of mine. Radio tested fine. I was also given a G5RV antenna that needed some attention. Finally found that wires in the balun were open circuit. Down on my "to-do" list of repairs.
A portion of the SWR meter can just be seen in the photo. It is a MFJ-822 and provides both the forward and reflected power during transmission. This was also bought secondhand.
My 2nd Radio (an upgrade).
Proud owner of a secondhand Kenwood TS140S radio (photo below). Very happy about this purchase. Bought from an honest ham radio operator. Yes, there are some around !!!
Only started finding out about "questionable" ham radio operators who try and sell faulty equipment to "newbies" and once sold deny all knowledge of the problem existing before the sale.
The advantage of this radio is that I am now able to do split frequency QSO's and can also pre-program frequencies in a memory bank. Using my dipole set for 15m I was able to log a contact with an operator during the Heard Island DX Expedition. Their callsign was VK0EK.
For more information visit Heard Island Expedition . Feedback information can be found here: VK0EK website.
Hope to complete building a PC interface for this radio and also one for a friend who got me involved in Amateur Radio.
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| Proud moment : Confirmation of my contact |
I still like my "kitchen appliance" brand of radios.
My 3rd Radio (an upgrade) *.
I still like my "kitchen appliance" brand of radios.
Now a proud owner of another secondhand Kenwood radio, a TS-570S radio HF multi bander. Very happy about this purchase. Bought from an honest ham radio operator who decided to emigrate to Canada. It was a bit large to take with him and he could not use it until he obtained a Canadian ham license.
The advantage of this radio is that I am now able to control directly from my computer as I have not started building the PC interface as needed for the TS140S. Guess other OM's have similar bucket lists where time is spent on other things.
The TS-570S also has a simple / built-in Antenna tuner whick helps with the fine tuning of my homemade antennas. I try to get close to a SWR of 1:1 with an analyser and this tuner helps. It also can operate on 6M band.
My 4th Radio *.
I needed a VHF radio and I have purchased as secondhand an ICOM-2100. Not many kitchen units were up for sale. Operates well with the J-pole made with copper-tubing. Have even managed to receive SSTV images / transmissions from the ISS station as well as from some locally launched balloon experiments.
