It's so cool!!

My Actual First HF Rig...ICOM IC-746 Pro

In the previous post I discussed about wanting to pass the General License exam and getting my first HF radio transceiver. In the article I talked heavily about the Yaesu FT-950, well I did not buy one. It's a great great rig but I was about to get a little better deal for what I got. I got a ICOM IC-746 Pro. It's like the predecessor to the ICOM IC-7100, that's a beast of a rig. Basically what it came down to was the Yaesu was out of the budget. So after that I started looking into the ICOM IC-718 but I just wasn't into that radio; there's no 6 meter or VHF. Which the 746Pro has both plus, of course, the HF bands.The 746Pro also has IF digital filtering, so no need to fill up my radio with expensive filters. All I have to do is go through the bands, select the operating mode and adjust the bandwidth of the filter to my liking. Pretty cool. But listen I just bought the radio yesterday and haven't even got it yet, so I do begin to know where to start explaining it. So I'm going to leave you with some pictures and links to reviews and info of my new cool radio!

eham.net Review - ICOM IC-746PRO

universal-radio.com - Icom IC-746 Pro

Basic.........Basic...Basic..Power Supply

Got a few spare parts lying around, yeah me too. So I was playing around in Multi-sim, which is the coolest software ever, and came up with this slimmed down power supply. It will give you 13.7 volts DC from wall outlet/mains. It's not a perfectly clean circuit, with a clean sine, but if your running something real basic and not very sensitive it's prefect! I use it for cooling fans for various things.

Like I said and as you can see(blue wave on the oscilloscope) the final DC isn't a perfectly flat wave but it's real close for lights or fans or other non-sensitive gear. I wouldn't put a radio on this supply. But with parts or maybe if you have to go to Radio Shack it costs somewhere between free and 15 bucks.