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

My First HF Radio...***Updated Above***

So I'm on the hunt for my first HF rig. Next month I'll be passing my General license exam. Which in a nut shell will give me HF band privileges. The exact band plan for General class folks can be found online so I won't list it, plus I don't fully know them. But that's ok for now. To get back on topic, yes, I am looking for my first HF radio. I'm preferring to buy something late model. Very late model. I looking for something at least 100watts cause I do want to get my DX on, I'm looking a reliable brand, and I would like to have something I can upgrade at a later date with filters. Price is kind of a option; I'd really like to say under 800 to 900 dollars, or less of course.

My Travels...

So this past weekend I traveled to central Virginia. On my way I decided to field test a little system I had thrown together for keeping track of repeaters. Now to preface this; my system I going to describe to you was completely free to me using tools and software in which I already owned. I'm sure there's probably commercially available products to do this for you.

To start let me give a short description of what I was actually doing. Using Microsoft Streets and Trips mapping software I imports a CSV file, actually a couple, into one map of my route I take to Lynchburg. What was in this data I imported you ask? Well, repeaters, all the repeaters I would remotely be able to pass on my route.

Here is my list of tools:
Microsoft Streets and Trips(what I had)
ASUS Laptop
GlobalSat BU-353 Waterproof USB GPS ReceiverUSB extension cable

To start off I searched the web for repeater data and found several sites that allowed me to pick and choose areas of which to export. There were a couple formats I cold have exported but I chose a simple CSV, comma separate value. Very simple and lots of software understands that format. Next I opened up all those CSV's in excel, but most any spread sheet program would work. The data given from the sites was to much. I purged some columns of data. What I kept was the; Lat&Long, Freq, PL Tone, and callsign/name or club affiliation.

Now what I'm working with is two spreadsheets for North Carolina and two for Virginia, I merged the two sheets per state together but kept the two states separate, felt like it was just a good idea for future development.

Now the following steps are pretty easy and straight forward. With that said if you use software that's not Microsoft Streets and Trips it may not be. Using the import wizard in the software I imported them as I believe point or way-points. But they were added to the open map I had as a addition of some kind which gave me a little ability to edit them. So all I did next was create a new icon in the ".GIF" format. The gif allows for transparent background. So I created a very small little tower icon that dots each place on the map to where a repeater is. Each little tower can be clicked to display the repeater info respectively.

Side note of two things. First during importation of the data you have to ability to go in and label what each column of data actually is telling S&T's that Lat actually is Lat and there's 3 available user data slots in which you can put the repeater specific data, Freq, PL and etc...

Now after all that work here's what I came up with 68 contacts over 5 hours(while driving). Plus one club-net check-in(South Wake ARC). All on 2 meters, 144 - 148mhz. Really all of that didn't span anymore than 2 or 2.5 mhz of the band. I didn't go very low, really. I've never took part in any contests in ham radio and nor am I a pro or expert in any way. But for me I am very pleased with my results!!

Keeping safety in mind I really wasn't able to record contacts and wasn't really even thinking about it till like halfway back riding home but here's a few:

kk4eqp
kk4bvu
kk4dbm
South Wake ARC - net check-in
W4WC
AJ4HK



KK4EQM