What new HAM gear should I get?

[apelly]

I don't know enough to know what I want or need so please don't bother opening with "well, tell us what you need; give us specifics man, otherwise we can't answer your question"

I know this is an open-ended question, but perhaps a bit of discussion can help me work out what I don't know, what I need to know, and what I want. Pedants need not respond.

But they will note they are not excluded 

Ideally I'd spend ~2k USD. Maybe, but probably not, up to 3k USD.

Some of you guys may remember that I recently qualified as a HAM. I am a member of a very helpful club, but I don't know any of them very well yet, so I don't want to keep pestering them for information. The club has offered to lend me some stuff to get me up and going in the short term. That might not be a bad idea, but I feel a bit awkward about borrowing some gear that may be quite expensive off a bunch of friendly guys who essentially don't know me from a bar of soap.

Step 1) Have an antenna. I'm in a totally inappropriate location for one. I worried about this for a while, but after talking to one of the guys at the club it's clear that any antenna is better than none, so I'll just make do with the space I have and string up some kind of hacked together dipole.

Radio
Accepting that, I've decided to spend some money. That brings me to where I am at the moment. There are a thousand radios available, and I have failed to find any sort of comparison chart. I'm pretty sure I want an all band one. That's it. I'm interested in CW and SDR. I'd like to fool around decoding some digital stuff and generally scanning around the spectrum, so some sort of wide band receive functionality seems important. Also a decent (whatever that is) interface with a PC for capture/analysis/transmission and configuration. And hacking.

I'm still a bit overwhelmed by specs, but the IC-7300 looks like quite a lot of radio/dollar. Why is it so much cheaper than the 9100?

Other gear
It appears I will need:
Power supply
Antenna tuner
Antenna analyser
Is there any general purpose test gear I can/should buy and use here?
I still really want a HackRF. I see sparkfun is selling them now.

I'm sure there are better forums to ask these questions, but I know you guys already, so I don't feel like I'm barging in on a bunch of strangers. 

[DimitriP]

but I feel a bit awkward about borrowing some gear that may be quite expensive off a bunch of friendly guys who essentially don't know me from a bar of soap

You need to get over that

With borrowed gear you'll develop a taste for what you like/don't like..
and no matter what equipment you have inside the building, the most important piece of equipment  is outside and it's the antenna  (maybe aerial in your part of the world).

[retrolefty]

 Many hams start simple and cheap and just learn and learn, then when they are ready to upgrade they know just what features and functions work best for them.

 Investing too much time and money trying to make your first station your last station is bound to end in disappointment.

[German_EE]

Take a day off and head over to your local ham radio dealer. Spend the day playing around with the transceivers until you find one that a) looks right b) sounds right and c) works right. You're spending a large amount of money here so spend some time getting it right.

[nowlan]

I thoght the Elecraft kx3 were the bees knees?
Dunno what to spend the rest of your budget on.

I'd leave the SdR stuff to pc with dongle or hackrf. I think the waterfall/sdr stuff on radios is limiting.

Im not a Ham so you can ignore my suggestions.

[GreyWoolfe]

Get an amplifier.  A friend of mine says that life it too short to go QRP.  Long live QRO! 

[dr.diesel]

Get the 7300, I'm loving mine, one heck of a radio for the price.

Power Supply = Samlex 1235M
Tuner is built into the 7300 (though I've not used it as I have a turner at the base of my antenna)
Analyzer = AIM-4170C or ~MFJ259C

But, do the best you can on the antenna/tower/coax/etc, careful consideration here will really pay off.  Lots of DIY options here as well, I also suggest the ARRL and Antenna handbook.

Note I've got a KX3 also, but if you can only have one rig, the 7300 is the clear winner.

[xyrtek]

Hi,

start with the best antenna(s) you can buy-install for the band(s) you can-wish to operate.

then decide what modes of operations you wish to use and post back for more feedback.

The only thing I do actually recommend is get help from the local folks, till they get so upset about your questions that you decide you need to have your own club )

everything else will become apparent with time, then you can spend those greenbacks.

[apelly]

Thanks for the responses. Not a lot of recommendations though.

Let me try a different approach:

Are there features in your current rig that surprised you with their usefulness?
Are there missing features that you really wish were there?
Have you made purchasing mistakes you aren't too embarrassed to share?

[xrunner]

I'd like to fool around decoding some digital stuff and generally scanning around the spectrum, so some sort of wide band receive functionality seems important. Also a decent (whatever that is) interface with a PC for capture/analysis/transmission and configuration. And hacking.

Well, I'd get an interface for your PC so you can use FLDIGi and WSJT-X. Some newer radios have the USB sound interface built in, but I like the SignaLink interface because it has TX and RX gain knobs out front so you can easily adjust them.

FLDIGI software lets you do all sorts of modes like RTTY, CW, PSK31, and others.

WSJT-X lets you operate the modes JT65 and JT9 (which I work every day).

As far as radios, I have the FTdx-3000, an older FT-450, and the newer Ft-450D. No problems with them.

[Fank1]

You need to answer a few questions.
1. HF or VHF ?
2. $$$ to spend ?
3. Main mode of operation cw, ssb, digital ?
4. Used for DX, ragchew, contesting ?

[hammy]

I'm interested in CW ...

If you want to operate CW with full BK, get a TRX without relay clicking.
If you don't want to operate full BK, get a TRX with a quiet relay.

The next important part is the receiver. Have a look for a good TRX in this chart:
http://www.sherweng.com/table.html

A modern TRX connects to an PC just with one USB cable. That's state-of-the-art nowadays.

Maybe you don't want to buy an amplifier. In this case a TRX with 200watts output might be a good idea.

Cheers
hammy

[xyrtek]

Thanks for the responses. Not a lot of recommendations though.

It's a broad hobby, and sometimes difficult to find simple answers. You will get lots of "ifs" or questions...etc.

Let me try a different approach:

Are there features in your current rig that surprised you with their usefulness?

Most hams (i know) have way more than one (pile of)equipment.....but i will try to answer your questions.

On my ft-1000mp mark v field every button seems to be in the right place and do what I think it should.

Are there missing features that you really wish were there?
All desk based transceivers should have IF outputs .

Have you made purchasing mistakes you aren't too embarrassed to share?
Most purchasing mistakes are inline with my suggestion few post above, antenna.

Please use more of your budget on antenna than any other gear.

[Electro Fan]

Hey apelly,

I'm not an experienced ham so my info probably won't be all that useful compared to what experienced hams can share but I'm on similar track as yourself - trying to figure stuff out.

When confronted with the question of "what bands do you want to operate on?" my answer was initially, "well, all of them, so I can figure out what the differences are and what is most useful and enjoyable".  That led to being initially intrigued with an all-band, all-mode Yaesu 991 which still looks interesting.  But after thinking about it for a while I decided to start with VHF and UHF.  I happened to have had a Baofeng HT (from a couple years ago that I had never used) which operates on both VHF and UHF and while not super exciting it provided some good learning experience on UHF and VHF, even with just 5 Watts.  Among other things it taught me about repeaters which not only increased range but it also helped me "meet" hams on the air - which in turn provided a lot of access to knowledge from informal Q&A in a very convenient manner (no travel required and whenever free time presents itself).

The next thing I figured out (duh) was that the antenna is a huge consideration.  For few $ you could probably make a VHF/UHF antenna and for not much more you can buy one.  I purchased an antenna and mounted it on a photography tripod and pretty quickly experienced the real world impact of vertical vs horizontal polarization plus I got some added range.  I have been able to use my HT with the tripod antenna and I also added a mobile VHF/UHF transceiver as a desktop which provides up to 50 Watts (although 10 Watts is often plenty).  I also added a SWR/Power Meter which provides some interesting insight.  Another component I kind of liked in this setup is an Alinco DM-330MV power supply.  It happens to have pretty low ripple for a switching power supply (look carefully and you will see the difference in the specs).

What VHF/UHF experience has done as a first step, beside learning some basic ham operating protocols, has been to help me better recognize more of what I needed to think about for HF.  It also opened up a different range of transceivers since I don't need to add VHF/UHF to the requirements - so now I'm looking for a transceiver that will do 6M thru 160M rather than an all-band transceiver.  (I could make a case for either but some people would say it's harder to make a great transceiver that spans HF and VHF/UHF; I don't know about this but I think learning on VHF/UHF will inform some decisions on HF.)  In any event, more so than the transceiver, I have found that the antenna is by far the toughest part of this ham journey and in my case finding a space for a 160M or even an 80M antenna is unlikely to happen given my location constraints.  Even 40M is a challenge in my space.  I suggest new hams give a lot of thought to what antenna(s) can fit physically and aesthetically into your space for the bands you expect to operate.  (In addition to the considering the physics of RF sometimes a spouse or the neighbors might have an opinion....)

Right up there with the antenna is proper grounding.  Figuring out how to safely and effectively deal with RF, lightning, and AC is pretty important and depending on your "shack" environment it could take some research and work.

I'm pretty sure I know what transceiver I'd like (a Kenwood 590SG) but I haven't determined what antenna - but I think I'd like something that can cover the bands from 10M to at least 20M and preferably 40M too; on the other end 6M would also be good.  As soon as you start thinking about multiple bands people will tell you that you are headed for a "compromise" antenna - there are a nearly infinite number of antenna designs and an equal or larger number of opinions on antenna designs.  In addition to band coverage (and SWR at frequencies within bands), and automatic vs. manual tuning adjustments, there are efficiencies and take-off angles, and I'm sure more considerations.  My goal is to be able to fairly readily make contacts across continents on several bands.... we'll see what it takes to make it happen.  One thing we don't seem to have control over is the solar cycle but I have a hunch propagation opportunities still ebb and flow within the current cycle.  It's kind of like reading about a distant travel location and I'm looking forward to actually experiencing it - hopefully pretty soon.

In trying to deal with antennas it looks like an external antenna tuner might or might not be useful (depends on the antenna and transceiver) but what looks very interesting, especially for EEV-type enthusiasts, is an antenna analyzer.  Again, there are plenty of choices but so far I've been looking at the MFJ-259 and 269, MFJ-223, various RigExperts, and the Saark-110 among others.  The tradeoffs include the bands you want to cover, how much PC-use you might want, and whether you want the true reactive signs - but what got me going on all this ham stuff was the desire to better understand the technology of RF at the hands on level - so I'm pretty fascinated by the visibility of signal properties provided by antenna analyzers.  The ability to see SWR simultaneously across multiple frequencies in a graphical format looks like a "gotta have" , and from there it seems like it could get deep pretty fast as you move toward Smith charts, Enzec, etc.

Some other considerations are of course the modes you want to operate - seems like you are headed down the CW path and I would guess the SSB voice path too; perhaps the various digital modes will be interesting too.  Drilling down a level there is the choice of cables and connectors.  I opted for Times Mirror LMR400 Ultraflex (and some LMR240UF) and where possible N connectors vs. UHF PL259/SO239, but be prepared to develop a collection of connectors and adapters including N, UHF, SMA, and BNC.

Additionally, there is the question of overall PC/transceiver integration including how to make an external panadapter (I'm keen to use the 590SG with a SDRPlay and HDSDR), and then there are a large set of choices regarding ham software for QSO logging and confirmation, DX cluster monitoring, and everything from rotator control to operating your toaster (ok, I made that one up).

Anyway, just some thoughts from another guy who is trying to find the path.  Hope something in here is useful for you and others early in the ham journey.

73   

[v81]

In considering getting back into ham radio after an absence.

Radio I'm looking at is the FT991

160m to 70cm, all mode (incl a digital mode)
100W output but still somewhat compact.
Internal antenna tuner (will be a basic one)

Would be a great 1st radio as it covers all bands and modes up to uhf, and that is the best way to keep you busy, and eventually find out what you use most.

Should leave enough can to buy some quality gear to go toward a good antenna.
Do the best you can for an antenna, this alone will play the biggest part in your results.

[djacobow]

My recommendation, for what it's worth -- I'm quite new to the hobby, too -- is to get an antenna set up and get an SDR receiver like the SDRplay, and get it working before you get a transceiver. This forces you work through a bunch of station-setup problems before you have kilodollars invested in a transceiver, sitting in a box unused in your shack, or you are frustrated by why it doesn't work properly.

With the receive-only radio, I was able to experiment with a few antenna options, figure out how to get the feed into my shack neatly, figure out what bands I cared about, try out listening and also decoding digital modes, etc. You also learn about whether you have a QRM problem, etc.

After all that, you've spend a few hundred bucks and you have a much better sense for whether you want in on the hobby full-bore. And when you key up the transceiver for the first time, it's much more likely to be a fun experience.