Amateur Radio
I recently bought a new ham radio. That being the Alinco DJ-S41T. Its one of those new mini-ht's that can operate on the 70cm band. Its receive and transmit range is between 420.00MHz to 449.990MHz. The radio (with its antenna folded down) is almost exactly the size of my mouse (the Microsoft one with the wheel in between the two buttons). Obviously, it fits in the palm of your hand, and it can easily fit in a pocket. However, it is a bit bulky with its tiny belt clip attached. I guess if you have the belt clip that means you are going to clip it too your belt so it probably doesn't really matter how bulky it is in your pocket. It's output power is selectable from approximately 340mw to all of 10mw. While that may not seem like much, you have to remember that 70cm, in fact all UHF is totally and completely line of sight. Therefore, when I am above most of the buildings, I can actually hit a repeater that is approximately 40 miles (Long Beach, 405 near the Long Beach Airport to the Sunset repeater) away! That is amazing if you ask me. Anyway, I will not go into too much technical information, you can go to the Alinco web site for that. I must say that this is indeed an extremely high-class radio for an extremely low price. There is even a modification that will extend its RX and TX range into the FRS (the "Family Radio Service") band. I saw it at QRZ.COM in the modification section. I'll probably be doing that after my warranty runs out. Anyway, a real quality radio at a real good price. I definitely recommend it. If you have any further questions, feel free to e-mail me. I'll try to clear things up as best I can. Here is some technical information from the instruction pamphlet:
Another radio in my three-radio collection is my Radio Shack HTX-404. It too is a 70cm hand-held transceiver, which has an operating frequency range between 430MHz-450MHz. However, Radio Shack has decided to ship them with a 440MHz-450MHz range. If you haven't changed it already, the procedure is a follows: press F+A while turning on the radio. After the radio is on release the keys and the press and hold the F key while pressing 9 8 7 6 in that order. Anyway, the radio has packet capability with the use of a terminal node controller (TNC). A few features of the radio: it has tone-coded squelch (CTCSS) encoding and decoding (38 sub-audible tones, presumably the standard ones), various DTMF features (more later...), and selectable power output. Of course that's not all, the HTX-404 impressively sports 16 memory slots: one calling frequency setting (basically one button frequency selection), three priority frequencies, and 12 standard memories. There really is no difference between the priority and standard memories except for the fact that the scanning options for the priority frequencies are greater. Anyway, to continue jumping back and forth, the HTX-404's DTMF (touch-tone codes, like the ones your phone uses, that are sent along with the transmission. However, these tones are more audible then the CTCSS tones) capabilities include: sending DTMF codes manually, sending them via memory slots, or having them sent automatically when the unit receives a correct incoming DTMF code. Here's some more jumping around for you, transmit power output can vary from 0.5 watts (low) to 1.5 watts (with its included nickel-cadmium battery pack at 7.2v DC) then 2.5 watts (with its included alkaline battery pack at 9v DC) and finally 5 watts (from a 12v DC or greater power supply) Overall, this radio is definitely worth its money. I really don't know if they are still even producing these units anymore. However, if you can get your hands on one, do it! You will not be disappointed. After the purchase of my Alinco DJ-S41T, the HTX-404 now is my mobile radio. I have it running off my cigarette lighter but am combating some ignition and other noise. If you have any ideas on how to get rid of that stuff, drop me a line! Here is the technical information from the manual:
I just bought another radio. Seeing as how I already own two 70cm radio's, I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon and get a 2 meter. Surprise, surprise when I chose an Alinco DJ-190. This one is not a mini radio. It's not a full size either. It wins because its thin, with the included alkaline pack at any rate. I really don't have much of an opinion of this radio. This is my first 2m after all. However, one thing that I have noticed is that it gobbles up batter power! I don't know how long the rechargables last, but the alkalines will only last about 6 hours. This while doing a 10% tx, 10% rx, 80% standby duty cycle under lower power (500mw). I'll go straight into the technical mumbo jumbo from the manual. I'm not aware of any mods that can be done to this unit. But I feel that's partly due to the fact that I haven't looked! If you find something the drop me a line. Here is the technical information from the instruction manual:
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