This episode of HamTalk Live is brought to you
by Tower Electronics. For cables, connectors,
and more, call 920 -435 -2973 or visit pl -259
.com and by the HamStation. Get your new radio
or antenna by calling 800 -729 -4373 or go to
hamstation .com. Here we go Welcome to Hamtop
Live Calling Let's Talk Neil's your guy Hamtop
Live Here we go on Hamtop Radio Good evening
everyone time for another episode of HamTalk
Live. This is episode number 46, receiver comparisons
and beverages with Dave Anderson K4SV, recorded
live on Thursday, January 5th, 2017. I'm your
host, Neil Rapp, WB9VPG. Thanks for tuning into
this episode of HamTalk Live. Tonight we'll be
joined by Dave Anderson K4SV. Dave is going to
take your questions about comparing receivers
and using beverage antennas. We'll take your
calls live in just a few minutes and I'll let
you know when it's time to do that. Last week
Emmett was here, Emmett Honesty III, W0QH, the
chief engineer from Radio Waves, and he was here
to talk about antenna building. And we had more
calls and tweets than we could possibly handle
last week. So we're going to have him back soon.
And we'll talk about the Hamvention Superstation
that's going to take place at this year's Dayton
Hamvention. And we'll take more of your antenna
questions. So we'll have him on in a few weeks.
So if we didn't get to you, we'll try to get
those taken care of at that point. If you missed
that show. All you got to do is pull up hamtalklive
.com and you can listen on demand or if you're
a podcast fanatic, we are also on most of the
podcasting services like iTunes, Stitcher, Google
Play, TuneIn, SoundCloud, YouTube, all those
kinds of things. So you can catch us on those
as well. Before we take a break here and talk
to Dave, just want to mention That John Amadeo
NN6JA dropped me a note with some great news
saying that the ratings of Last Man Standing
on ABC have continued to climb. They set a new
high mark in households total viewers at 3 .06
million and matching its all -time highs among
adults 18 to 49 and adults 25 to 54 a whopping
43 % rating growth. since last man standing september
launch and there's indications that it's going
to keep going up so while some shows are known
to experience growth in the first months in syndication
as new reviewers discover them they don't usually
have such a a steep upward trajectory so that's
kind of rare and right now they're the number
four ranked show in syndication so the syndication
thing is going really well for them and and gets
a little bit of word about ham radio out there
so if you want to hear more about last man standing
and how ham radio ties into that show check out
ham talk live episode number 40 when john is
on the air with us Okay, well get your beverage
questions ready to go and some receiver comparisons
Get those questions ready to go. We're going
to talk to Dave here for just a bit and then
we will take your calls How you can reach us
when it's time for calls? The number is 812 -NET
-HAM -1. That's 812 -638 -4261. And you can also
Skype us at HamTalk Live. You can also tweet
your questions. Even right now, you can tweet
your questions, and that's at HamTalk Live. But
we'll take your calls live after we take a break
and talk to Dave for a while. So we'll be back
with Dave right after this word from the Ham.
HamStation right here on HamTalk Live. This episode
of HamTalk Live is brought to you by The HamStation.
For over 37 years, The HamStation has sold new
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1 -800 -729 -4373 to place an order and talk
it over with the experts. The HamStation, proud
to sponsor this episode of HamTalk Live. Out
of all of the ham radio podcast in the world,
this is definitely one of them. You are listening
to Ham Talk Live with Neil Rapp WB9VPG. Welcome
back to Ham Talk Live. HamStation has you covered
with both the new and used equipment. Give them
a call. Dan or Jeff at 800 -729 -4373 or go to
hamstation .com. Tell them you heard it right
here on HamTalk Live. HamTalk Live is on the
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right here on hamtalklive .com. And if you missed
the show you can listen to the archive on the
website. or download it from most popular podcasting
websites. Dave Anderson, K4SV, was first licensed
as a novice in 1974 after learning about amateur
radio while living with his parents in Germany
for the United States Army. He liked electronics
and tinkered with simple circuits until he became
licensed. For his first job he was hired by a
ham to work as a repair tech in radio paging.
He went to school and became an engineer and
worked on telephone equipment and Dave met some
hams who owned some two -way radio companies
and they needed some new products that would
give them features that they could then sell.
And so Dave started working from his garage to
build innovative products to sell to these two
-way dealers all over North and South America.
Uh, as the business grew, which enabled him to
quit his job and focus on expanding his company.
Dave owns, owes his success in commercial two
-way radio to his hobby of Hammond radio. Uh,
because of his fondness of CW, he conducts code
as well as theory classes. Dave is now at the
top of the DXCC honor roll having worked all
339 DXCC entities. As a DXpeditioner, he's worked
from many remote and much needed locations and
has been as far south as Peter One Island and
west to Baker Island and Bhutan on to Africa.
Dave is the director of CEDCO, that's the Southeast
DX and Contesting Organization, and the W4 DXCC.
He puts many hours into bringing people into
the a hobby. So Dave, thank you so much for coming
on to ham talk live. Thanks a lot, Neil. And
thanks for the invite. I'm always happy to help
out wherever I can. So if you guys have some
questions, fire away, I'll be happy to answer
whatever I can. Very good. And before we get
going here, I do want to mention that Dave's
been very, very generous to the high school club
that I work with, that I sponsor, and has helped
us get some code classes going and get some equipment
taken care of that really benefited the group.
can't thank you enough for that. And I know that
you do all kinds of things to help bring people
into the hobby and keep them going. And so many
thanks for all that you do on that. Oh, you're
very welcome. And thanks. I'm always here to
help whenever I can. Well, why don't you tell
us a little bit about some of the evaluations
that you do of receivers and comparing performance
from one receiver to another and picking the
right rig for what you want to accomplish. What
are some of the things that you do to do those
comparisons? Well, I've been fortunate. I know
a lot of people and I've had a lot of radios
myself. My goal is DXing primarily. I chase DX
on all the bands from 160 through 10 meters.
I've done some EME work and I've just done a
lot of different things. However, you know everybody
has a different budget. My budget may be different
than yours or someone else's and someone with
skill can make their rigs do just about anything.
But not everybody has the skill and they need
to start out somewhere. So in my DXing and chasing
DXing I love 160 meters and that requires some
skill and some equipment. As far as receivers
and being able to compare one to the next, the
state of the art these days is excellent. You'll
find with most of the radios anymore, there's
not two bits of difference from a operational
standpoint where the human ear can actually hear.
There are radios tested by Sherwood that show
up to be better than other radios, but if you
actually operate them, most people can't tell
the difference. between one type of radio and
the other. So that really leads to the ergonomics.
And in ergonomics, for those that may not know
that term, are of the operational. Where are
the VFO located? Where is the volume and the
RF gain? And how easy is it to operate? Do I
have to go into a menu to operate it? Do I have
to have other equipment associated with it to
operate? So really, It depends on your budget,
but I really think that most radios that you
find today under most conditions will provide
about the same performance. Of course, you can
spend a lot of money and get really great performance,
or you can spend a reasonable amount of money
and get excellent performance. So, you know,
I can't really put my finger on one or the other,
but the new DSP technology of today is pretty
great stuff. Yeah, now we had Rob Sherwood that
you alluded to on back on episode 29 and it's
been one of our most popular episodes and he
gets in and talks about A little you know a lot
about what you say is a lot of these rigs the
modern rigs are pretty equivalent. There's not
a huge difference in those and so it comes down
to you know other things and he does all the
measurements of you know what's going to get
the most out of the receiver but it also really
comes down to what you can afford and what you
like as far as the ergonomics and how clean the
transmitter is as well. So what are some of those
things that you specifically look for when you're
picking a rig as far as the ergonomics go. Well,
you want to be able to have more of the new modern
features. So having a radio with a screen, perhaps
a radio with a spectrum analyzer on it, allowing
you to be able to look at the signals up and
down from where you are is beneficial, whether
you're using that radio for contesting or you're
using that radio for DXing and chasing signals.
finding out where people are calling the DX station.
Having a spectrum analyzer is today a very common
thing. Some radios have them as an external box,
such as the Ullacraft. Some of them have them
internally, such as some of the ICOM gear and
the Kenwood gear. Or radios like Flex, which
either use an external box called a Maestro,
which is kind of a radio front panel, or you
can use your computer. But in all these new radios,
they support a spectrum analyzer, which is very
beneficial. So when you use a radio, you need
at least to have a good RF gain control. Having
your radio at full RF gain is not always beneficial.
In the low bands, and as we move into the low
part of the sunspot cycle, we're going to find
that the lower bands are going to be where most
of the QSOs are going to be made over the next
few years. So if you don't have, I suggest you
put up an antenna for 80, maybe 160 meters and
certainly 40 and 30 meters, because I think we're
going to see most of the action below 17 meters
over the next few years. Yeah. And we're going
to have a show on sunspot cycles here soon. And
that it's definitely causing a change in those
bands that you. you pick out. So yeah, the analyzers
are great. Yeah, the spectrum analyzer anymore
is very handy Some of the radios have touch screens
where you can touch the front of it and make
the radio do things It's more akin to the state
-of -the -art much like a smartphone or an iPad
or a tablet of some kind where the humans are
now finding that the ergonomics on these things
are Transitioning between a box with just knobs
on it to a box with both touch screens and knobs
there were a combination of both, which makes
it user -friendly where people can actually work
on listening to the actual signals on there.
Now, and I don't want to pontificate on a whole
lot of this, but I will tell you that really
a good pair of headphones, a good modern receiver,
even though you can use the HeathKit HW101 and
still make contacts, there's absolutely nothing
wrong with that. But what happens is with signals
that are weak in the noise, you need a radio
that doesn't generate a lot of internal noise
in the receiver. most modern receivers have very
low noise so you're able to copy some receivers
have better software which allows you to copy
weak signals in a noisy environment especially
on the low bands and that's where I hang out
and I have a few favorites that I use specifically
for just that reason as the software develops
on these radios we're going to get better and
better performance but as it is today we're going
to find that several of the top four of the radios
work better than others in this particular situation.
OK, very good. Some good pointers on picking
out a rig. Now, when we talk about receiving,
One of the things, and I'll admit I am not very
familiar with these at all, but one of the things
is a good receive antenna that kind of eliminates
some of that noise, and you're a bit of an expert
on these beverage antennas. So tell us a little
bit about the beverage antennas, how those work,
and what some of the pros and cons are of that.
Well, let me tell you you know again in the hunt
for DX I have 288 countries confirmed on 160
meters that's My passion, I love the low bands,
but it's difficult. It's not like 20 meters where
you can turn on any time day and night and work
people all over the world. You have to wait for
specific times. And so to have that ability,
you need to actually put up what's called a receiving
antenna. And a beverage is a type of receiving
antenna. It's not a stack of beer cans. It's
actually a wave antenna that's... consists of
a wire of a decent length suspended over the
ground, sometimes laying on the ground, which
it's then called a beverage on ground or a bog
antenna. But a good beverage antenna is between
three and four feet above the ground, and it's
pointed in the direction that you want to listen.
It's easy to do, nothing scientific about it.
my friend Bill W4ZV, which we call him Mr. 160,
he can hear everybody. So I went to his house
to learn the magic of beverages. Well, believe
it or not, it's not very scientific. You can
read books and everything and they tell you need
to slope the ends this way and do this and adjust
that Well my experiences and I've got lots of
beverages and I've put them up in all my friend's
house That you and this is right out of Bill's
mouth He says run it as far as you can drop it
to the ground and terminate it. There's nothing
scientific But let me tell you what it gives
you is a directional antenna made from just $20
worth of wire. The wire could be old aluminum
animal electric fence wire. It can be number
12 house wire. It can be speaker wire. It can
be anything. So essentially you run it. from
one point in the direction that you want to listen.
And it provides a very directional antenna, attenuating
noise from the back and off the sides. And on
the low bands, and it works all the way up through
30 meters very well. You listen in a cone towards
the direction you're listening and it improves
the signal to noise so you're not hearing noise
from behind you and off the side of you. It's
an excellent antenna and very easy to use. I've
probably put up 20 myself and my friends all
have them and you go to your favorite antenna
store and mine is Home Depot. I go there and
I can source everything I need. I get the PVC
pipe, the tees, the two -foot rebar, and you
take it home and you build yourself this antenna
and it works great. interface that beverage antenna
into your station. So are you using a separate
radio? Are you using a switch? How do you how
do you toggle between the two? Obviously, I guess
a separate radio would be nice, but that's not
always affordable. Yeah, that's not probably
what you want to do because you're going to need
to be able to listen and transmit. So here's
what you need to do. Since this is just a receive
antenna, it's a wave antenna, okay, and so if
you can visualize for just a second, having a
long piece of wire, and imagine the electromagnetic
waves coming in from the direction that the antenna
is pointing to. As they strike the wire, they
convert from a magnetic wave to an electric wave.
excuse me, provide electric electron flow in
the wire and from the far side, which is generally
terminated with a 470 ohm resistor to a ground
rod, the electrons are pushed by the radio waves
down the wire to the back side of the wire and
back there you wind yourself a 9 to 1 transformer
made from a binocular core two turns to five
turns and those two turns come out as 75 ohms
and use regular RG6 and you run it from a little
box that you make at the back of the receive
antenna and you run it into the shack Now, depending
upon what kind of radio you have, if you have
a radio that does not have a receive antenna
input, and most of the modern radios do, you
can buy a couple interface boxes. One's made
by DX Engineering. Another one's made by MFJ.
And what it does is it takes your standard antenna
port on your radio. And when you're not transmitting,
it switches that antenna over to a second and
that's where you would hook your receive antenna.
and you would receive like you would off of your
main transmit antenna, but it would actually
switch over on receive, and when you went to
transmit it switches back and then transmits
out on your transmit antenna. And that's the
general way of improving receive on the low bands.
If you have a receive antenna on your radio,
of course you hook that RG6 to the back of your
radio, select it on the radio, and now you're
listening on the receive and transmitting on
your transmit antenna. It's just about that easy.
The last trick to this is people always ask me,
should I put a preamp in there because the audio
is really low and the signals are low? Well,
not only is the signal low, but the difference
between the noise level and the signal level
has increased due to the fact it's a directional
antenna pointing in the direction that you're
trying to hear and this gives you a better signal
to noise and you can use the internal preamp
internal to the radio but the object is not to
amplify the heck out of it to a point where it's
just as loud as the transmit antenna. So that's
really the receive antenna in a nutshell. They're
very easy to make. All this stuff is available
at your local hardware store, and I can put up
one now in an hour's time, and they work excellent.
Very good information appreciate you sharing
that with us and I'm sure some people have some
questions about that so when we come back we
will start taking your calls again that number
is 812 Net Ham 1 we will open that up shortly
I'll let you know when when to do that, but you
can get ready to call in. You can go ahead and
tweet us if you want to. In fact, we've got a
couple of questions already on Twitter. Our handle
is at HamTalk Live. So we'll be back with Dave
and take your questions right after this word
from Tower Electronics right here on HamTalk
Live. This episode of HamTalk Live is brought
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So now it's time for your calls So if you have
a question now is the time to call it's 8 1 2
net Ham 1 8 1 2 6 3 8 4261 or you can Skype us
at HamTalk Live or you can also tweet HamTalk
Live and we're going to start off with a question
from Twitter. It's from KZeroMD Dr. Scott Wright
and he says, Hi Dave, thanks for all of the technical
evaluations and practical articles you write
on the hobby and he wants to know what is the
minimum DR3 and RMDR you think the low band DXer
needs or the contestor needs. So, Dave? Well,
now we're getting a little bit more technical.
We're getting just a little more technical, aren't
we? So to not take it too into the technical,
because we could be here all night and I think
we'll run out of time, I will tell you that the
high -end radios have very good reciprocal mixing
dynamic range numbers. Generally, as you know,
Sherwood measures all this stuff. Really it's
all about listening to signals without having
the radio cause you trouble through trying to
decode weak signals or strong signals that are
actually located adjacent to you. And in the
case of contesting, you want really good numbers
where you're not hearing the guy beside you.
But what ends up happening is the guy beside
you has not the best transmitter and you end
up having trouble with that. And so it kind of
affects your radio. So not to dodge. Scott's
question. I think that really the key here is
to have a radio that is able to copy weak signals
and do it in such a way that the internal DSP
can discern signals that are coherent, that are
normal, what you would have with a intelligible
signal versus wideband noise, and be able to
decode the coherent signal during the weak conditions
or perhaps in high QRN conditions and that I'm
not sure is related necessarily to an RMDR or
a DR3 number. I think that has to do a lot with
the way the software is set up in the radio.
So if that's an answer that's the best one I
can give you. Without a couple hours of... Yeah,
I mean, we'd have to open a beer or something
and talk over for an hour. So at this point,
I think your best choice is to find a radio of
the available radios that works the best for
you in that condition. All right. And speaking
of that, grab your favorite beverage and then
give us a call. Not a beverage antenna, but give
us a call and ask about Beverage antenna or anything
else you want to ask Dave at eight one two net
ham one for The alpha challenge that's eight
one two six three eight four two six one or you
can Tweet us at ham talk live or Skype us at
ham talk live So we would like to take your questions
for Dave K4 SV So give us call 812 -NET -HAM
-1. Neil, I don't mean to interrupt, but I find
in this hobby that everybody loves to do stuff,
but a lot of people are afraid to just go out
and do something. For whatever reason, they're
unsure that the outcome will be a good one or
not. Well, I think that everybody needs to go
build some antennas. First of all, they're not
super scientific. You can build simple antennas
or complex antennas, but in reality, everybody
needs to have several different kinds of antennas.
So if we take our beverage antenna, for example,
people hear that and they go, oh, goodness, this
has to be difficult to do. Trust me, it is so
easy. I could give you a list. If you want to
send me an email, I'll send you a list of parts
you need to come up with. And the only complex
part in the whole antenna is sourcing a binocular
core. I think they're 55 cents at Mauser and
you wind it with whatever wire. It's a very simple
project. So what I would say is don't be afraid
to attempt an antenna project. You may be on
a postage stamp size lot. That's okay. You'd
be surprised at what antennas you could actually
build and have a whole lot of fun operate Very
good. Well, actually that was what I was getting
ready to ask was how would you suggest going
about making a beverage or a Similar antenna
I also heard I heard on on a friend's podcast
that Some people are saying that they're going
to, instead of beverage antennas, they're going
to multiple verticals. What's your thoughts on
that? Well, I will tell you that since we were
talking about beverage, I have five, six different
types of antennas here at my house. I'm fortunate
I moved to the country. One of my best and best
performing antennas is a product made by Hi -Z,
now sold under DX Engineering. It's called an
8 circle. It has 8 24 -foot verticals in a 200
-foot diameter circle, and its primary job is
a rotatable directional antenna. Now it doesn't
physically move. You switch the direction remotely
from the shack and you point it in whatever direction.
And it has a very good RDF value of 12 -13, which
is very directional. That is a great antenna.
That's maybe out of the range for a lot of people
because of its physical size. However, you could
go with a smaller antenna called a four -square.
It uses also 24 foot high verticals. You rotate
it in four different directions. It's easy to
hook up and make that work. You can also build
what's called a waller flag, which is essentially
a couple vertical loops. that are rotatable.
You can have a number of antennas, and the key
to it is some days the beverages work better,
some days my rotatable 8 circle works better.
So really, if you have all that, you're in high
cotton. All right, very good. And we do have
a call on the line. Who's this? Hi, Brian. Thanks
for calling in. What's your question for Dave
tonight? Yeah, I'm curious. Has he ever messed
with the beverage on the ground, the type of
beverage on tenner? The very standard beverage?
Yeah, Brian I actually have I've installed bog
antennas beverage on ground antennas There's
nothing wrong with a bog antenna The only downside
is is it's located Since it lays on the ground
a lot of the signal that is picked up by the
antenna is coupled directly to ground So what
you will find is that the signal coming off of
a bog antenna. It's still directional is lower
than which would get from a regular beverage
three or four feet off of the ground but it is
a directional antenna. A friend of mine lives
in a city when he needs to work DX he goes out
at night and he lays an antenna right on the
street. couple bricks in the curb and right over
in the cars drive over it and everybody's happy
and he lays it out across the neighborhood and
when he's done he rolls it back up there's nothing
to matter with the bog antenna they're just lower
signal output brian go ahead okay well i thank
you and uh thanks neil for the show i'll be listening
to the rest of it all right brian thanks for
giving us a call okay no problem all right bye
now 812 net ham one eight one two six three eight
four two six one is the phone number or you can
Skype us at ham talk live we have about five
minutes remaining so if you want to make a call
and ask a question now's the time to do so it's
eight one two net ham one or you can tweet us
you can reach us via Twitter if you don't want
to call in that's at ham talk live So yeah, I
kind of heard about the vertical thing and found
that interesting. What's your feelings on the
SDR versus the Super Heterodyne? I know you said
you like the ergonomics of having the analyzer.
What's your thought on that? Well, Neil, I'm
fortunate. I have a Flex 6700 and an ICOM 7851
and a K3 here. And all of them I use. The newest
technology out is what's called direct sampling.
That's what you'll find in a ICOM 7300 and the
new announced 7610 that will be available probably
around date and time and what the Flex does.
Flex came out with it first and it's a really
cool technology. It takes RF and directly to
baseband into the DSP. The DSP does all the detection
and provides see audio to the human who needs
it in analog form. One of these days we'll get
it in digital form, but not today. As soon as
we get assimilated by the Borg, is that? That's
absolutely right. You hook it up to your input
port and you're good to go. But really, truly,
all the radios work very well. I'm an old guy,
I guess I'm 60, and I really like radios with
knobs. And I will tell you, when you're listening
on the radio, it doesn't matter what band. When
you're trying to listen for a weak signal while
DXing, you have to concentrate. And I find it
best with a radio with knobs because my brain
tells my fist to move the knob one way or the
other to... allow my brain to tweak in the signals.
My preference is rather than a PC based SDR and
they've got them all over the place now from
very low cost $20 things through hundreds of
thousands of dollar SDRs. They all have their
merits and they're all great but I really truly
like something with a knob because it provides
the human control over the actual listening of
a signal directly without having to move a mouse
or roll a wheel or do something like that. So
that's my personal preference. As far as performance
goes, I have all three radios and I tend to want
to use the radios with knobs versus my PC controlled
ones. So if that helps you at all, and the radios
of today are awesome performance. I just think
they're great. Yeah, they are. And I too, I got
to have that knob now. It could be, you know,
a USB knob, you know, it could be something like
that, but just, and it's got to be a heavy knob
too. It can't be some real light knob. It's got
to be a heavy knob. Yeah, and I think somebody
that has maybe a hand -me -down TS -520 or a
radio like that, which is perfectly fine, that
wants to jump into the new radio. You know, I
hate to recommend one brand over the other, but
you need to look, when you buy a radio, what
features you can get for the amount of money
that you're going to spend. And I think the best
deal on the market today is the ICOM for a ham
that is trying to replace an old radio that wants
some of the features like a spectrum analyzer
and DSP and direct sampling the ICOM 7300 is
hard to beat and I think it goes for about $1
,300 these days but for a starter radio or someone
is just getting into the hobby that would like
to buy something modern and state -of -the -art
I don't know that is a hard hard choice of course
there's lots of used gear and I'm not discounting
that there's a lot of good stuff but for the
dollar spent and the bang for the buck the ICOM
for me is a good choice and I usually recommend
that to a lot of people that ask yeah it's an
excellent excellent choice and I've been a Kenwood
fan all my life, but this the 7300 is starting
to make me Shift a little bit because well You're
right. When I first got licensed in 1974, I had
bought HeathKit HR -10 and a DX60B and a HG -10
VFO. And I got my advanced a few months later
and I went to Henry Radio at the time. I think
HRO used to be a lot of the Henry stores. And
I bought, with my mom's help, for $629 a Kenwood
TS -520. And boy, was that a great radio. I had
Kenwoods all the way up through the eight seventies,
and I ended up switching over to an ICOM 756
Pro from Ray Novak. And I really love the ICOM
stuff. The spectrum analyzer for me is a key
feature of using the radio. Yeah, I'm going to
have to cut you off. Sorry, but well, that's
a wrap for ham talk live this week. Be sure to
join us next week John Davis will be here to
talk about D star So seven three seven five and
may the good DX be yours Seven three and good
luck from ham talk live