Cheapest FM dual-band mobile yet

  I came across the QYT KT-8900 on 409shop while shopping for a replacement speaker mic. It looks as if it's about one-third the size of a TYT TH-9000, runs 25W on 2M (20W on UHF), has FM broadcast, and can handle 200 channels. And it only costs $95 (free shipping).

  There is a fine print note saying, "Radio do not have repeater function". Yet, looking at the included video on the page, there are repeater offset options as you scroll through the menu. Per this review, it seems as if you need the programming software to make it repeater-capable. The review highlights several problems, but the 25W claim is basically backed up by testing to be 20W. There isn't a real S-meter -- it's either full-scale or not there. 

  The KT-8900 is even cheaper than the (poorly-reviewed) Juentai JT-6188 at $120 (20W rated, but actually less). 

  It's pretty clear that the KT-8900 isn't a great radio. Much like the Leixen VV-898, it's a "compromise" radio that's functional and offers more power than an HT. A lot of new hams don't find the atmosphere on VHF/UHF compelling, and are unwilling to drop several hundred (or a thousand) on a "nice" station for a mere hobby. Others might have repeaters close by within HT range, but want to try FM simplex without gambling a lot of money. The popular practise of "rig-shaming" also makes these cheap alternatives more attractive, because the message that many hear is that they just need more power. 

EDIT: The title was changed after Dustin pointed out that there are cheaper HTs on the market. The market is definitely shifting toward higher power, and away from better design.   

Loose Notes 6/14/15

Another quick run-down of the previous week's radio developments:

• I guess that there was some kind of MS 150-type event over the weekend, as there was a lot of APRS traffic indicating that. The Hinckley K0YTH-10 digipeater got a work-out, and a lot of traffic bounced off from that machine to the N9XH-4 (Balsam Lake, WI) digipeater, to the northern metro digipeaters (e.g. N0HOY-14 and K0LAV-8). The network of RX-only I-gates did a great job handling the extra load. 

• Another new digipeater has sprung up in Brooklyn Park. KC0KEP is located near the Crystal Airport, and the new digipeater has handled a lot of packets for the recent weekend event from Forest Lake and even further north. I'd rather see such a nice receiving setup acting as a gateway instead of a digipeater, but we need something in the NW metro. Hopefully, this new addition will stick around. 

• My new 15M dipole (with balun) has arrived in time for Field Day. Barry from Hy Power Antennas was as good as his word, and I'm ready to wade back into HF waters -- if only for a day. I'll be setting up in St. Louis Park with KE0NA (Dave) for QRP operation on 15M and 10M using voice and CW. Look for us on APRS to find out the band/mode we're working at the moment. I expect to have my 5W HT running into my three-element Yagi, and that should reach the local packet infrastructure just fine. 

• On Saturday (6/13), I was surprised to hear KE0NA on the local C4FM 442.925+ (114.8 PL) repeater. I was even more surprised when he told me that he was operating mobile on the 223.900- (100.0 PL) repeater. Obviously, the WIRES-X link to the 1.25M repeater has been restored by N0BVE (Don) over the course of the past week. The audio was strongly "digitised", and I scarcely recognised Dave's voice, but he was completely readable. The EchoLink node for the 224.660- (100.0 PL) has been down for a few weeks now, so the .925 is the best way to operate on 1.25M if you don't have a radio for the band. 

• Speaking of the 442.925, I had a chat there this week with KA8JRJ (Fred). He was operating on WIRES-X from Michigan through a hub in Texas. Per Fred, the WIRES-X room in Beaumont, TX connects several repeaters across the country and even into England. The local 442.925 machine is one of those repeaters linked to the Texas hub, so it's a good place to hang out for some out-of-state conversation. 

• I had my first 2M SSB contact this week! I was immensely surprised to hear KA0RYT (Ron) come back to me on CW, and he then suggested moving to SSB. I first heard someone on CW while casually listening on 144.200 with a vertical whip, so I put up my VHF Yagi hastily. It was set horizontally, and pointed east. This greatly improved the signal, and I was able to tune in precisely and get the callsign. The tone of the CW signal was a bit raspy, but I could copy it. After making contact, I learned that he was in Milaca (to the north-west), and I turned my beam towards Ron for even more improvement in the signal. At a distance of 50 miles, this was my furthest two-metre simplex contact yet.

• I put some LMR-240 coax on my Sirio GP-430 UHF ground-plane antenna this week, replacing the RG-8X that I've been using. This is the antenna that looks like a beer can with three radials sticking out. I've had the mount for about two months now, and I've been using it on UHF FM to get into the local amateur repeaters, as well as the local GMRS repeaters. It's very wide-band and shows flat SWR on all of the 440-MHz frequencies and even up into the 467 MHz GMRS repeater input frequencies. I've been relying on it heavily to reach the 442.425+ DMR repeater, as well. The radials provide a rock-solid signal that my other whips don't give me, and I no longer have to swap antennae to work GMRS. The upgrade to LMR 240 coaxial cable has given me (much) less noise from neighbours' electronics, and boosted reception by about one S-unit. 

• One of the first repeaters that I tried with the new coax was the 444.050+ (114.8 PL) in St. Paul. It's always been a challenging UHF repeater for me to reach. I got in well at 10W, and caught up with N0GOI (Terry). He's taking a well-deserved break from developing his various repeaters, but he still has plans to link the VHF 145.170- (100.0 PL) to the UHF 444.050 machine. Ultimately, he wants to create a cross-band linked network that would incorporate the NE Minneapolis 444.575+, the Hugo 443.050+, and the Foreston VHF and UHF repeaters into the previously-mentioned cross-band pair. It's an ambitious vision, but one that would create activity on currently-unused repeaters and expand coverage dramatically.      

Loose Notes 6/7/15

Yet another quick run-down on what's happened over the past week:

• The UHF 444.950+ (114.8 PL) repeater in White Bear Lake has experienced...something. I used to be able to reach this machine from my car, and even with an HT/stock duck indoors. This week, though, it takes a much better signal to even "ker-chunk" it. Even 5W with my exterior whip antenna is just ignored by the receiver. My 10W mobile has about 50/50 odds of "ker-chunking" the repeater now, when it used to be completely reliable driving around Plymouth.  It still seems be transmitting fine, as I get S9 here when I use sufficient power. The VHF .390 is working great, as always.

• The VHF repeater in Becker -- 147.345+ (85.4 PL) -- is also apparently down. This is a 600-foot powerhouse repeater that I've had QSOs on with under 10W, and now 50W into a beam results in only silence. 

• The VHF SNP HandiHam repeater on 145.230- (114.8 PL) is also performing much worse over the past week. Usually it came in here at least S6 with the exterior whip, but now it's barely above the noise floor at S3.

• The MGRC's feeble 443.700+ repeater seems to be off-air. Since it usually only came in at S2 from eight miles away, it's hard to tell. It was never listed on RepeaterBook, so there's nothing to update.

• Unknown to the parties involved, N0BVE (Don) has pulled the WIRES-X link between two other repeaters and his 444.925+ C4FM repeater: the 1.25M  223.900- (100.0 PL) and the UHF 442.175+ (100.0 PL) machines. WIRES-X is still working on the .925, as I just had a conversation with KG7NKG (David) in Idaho on the C4FM hybrid machine yesterday. The two de-linked repeaters still remain linked to each other, however.

•  I finally got the EchoLink node on the 145.370- (107.2 PL) repeater to work. K0MSP-L (node 9975) has never worked for me, but yesterday I switched from "Relay" to "Direct" mode and I was allowed in. Currently, it's connected to a conference server in Ireland, though there's no traffic on the repeater, and nobody else is allowed in. Weird...

• Speaking of EchoLink, KC0VRV (Matt) has set up a simplex node on UHF 446.025 in Hugo. Range is estimated at 5 to 8 miles. 

• Meanwhile, the TCFMC's putative node (mentioned on their site) has been continuously down for at least 18 months, and only working for about two weeks over the past two years. Is it really a node if it's never logged in? 

• There's a new APRS gateway in Ramsey. KE0BRY-10 has been in operation a few days, and is providing coverage on Hwy. 10 between Anoka and Elk River. it's also gating digipeated packets well into the metro. On the other hand, the KG9B gateway in Hudson has gone dark, and the AE0RF-10 RX-only gateway in St. Paul has switched to an experimental mobile gateway mode that may not be working as intended.

•  Previously, I mentioned running in to the 147.360+ (136.5 PL) repeater in Hampton during a road trip. K0JTA (Mike) felt confident that I could reach this repeater from my home in Plymouth during our conversation, so this past week I tried to do just that. I put my flimsy 2M Yagi on the tripod and aimed it, as best I could, toward Hampton. To my great surprise, I not only "ker-chunked" the Hampton repeater, but I carried on an extended QSO with Mike. I started out at 25W, and worked down to only 5W. I was still readable at 5W, though 15W worked better. The machine itself came back at S6. Even if you don't have a good enough antenna or enough power to work the .360, it has EchoLink (K0JTA-R). 

• I usually watch the 2M propagation maps daily, and last week had some very good conditions. It's not uncommon for the W0YC-5 gateway to reach Duluth, and for the N0AGI gateway to reach Mason City, IA! These maps work on the APRS signals received, and packet generally doesn't go as far as voice, so the actual conditions are probably better than what's shown. And, APRS is FM, so SSB will generally work farther, as it's a "weak signal" mode. Still, I've had no luck with my 2M beam running horizontally on 144.200 SSB or CW. 

• Yesterday (6/6) KE0NA and I had a chat on the local DMR repeater -- 442.425+ -- and we both noticed that the interference from the .850's remote receive site had decreased significantly. Not sure what was done, if anything, but I was able to get in to the repeater using an indoor whip from Plymouth while there was activity on the 145.850 machine. Dave noticed no packet loss, and we didn't get the "deny" tone indicating that the DMR receiver was swamped by the TX of the remote receive site. 

•  Also regarding DMR, KE0NA (Dave) now has fully-licensed Motorola programming software and working code-plugs. So, if you've hesitated about picking up a Motorola HT because you couldn't get it programmed, that's no longer an issue. There are also code-plugs available for the Connect Systems CS-700 DMR HT. They will soon be available on twintrbo.com, or you can just email me for the CS700 version. A code-plug is just a programming file that you load on to the radio. With DMR, programming is a lot harder than it is with an analogue FM radio, so it's nice to have something ready-made that is known to work. 

• With Field Day coming up, I've ordered a 15M dipole to set up in my brother's back yard. Look for me on 15M CW, because I'm a Tech. I'll be running QRP, and not contesting. I have options for 6M and 10M, too, so a "sked" can be set up if you want to experiment.

• N0BZZ (Randy) has informed me that LSAC is in danger of losing several of their sites, including the once-popular Isanti 443.325+ site. Per Randy, Verizon has been selling off towers to raise money, and these towers are used for several LSAC repeaters. The new owners (ATC) seem to be disinclined to allow other equipment on their new acquisitions. While this was supposed to be the time of year to rebuild the network, instead everything is up in the air. The Isanti site is the crucial link between the northern MN network and the metro area. This is potentially disastrous news for the future of linked networks in the state.

 

Satellite update

  Thanks go out to N0AGI (Nagi) for forwarding information about the new PSAT APRS/PSK31 satellite. For a while this weekend, KD0KZE had a gateway set up in Circle Pines to receive signals from the five APRS satellites on 145.825 simplex. KE0NA (Dave) is also experimenting with using 145.825 as the priority channel on his RX-only 145.390 gateway (KE0NA-11) in NE Mpls, but so far has gated no packets from the satellites. Nagi is the only person that has had any luck with this effort, to my knowledge. 

  Here is the text of the announcement from Bob Bruninga (WB4APR), who is the guy that pretty much invented APRS: 

I forgot to post here on APRSSIG the exciting success of the new APRS satellite, PSAT including its PSK31 Transponder allowing both APRS digipeating and PSK-31 multi-user communications.  Launched on 20 May.  See http://aprs.org/psat.html

What we need is more IGates bringing the downlink into the APRS-IS.  So, if you have a spare radio and can run another IGate instance, we invite you to tune it to 145.825.  The satellite signal is weak with only 350 mW, but when it is over your station, it is 10 dB stronger than on the horizon.  A good OSCAR class station has no problems…

I don’t expect anyone to wear out their rotators tracking PSAT, no, just a simple vertical over a ground plane will do.  Either a 19” vertical whip over a large 6 foot square ground plane or even better, a 58” vertical monopole over the ground plane.  This ¾ wavelength vertical has almost 7 dBi gain and will pick up signals during the few minutes overhead.  If we have enough of these simple omni monitoring stations/igates then the fact that they only receive near overhead is made up for by the larger number of such simple stations.

The larger ground plane (as large as possible) gets closer to the theoretical 3 dB gain of a reflector.

   As Bob mentioned, the PSAT satellite also has a transponder for the PSK31 digital mode -- and it operates on ten metres! 

  You can listen to the PSAT on 435.350 using FM and transmit on 28.120 SSB. There's more information on this uplink/downlink scheme here. Using ten metres will minimise the Doppler shift. Per the site, "The Doppler on the 10m band is about 15 times less than on 70 cm and changes at a rate between about 1 to 5 Hz per second". Also, it's claimed that a vertical monopole will work well enough to reach the satellite, so you don't need to wrangle big 10M beams. This might be an excellent use for 1/4-wave ground-plane antennae, as the higher radiation angle (take-off) works in your favour.

  The problem is that this arrangement only works well with full duplex. I'm thinking that I can use a UHF HT to receive the signal and use my Android phone's "Droid PSK" app to decode it. Meanwhile, my FT-897 would transmit using a SignaLink TNC. 

  PSK31 signals are only slightly wider in bandwidth than CW, and up to thirty simultaneous QSOs can be carried by the transponder. So, it's not like an FM satellite where only one person at a time can use it. This might be an opportune time to finally set your rig up for digital modes.

  You can check out the predicted passes for the PSAT here. Select "PSAT" from the drop-down menu. Remember to subtract five hours for Central Dayight Time, and realise that this may change the day. There are, of course, apps that can run on your phone and even alert you to upcoming passes. 

  In general terms, it looks as if there's regularly a pass around midday (here in Minneapolis) that's reasonably high and at least ten minutes long. There are also some very nice passes around 9 AM. Nothing in the evening. 

  Aside from the PSAT, a new FM satellite will be launched in late August of this year. This is the Fox 1, and some basic info on it can be found here. It's expected to have a larger "footprint" than the SO-50 satellite that most are familiar with, and the uplink/downlink frequencies are reversed from the SO-50. For the SO-50, you transmit on 2M and listen on UHF. For the Fox 1, you transmit on UHF (435.180 67.0 PL) and listen on two metres (145.980 center). 

  More Fox satellites are expected to be put into orbit, with at least one being digital. 

  Don't forget the FUNCube-1 (AO-73), if you have a dual-band radio that can handle SSB. The transponder is only working at night, and we have regular passes here sometime between 10 and midnight that are decently high and about twelve minutes long. For this satellite, you transmit on UHF LSB (lower sideband) around 435.140 and listen on 2M USB around 145.960 -- adjusting for Doppler shift. 

  The FUNCube might be interesting to try on Field Day, when other bands close for the evening. 

  This summer, the EO-79 will turn on its transponder and we will have yet another SSB satellite available. 

  Just listening to satellites can be fun, and gives you valuable practice in spotting and tracking them so that you'll be ready when you get a chance to transmit. And using packet FM (APRS) to reach an APRS satellite is pretty easy, without worrying about reception, offsets, and mode.