Just thought this may be of interest to some people.
Someone told me that they’d read on Southgate ARC’s news about Alinco’s new handheld. Although the radio has not been launched yet, it is certain to create some interest.
The radio is to be called DJ-G7 and it will cover 2m, 70cms and 23cms, with 1 watt RF on 23cms.
Knowing of Alinco’s history of cheap prices, this rig could be a real gem. Some people complain about the quality of Alinco, but I have had a DJG5EY handheld for 12 years and it still performs well.
Looking forward to getting on to 23cms in the not too distant future I hope!
1W is not to be sniffed at. FM only but beggars can’t be choosers as there’s not much 23cms gear knocking about.
There’s a MM 23cms transverter on eBay but the bloke selling is asking £275. ROTFLMAO! £275 for a MM transverter - that’s insanity. Especially as he only paid £150 for it the day before he put it on eBay. Go on ask me how I know.
Unless I missed it I didn’t see any date on when you can buy the Alinco unit. But we do need someone to fix the exchange rate because at £438 (that’s the straight conversion not including W&S or MLS Tax) Alinco might not get too many takers!
Interesting Colin. I notice there is no mention of it on Alinco’s website yet, but there is reference to it on a French website. All the ‘big’ amateur radio companies Icom,Yaesu and Kenwood have in the past made handhelds with 23cms (though I have never come across any of the Kenwood handhelds), but nobody currently has a handheld model in production, so it would be nice to see Alinco in the ‘running’ (it will be interesting to see the price tag !). I too have had a DJ-G5 for long, long time. The supplied Ni-Cd died many years ago but the rig itself has never let me down.
Anyway, I look forward to working you from a summit on 23cms sometime in the not too distant future. There are a few of us activating on 23cms, in fact Gerald G4OIG and Ian GW8OGI were both out on summits using 23cms today, and there are a number of amateurs in the North West of England with 23cms capability to work you.
In reply to MM0FMF:
Hehe, you’ve not had the : “Those inevitable price increases” message from ML&S then Andy?
It’s the header for their latest email newletter ad.
I’ve been looking for a used 23cm HT for ages - thought there might be one or two lying, unused, in attics somewhere…
They should provide far superior results to FM handies.
Just what I thought Richard, but from the start I was very surprised by the performance of my Standard C710 and once a half decent antenna is attached, then it really does come into its own. I have done comparative tests with my transverter which has a pair of Gasfets in the front end (measured 1dB NF) and there’s virtually nothing between them in terms of sensitivity though I’ve not had the C710 tested for NF.
In my opinion the advantage of using a transverter is that you can run SSB and CW on the band, but therein lies an issue. Outside of contest time, who is there to work? I know this as I have an FT-736R and 10 watts from home, but 23cms SSB QSOs happen once in a blue moon. I prefer to use SSB, but even so in my experience FM holds its own for SOTA activations (did I really say that?).
As for where are all those 23cms handhelds, I wonder whether many were sold in this country. I advertised for mine on the flea market and consider myself extremely fortunate to have been offered one.
73, Gerald
P.S. If anyone was wondering, Ian GW8OGI/P on Tal y Fan NW-040 yesterday was a absolutely huge signal with me on Billinge Hill SP-017. 59+ both ways - Ian Icom IC-81, 1W to a double quad, me Standard C710, 280mW to a quadruple quad.
“P.S. If anyone was wondering, Ian GW8OGI/P on Tal y Fan NW-040 yesterday was a absolutely huge signal with me on Billinge Hill SP-017. 59+ both ways - Ian Icom IC-81, 1W to a double quad, me Standard C710, 280mW to a quadruple quad.”
I`d expect nowt less Gerald over a line of sight path of little over 50 miles.
ps - have a micky mouse 23cm transverter here - but never been tempted to drag it up a hill.
73
Yes Steve, the signal was so huge that it had loads of extra miles capability in it. I would expect workable QSOs over a couple of hundred miles between the right summits. Maybe something to think about for the International SOTA Weekend if anyone is interested.
I agree on the tranverter weight issue and there’s only so much room in a backpack - that’s why I got the handheld. Even though the band holds great interest for me personally, 23cms is still what I call an “add-on” band for SOTA, so a handheld is an adequate and easy solution. It’s the same reason I’m looking at the Wouxun KG-699E for 4m.
I wonder what the quantity price breaks are for the KG-699E? It would be silly for a number of us to buy one each seperately if the price drops if you buy 5 together. The possibility of a group purchase springs to mind.
I got rid of my 23cms MM transverter as the performance vs weight meant it was a non-starter for SOTA and my contesting group have better 23cms systems anyway.
I think that I read on the 4m Forum that someone had looked at importing a load and had got the unit price down to £52, but that was apparently too high a cost. I’ve not investigated multiple purchases on a small quantity basis, though logically I wouldn’t expect to be offered much discount - a few per cent plus maybe what they save on post / packing. I notice from the Euroradiosales website that they have cottoned on to the 4m market - of course the rigs cover 66 - 88MHz and the amateur market will only be a small proportion of the total.
With regards to the Alinco, there will obviously be a much higher price tag than the Wouxun due to the increased complexity of the electronics, but if £438 + MLS is in the correct order of things, I don’t it think will get much interest. I’ve seen secondhand handhelds covering 23cms go for anywhere between £125 and £250 with the battery pack and soft case. Of course there are only so many available to change hands and maybe in the end market forces will dictate… depends how desperately you want to add 23cms to your operating capabilities. Somehow I think many will decide they can live without it.
I’ve now had a good look at the Transverter on the Minikits website. It does look quite a complex and bulky project. On the website, the transverter is built into quite a large case with PC fan, I think this would be not very practical to lug up a hill, just to add an additional band.
Maybe it would be possible to build the local oscillator, Rf switching and the actual transverter into seperate cases to reduce the bulk, connecting them together on the hill. I don’t really know too much about the mechanics of the system, but with my (limited) knowledge, I see the only drawbacks being the signal loss due to all the connectors needed. I would tend to think that housing everything seperately might improve RF shielding between each stage also. I am not convinced I’m right about any of that!!
The short answer is to buy a handheld if cost is reasonable! It would be lighter & more simple!
There is no right place Graham. I think the key is never to give up, have the readies available for making a purchase and enquire wherever you can, whenever you can. I know several changes of ownership have been made directly. You might just catch someone thinking they don’t use their handheld and they see the wanted ad and decide to make contact. I was extremely fortunate to get my C710 - I’ve never seen another for sale and only a few IC-T81E and an odd IC-12E which is an older rig.
BTW - I weighed my transverter: 2.25kg. A lot of weight for an add-on band. Size-wise it is 11 x 7 x 3 inches.
The mini-kits looks interesting and the prices aren’t bad but I haven’t sized up the boards yet. The MM 1296 transverter weighs somewhere over 2kg for somewhere round 1.5W out. The advantage over a multi-band handheld being the chance to use SSB/CW which may make some contacts feasible where 1W of FM doesn’t quite cut the mustard. But not at 2+ kgs!
The Alinco handy is also a non-starter at the predicted price. Nice and shiny, and if it’s made like other Alinco gear, it should be fairly bullet proof. The only advantage is 3 bands in one lump. But you can buy a VX170, its 70cms cousin, a Wouxun (spelling) 4m job and make a 23cms transverter for the same price!
As for second hand items, placing wanted adds on Richard’s fleamarket, Junksale.co.uk and in some magazines is one way to winkle out obscure gear. As is watching eBay. The only problem should a 23cms handy appear on eBay is the knowledge you’ll probably be bidding against other SOTAists!
I agree with all your comments Andy. As far as SOTA is concerned, using SSB and CW on 23cms will make you a very rare animal indeed. That’s why I was prepared to jump for the triband handheld when it was offered, especially as it was a one-to-one offer without any eBay QRM. I paid the asking price and think I got a bargain… all I need now is to sort out my brick amplifier or get someone with better eyesight to do the job for me.
In reply to M0CGH:
When I saw the post on Southgate ARC’s newsfeed, I contacted Navada to see if the UK market was going to be seeing any, and they seem to think its japanese market only
In today’s globalised economy there’s no such thing as Japanese market only. There’ll always be someone in JA who’ll sell you one for a direct import.
However, I didn’t expect the UK to be a primary market for it. Of the 1.3 million hams in JA, only about 50000 have a full licences with HF privileges so the majority of operation is local on FM via repeaters. 1.2 million hams doesn’t fit too well into just 2m and 70cms, so 10m, 6m and 23cms FM operation is much more common out there. (The ‘novice’ JA licence allows 10W on 10m aswell.) That’s why you can get radios like the FT8900 (10/6/2/70 FM) and radios for 2/70/23 or 70/23 FM.
How interesting! A couple of months after the UK’s importer said that there were no plans to sell the DJ-G7 in this country, they have placed 2 adverts in this month’s Practical Wireless for it!
One of the adverts seems to have been placed very deliberately too - on a page devoted to WOTA and SOTA, how clever is that?!
For those who haven’t seen the advert, the price is £359.95, and is supposed to be available around now. (I have seen this before though, Yaesu have been promising the VX8 since November, it’s still not available!)
