What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
Bill Savage (K3AN)
on
February 5, 2004
View comments about this article!
Most of us are satisfied to very happy with the gear in our hamshacks, at least as evidenced by the high average scores for all the items in the Product Reviews section of this Web site. But I'm sure that many of us have owned a real "stinker." Here's your chance to tell everyone about yours. Be sure to compare it to its peers of the time; it wouldn't be fair to say that your old Yaesu 77 (or whatever) was junk when compared to the new K2 (or whatever) you now have.
Give us the specific areas where you think it missed the mark, for example: poor receive performance under crowded band conditions, transmit distortion, flaky controls, inaccurate readings or display, frequent trips to the shop, drift, weak construction, lousy documentation, poor factory support, etc. Your candidate can be any item- radio, power supply, mic, tuner, antenna, etc. Also let us know if you think you had a rare lemon, or if you think the shortcomings were typical of the breed.
Entries for the Equipment Hall of Shame are now open!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N7UQA on February 5, 2004
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I guess that would have to be my Cushcraft R7000. I had nothing but mechanical problems with the traps when I first got it. I was able to fix the problem by putting hose clamps at the top and bottom of all the traps, this covered the screw heads and kept them from working loose. It's still up and working but our Northwest Washington wind storms have taken its toll on this antenna.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NS5U on February 5, 2004
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I bought a Ranger don't remember the model number....back about 1984....10 meters with FM. The IF was so wide I could listen to Broadcast band and the repeater simultaneously. Used it for CB in the truck and down there anything works. Too much money sorry radio. Had switches to change the freq. yuck
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB6SSW on February 5, 2004
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Heathkit SA2500 automatic antenna tuner. As groundbreaking as this tuner was, it took forever to settle down. Probably the only piece of ham gear that I would call frustrating.
Lee WB6SSW
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FT-207R(otten) and the FT-90R(otten)
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by W2IRT on February 5, 2004
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This goes back many years, but the first real P.O.S. radio I ever owned was the Yaesu FT-207R(otten). It was a synthasized 2M HT from about 1980 or 81. This thing was pure unadulterated guano.
Battery contacts were flimsy and would not stay in contact, the 3 or 4 character red LED display was wonky and never read correctly, the thing was an intermod box despite being 144-148 only, batteries never held a charge for more than a couple of hours, tops. The radio was mechanically unreliable in the extreme, the three front-panel switches needed constant squirts of contact cleaner and the BNC eventually had its nipples worn off (ouch!).
I forget what eventually happened to this thing, but I've got no doubt it's polluting a landfill somewhere. Good riddance.
My next two Yaesus were amongst the finest radios I've ever owned, however. The FT-208R for 2M and FT-708R for 70cm. Bulletproof front ends and built like the proverbial Brick House. These were everything the 207 wasn't. And then some. And then some more!
About 2 years after that, I wanted a dual-band HT to replace the separate radios I was enjoying, and silly me, I seriously thought Yaesu could only have improved over time. What can I say...I was only in my early 20s and hadn't honed my cynical streak to the point it is now.
Had I only known just how bad they'd become, I'd have never tried my luck with either the FT-470 dual-band HT back then or the execrable FT-90R(ottn), which is still fouling the dash of my Saturn (mercifully, only until the weather warms up and I can finally install my Icom IC-208H). Despite *three* trips back to Yaesu/Vertex/Whatever, that FT-90 was a colossal stinker. Severe overheating problems causing receiver drift, display still won't function properly below 30 degrees F, an IF mixing product that causes me to receive a local 444.200 repeater whenever that machine is in use, within about 10 miles, regardless of the UHF frequency to which I'm tuned.
Granted it's better now, but I'm now soured forever on anything that company releases, or should I say, allows to escape. Frankly, they should take note of the sprig of mistletoe attached to my shirt-tail.
I've heard so many wonderful things about the FT-1000MP Mk. V and Field radios, but I'd rather be despleened with a rusty garden weasel than take another chance with anything from Yaesu.
73, Peter
W2IRT
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by KL7IPV on February 5, 2004
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I have been lucky, I guess. I have never had a bad piece of gear, whether I bought it used or new. I hope that trend continues for me.
73
Frank
KL7IPV
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 5, 2004
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Without comparison, the worst HF/SSB/CW rig I owned was an EICO-753.
The VFO had only 10KHZ markings. Depending how late your EICO-KIT was, the drift was OK to unusable.
The TX and RX audio was good, The rig was mostly tubes.
However every QSO, you would have to keep advancing the RIT. On CW it was not that bad. On SSB, you would find yourself 2-3KHZ off after a long QSO.
I did get my DRIFTY-753 at a SAM GOODY price. Sam thru it out, and I said Goody!
Actually some guy just gave it to me. Had to fix the power supply.
I did work many states with it on CW and later SSB.
I do not know what the KIT price was. It was EICO's most complicated kit. It was EICO's answer to the HEATHIT HW-101. It only was a triband rig. 80,40,and 20M.
Many that have owned one have said they could never use it on the air. If you had the transistor VFO version, you would do OK with it.
I would also like to add that ANY MFJ Tuner I have owned, also was the worst gear I have owned too!
For 2M, my Genave H-T was the worst. One had to add a 10pf cap to every TX XTAL. The H-t was as slim and as bad to work on as a Motorola HT-220!
The Heathkit CW keyer had the very worst paddle's in it. The circuit was great. The paddles...One could do better with making paddles out of a tin can!
I did put two radio-trash versions of the J-38 back to back to make decent paddles for the keyer.
73 MIKE
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by KA3RFE on February 5, 2004
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I had an Icom HT (don't remember model no) that had a detachable front panel that could be used as a speaker mic with every function of the radio on it. It was a good idea gone bad. It was flimsy, the clip was too small, the wire was brittle and the panel had a tendency to come off the the radio at odd times.
I lost the panel while shopping and it came loose. Someone picked it up, probably thinking it was a pager. A real POS that could have been great if Icom had engineered it a little better.
73, Pete KA3RFE
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by K9KJM on February 5, 2004
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Without question, In recent years the new Icom 2720H dual band mobil has to be the biggest P.O.S. out there.
(Check the reviews here on Eham)
Not only is it very difficult to operate properly
(Like the good older Icoms, 2710 etc) It is very prone to transmit failure, Does not come with a way to mount the control head to the radio for base operation,
The list of bad things about this radio is so long
I am not going to repeat them all here.
And this is from a real Icom fan! Check my full "5"
reviews of many Decent Icom radios I have owned in the past.
This pile of junk is not at all like the good old
Icom 2710H radio. I wonder if legal action needs to
be taken against Icom for this clear deception.
They should have AT LEAST given this crap a new model
number to reflect the fact that it is not related to
the good older models instead of the false advertising
they did with this model number scheme!
And I would hope that they would own up the the fact
that it is just junk and take it off the market and
recall the ones out in the field now.
But I will not be holding my breath for that to happen.
HELLO ICOM! Can you bring back a DECENT dual band
radio like the 2710H with digital squelch (DCS)???
Otherwise I guess it is time to jump ship and try the
much higher rated Yaesu 8800/8900 series.
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by RobertKoernerExAE7G on February 5, 2004
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I stopped buying Yaesu products after my 767 made a second trip back to repair for the same problem.
Course, the remote antenna box that was run through their transistor amplifier lasted about 6 months.
The tuner in the transistor amplifier lasted about a year.
The 767, xsistor amp, and remote antenna selector combo was tons of fun, and extrememly easy to use, but just didn't last.
Prior to that, I had an 101ZD that I had to modify to get rid of the RF feed back into the mic.
My first 101EX had to go back to have the finals replaced (at least that one was under warranty!).
KDK 2 meter mobile rig used to break one of the IF coils twice a year.
The MFJ Grandmaster keyer I bought in the early 80s still works FB, as does the SB220 that I bought used in the late 70s. My main amp, an Alpha 77 that I bought in the mid 80s, still works just like new (expect for the light bulbs).
Bob
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by AH6RR on February 5, 2004
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For me it was a Yaesu 707 it had the poorest front end I have seen in a HF rig. I traded a TS-520 and some cash for it man was i young and dumm. I could hear stations 10 KHZ away like they where 100hz away and had the worst splatter rejection ever if there was a strong station within 250khz then you either changed bands or got on their frequency to listen to them because you could not hear anything else. I dropped that rig like a hot potato and bought a Kenwood 430S man what Great rig that was. I used a freind's Yaesu 901DM and it was a great rig but that 707 stunk big time.
My .02 worth
Roland AH6RR
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by WB8JKR on February 5, 2004
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A toss up between ANY MFJ gear I've owned or
a Knight T-60 transmitter.
Mark WB8JKR
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KE4ZHN on February 5, 2004
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My worst piece of station gear was a 30 amp Tripp Lite power supply. These things are supposed to be commercial quality. Mine just died one fine day out of the clear blue for no apparent reason. No short, no overload, just poof. I never ran anything even close to 30 amps on this piece of junk and the regulator circuit obviously failed due to poor design. In all fairness to it, it worked flawlessly for about 2 years, but for the money, it was no bargain. It has since been replaced with an Astron supply and this has been the most reliable supply I have ever owned.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W4ACW on February 5, 2004
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Yaesu ft8000 smoke then small flash fire in output section.It somehow put it self out! No more Yaesu mobiles for me.I thought the wires under my dash were burning. I heard the ft 8100 wasn't any better. MFJ 3k tuner...JUNK
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W8JI on February 5, 2004
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Mine was a Icom 775DSP, no questions asked. It had spurs on transmit and receive, severe power overshoot on leading edge, and keyclicks.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by VE3TMT on February 5, 2004
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I guess I have been lucky, no major headaches with any of that gear I've acquired. Except for the TS-440 sent to me from a ham in California who assurred me the infamous PLL unlock (.......)must have occurred during shipping!
Sure hope his wife is enjoying that nice FT900 I sent him.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8YV on February 5, 2004
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My worst piece of amateur equipment was furnished by TenTec. It was a 6-meter transverter kit I purchased from them a couple years ago.
Lousy instructions, 4-6 pages of error corrections and addenda, component holes that were either missing altogether or weren't drilled properly, a direct short from the B+ printed circuit trace to ground, insulation enamel covering areas that were to have been pre-tinned, components missing from the kit...
A very poor showing in my opinion, from a company otherwise well-respected among many amateurs. Easily beats a second-place MFJ 941 tuner I owned, in the quest for the K-Y Jelly trophy.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA1KWA on February 5, 2004
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LaFayette HA 750 circa 1970. It was a 6 meter AM rig covering 50 - 52 mHz It looked like a CB radio of the same era. Besides drifting, I would get a commercial FM broadcast station on 50.5 & that would splatter +/- so the two most commonly used frequencies in my area (50.4 & 50.55)would be all but useless.
Yes! I also had a Genave radio, a 220 mHz version from the middle 1970s (GTX-100)that I also had to add capacators to the Transmit crystals. Mercy!
Honorable mention to the Icom T-81A. Four bands (6, 2, 440 & 23cm) in an HT. Great idea but let down by infuriating "joystick", completly non-intuitive menu functions (works great with extra cost software & your PC), poor battery life & flimsy power jack.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K4LIX on February 5, 2004
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Would have to be M-F-J. I bought one of their first cross-needle tuners for use on our offshore supply boat. Received the tuner with a direct short to chassis from the input coax connector (plastic, not teflon). Sent it back - waited about 6 weeks and called - they found it still in the box on their shelf and promised to get right to it. Another period of time went buy, called, and this time, they had no record of it. So, I learned my lesson the hard way - as far as I know, it's still on their shelf and they still have my money. I am continously amazed that they are still in business!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AD5X on February 5, 2004
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Worst piece of gear? It would have to be my Knight-kit R-100A (first receiver, paired with a Knight-kit T-60 trasmitter). It drifted badly, had no selectivity, and you could easily hear both sides of zero-beat. But I didn't know any better, so I had a blast with it!
Phil - AD5X
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3UD on February 5, 2004
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As someone else mentioned, it has to be the Eico 753 SSB/CW transceiver I had in the late 60s. The drift was incredible. I once had a qso using the 753 with a mobile op who was also using a 753. Both righs had the tedency to drift up the band, By the time we were done I think we were in excess of 10khz of where we started. I later gave the 753 away to a newly licensed General. He was happy to get it and used it very effectively until he was able to upgrade his equipment. If anyone is interested that are 2 of these for sale on the
rec.radio.amateur.boatanchor newsgroup on the Usenet. One is working, one is a parts unit and included the power supply. He wants $75 + shipping for both. A great opportunity the get the experience :)
A close second was a Midland crystal controlled 2 meter HT that was a deaf as a post, fell completely apart with moderate to strong signals and could not be zeroed on frequency.
For whatever reason, I have always had very good experiences with MFJ stuff.
73
George
K3UD
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KG4RUL on February 5, 2004
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My RASCAL Soundcard Interface by BUXCOMM. The beautiful, custom designed case has now been relegated to it's intended purpose: A Soap Dish!
Dennis - KG4RUL
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K0BG on February 5, 2004
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I second the comments about Chushcraft's R6000 vertical. After they replaced 2 of them, I gave the 3rd replacement away.
Alan, KØBG
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3ESE on February 5, 2004
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Well, this is mixed. When I returned to the hobby after 18 years, I need a low-cost station, and I got a Heathkit HW-7. What was good about it was that it got me on the air, and I worked a lot of stations, local and DX, with it. The bad part was the receiver in that thing: frustrating and infuriating ain't even in it! I had to endure S9+ BC QRM in order to strain to make out CW signals.
Then I got a K1.
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by K2WH on February 5, 2004
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I don't think I ever had a "Worst" or poorly designed piece of ham gear. I've had all the major manufacturers gear and ........ wait a minute. I just remembered, the worst piece has to be the Yaesu VX-5R. Piece of crap. There we go.
K2WH
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AA6CC on February 5, 2004
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It had to be the Kenwood TS-940. Had a TS-930 which was a great rig....thought the 940 was going to be a step up. WRONG! What a piece of junk. Nothing but problems. Others who owned the 940 had the same analysis. Many trips to be repaired, aligned, etc. and it still never worked right. Bought a TS-950S and it was an outstanding radio.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WN5T on February 5, 2004
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IC-701. It was deaf and dumb. It was kind of cool to tune across a carrier and hear the pitch change in discreet steps. I was even able to play a tune on it!!!! (Band geek...I know..) Of course, it did work... The FT-747GX is back on the bench for the thousandth time. But it sounds great...when it works...
73,
Michael
WN5T
FP#566
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by CWTITAN on February 5, 2004
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Anything Collins, Eico, National. All crap we operated and fixed in the Navy. None of it is worth anything to me. I prefer YAESU and TENTEC.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2JKM on February 5, 2004
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Why does anyone buy ANYTHING made by MFJ ? Has it become a "right of passage" that hams have to buy at least one piece of MFJ trash.
I learned the hard way with my first (and only)purchase -- an original MFJ 989 tuner. Out-of-the-box, the meter was laying inside the cabinet. The hot-melt glue they used to mount it to the front panel had let loose. Then MFJ wanted $5, plus shipping, to replace it under warranty! AES said to put in a claim with UPS. And, of course, since it was damaged, they wouldn't take it back for refund.
From that point on, this tuner has slowly self-destructed with plastic parts deteriorating and solder joints failing. The roller inductor is flimsy and the turns counter is a complete joke. The wattmeter and SWR calibration won't hold stable for more than 6 months.
A genuine P.O.S. ! I keep it on my shelf as a reminder.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4QA on February 5, 2004
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Tie between an early Heathkit SB-104 which I built...
and the Icom IC-701 / IC-211 combo I bought a few years later. They all failed miserably.
Heck, my Meissner Signal Shifter, model EX from the early 1950s is the most dependable rig I own.
Next are my Small Wonder labs DSWs.
Then there's that IC-703...
LL, to get the most out of that superb HW-7, one must live WAAAAAY out in the country where there are no commercial power mains or broadcast transmitters for many miles...but there's little anyone can do about broadcast stations skippin' in...
DIDIDIDIT DIDAW DIDAWDAW :0)
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by W4MAY on February 5, 2004
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Besides some garbage bought on e-bay -- anything made by MFJ. Poor design and especially poor (NO) quality control. Guess no one is supervising those prisoners in China making the POS...
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K5UJ on February 5, 2004
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The Hallicrafters FPM-300 transceiver. This was either their last or one of their last products, produced after they were purchased by then Northrop-Wilcox (now Northrop-Grumman (sp?)). It was obvious this rig was not designed by anyone who actually ever used a transceiver. No cw offset, rig drifted with changing cabinet temp., and no built-in fan on the PA tube (or tubes--it has been so long I don't remember if there was one or two). Unless you had a fan you had to be real quick on tune-up. There were other problems besides these.
I too had a T-60 which was pretty bad but I was too inexperienced to know it.
Rob/K5UJ
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KT8K on February 5, 2004
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Knight R100 receiver. Even as a novice I knew it was junk - it was almost unuseable with drift, poor selectivity, etc. I didn't have a calibrator, and it might have been off by more than 25 khz anyway - I had to listen around to guess where the band edge was.
My club has a Kenwood TS-120, very generously donated back in the early 80's. It was deaf as a post - mostly internally generated white noise on receive - and tended to self-oscillate on transmit, worse on each band going up. We used it on 40m mostly, 20m was problematic and 10m was unuseable. Sent it to AES twice for expensive repairs including all the latest factory mods. Each time it came back with no noticeable improvement except the oscillation was stopped, and the oscillation always came back within a few months. The club technical director has it now (for some years) and I believe has tried to repair it, but it is probably on a long slide toward the scrap heap.
The club's Yaesu FT757gx works better, but is still a little hard of hearing. It also has a very strange feature: the microphone is left connected to the audio amp on receive, so receive audio is often trashy and sometimes howls until you suspend the mic under the table by its cord, or disconnect it entirely. At first I thought somebody was tuning up on top of me, but the pitch and amplitude of the howl changed when I moved the mic around. Wierd. Is it really designed that way? Let me know if you know anything about this.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N9AVY on February 5, 2004
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Guess the Genave GTX-200 2m rig I bought used at a hamfest when I first got licensed. With a full load of Xtals I could monitor the enitire 2m band !
A good second would be the Heath VF-1 VFO that I got with a DX40... that VFO drifted all over the band and nothing seemed to fix it. Now I see them at hamfests going for big bux !
Jerry N9AVY
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB4LGM on February 5, 2004
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Amen Brother.
I had one that when i got it in 1980 it would drift half the band before i would get mad and shut it down!!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 5, 2004
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<<<<Why does anyone buy ANYTHING made by MFJ ? Has it become a "right of passage" that hams have to buy at least one piece of MFJ trash>>>>
I will answer that one. I think everytime I bought MFJ, I would always think to myself......They must have got better by now!
Plus, the price is low. I have found with MFJ you get what you pay for. Gaaarrrbaage!
73 DE MIKE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N0FP on February 5, 2004
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Many years ago, I bought a Heathkit GR78 on a close-out special. Frankly, the special would have been for Heathkit to just 'throw them out.'
The assembly was pretty straight forward, but what a pile! To listen to anything, you had to literally continuously tune the radio to compensate for drift. A simple sigh or cough at the operating position and you would lose the station completely.
But then I did have a Heathkit HX10 Maurader as well. Another real pile. I see them go on ebay for real money and just laugh. Tuned to spec, either side band would work fine because it was double sideband. People used to get in my face and beg me not to use it on sideband. And the tuning was a real hoot. When you tuned up in frequency, you had to hit the zerobeat on the first attempt. Why? Because if you tuned past zero beat and tried to tune back, you would lose the signal out of the passband of the receiver. What a joke.
Between the two pieces of equipment, I'd be hard pressed to tell you which one was hated more.
Ford-N0FP
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA0ZZG on February 5, 2004
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When FM became popular for 2M, many companies that
made VHF-FM gear for other services tried to market
amateur 2M gear. I ended up buying an early 2M
rig from the Simpson Marine Radio Company. Looked
like it would be a good design. They called it their
Model 'A'. Unfortunately they cut way too many corners. It would take less time to document what
was right with it. (It had good receive audio).
The company is now out of business.
Dave...
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by KC2LSU on February 5, 2004
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The only reason to by MFJ, is to get the parts for the project, most of them already soldered to the board. From this point you have to finish the job and get the partialy complete kit working.
You definitly need electronc repair skills to get MFJ equipment working -- once you take it out of the box.
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by KA4KOE on February 5, 2004
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I must disagree RUL. The Buxcomm rascal is a no-frills, cheap interface that fulfills its intended purpose.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AC5UP on February 5, 2004
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This is really minor, but about 10 years after I bought a Dentron dual-meter SWR bridge at a HamFest I noticed the knob between the meters was labeled 'Caliblation'.
Saw one at another HamFest maybe five years later with the same label. OM selling the meter had owned it for maybe 20 years and never noticed...
If that's my worst, I've been lucky! ;=]
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2WIK on February 5, 2004
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It will take someone with a great memory to recall the ones I thought were G*d-awful, "never again" pieces of commercial gear:
-Globe HG-303 (holy cow, they forgot to bias the final tube into cutoff!)
-Knight T-60 (get it out of my sight, quickly)
-Johnson Viking Challenger (ditto above)
-Hallicrafters S-120 (egads)
-Heath SB-104 (a failed experiment, and I had such high hopes!)
-Anything with the word "Ranger" on it that wasn't made by E.F. Johnson Co.
On the bright side, when I've had truly miserable stuff, rather than sell it and further propagating the problem, I've given most of it away to new hams. Then, it can become their science project and nobody complains about free stuff.
WB2WIK/6
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 5, 2004
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NOW THAT IS AN IDEA! MFJ should sell all thier crap as kits! Only a soldering iron and hot glue gun needed for assembly.
Pay for the deluxe kit. You get nuts and bolts. Otherwise kust hot glue in everything, including the S0-239 connectors.
IMHO, MFJ has done more to stretch the state of the art of hot glue applications.
73 MIKE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K8DXX on February 5, 2004
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When anyone says 'worse rig,' I always think of the Eico 753 SSB/CW Transcriver. I almost bought one but did not due to its reputation for drift. Funny thing... magazine reviews rarely if ever mentioned the drift. It was mostly word of mouth. I tried using several '753s during FD weekends and its reputation was well deserved, tube or solid state VFO.
Another lousy rig (I thought) was the Heathkit HW-100. The receiver was relatively deaf. More importantly, the 4 pole crystal filter was inadequate. Transmit audio was lacking, no matter which mic I used. The radio seemed to need realignment every three months. Finally, it really ate up the 12BY7 driver tubes. Other than that, it was great!
As to antennas, how about the Gotham Vertical? It was sold without a mounting bracket. You were supposed to mount it to a board (using your hardware). The joints between aluminum tubing sections were stiffened by wooden dowels. The sections did not actually fit inside each other. They were moved up against each other and hose clamped to the dowel, either side of the joint. In any case, it was more reliable to run wires between all the sections. The antenn utilized a large air inductor as a loading coil at the base. Gotham did not and could not supply a clip or clamp that could tap one winding of the coil without contacting the windings immediately above and below. My funniest experience with the Gotham was using it as a portable antenna on a moist fall weekend of family camping. The dowels expanded with all the moisture, making it impossible to dismantle radio camp! To get them apart, we had to heat each joint with a blow torch to expand the aluminum and I suppose, dry out/shrink the dowel.
Nuff said!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by ON4MGY on February 5, 2004
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No doubt : Yaesu FRG-8800.
The microprocessor went crazy from time to time. I had nothing but trouble with it.
After that I bought a FRG-100 : no selectivity at all -> junk.
Than I had my license for VHF and I bought a Yaesu FT-480 -> worth nothing.
Bought the Yaesu FT-817 : OK but consuming batteries at a very high rate. Selectivity on HF very poor. Nice toy but not a descent transceiver.
By the time I got my HF-license I've bought a Yaesu FT-840. Same remark as with the FRG-100.
I'll guess a piece of equipment by Yaesu is just a piece of bad ham gear.
When I bought a Kenwood TS-830 (about 20 years old) I just got my first descent tranceiver.
Currently I'm changing all my HF equipment to Kenwood. Maybe I will buy a Ten-Tec or an Icom transceiver, but I'm saying : bye bye Yaesu. TNX for the crap.
ON4MGY Nic
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 5, 2004
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goods morning all!
when i was still in the army at redstone arsenal, ala. at huntsville ala. was a member of there fine ham club.
while attending the hamfest. a ham walked by the table and asked me.
"SAY, Where is the role of tolet paper to go with the Eico 753??"
A.K.A. a hunk of CR@P!
No Kidding! and that was back in 1975 when hams were still gentelman, on the air as wele as in person . except for about maby 5% to 10%
mighity fine junk is a good 2ed place for worst.
i wont bore you with all the many, many detailes.
some one put Heathkit down as a Worst!?
maby yes,
maby no? i would say no.
that depends on how good a kit builder you were.
i still wish Heathkit were still around.
depending if you took your time and followed the great ilistrations in the book. the radio worked prity darn good and preformed well!
i also had some Knight stuff the R-55 receiver was as broad as a barn door, the R-100 was a bit better but compaired to a hallicrafters SX-99, thumbs down on the R-55 & R-100. the two T-60 i had worked all right i guess for what they were. a 60 watt novice starter transmitter. not a bad little transmitter.
so i say 3ed place for Knight kit as worst
73es
all
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N6AYJ on February 5, 2004
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The Knight (Allied Radio) T-100 transmitter. It was supposed to be a competitior to the DX-100B, but nobody ever got one to work. It was only on the market for a short time before Allied had to buy them all back. Shortly after, they stopped making kits.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K2WE on February 5, 2004
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Back in 1964 as a novice I owned a Globe Scout 680 transmitter. It had such a bad chirp, I had 38 states confirmed in OO cards!! It also had grid block keying which put 110V across the key.. Was that a shocking experience..
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA0MHJ on February 5, 2004
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I never bought, but used the old Galaxy/WRL HF amplifier using 10 (yes-ten) sweep tubes. It was the perfect amplifier if you wanted your signal to cover up to 50 kc. wide.
Agree about Gotham as for the worst antennas ever.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB1IAR on February 5, 2004
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M(ighty) F(ine) J(unk) 949E antenna tuner. Serves it's purpose, was cheap, is constantly in need of minor tweaking...nuts and screws work loose, etc...
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K7VO on February 5, 2004
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The worst ones I had were:
Icom IC-245/SSB. Yes, I had the flaky feed-through (islet) problem. I spent hours hard wiring each and every one with my elmer over my shoulder and I got it working again. Then six months later the CMOS IC chip failed and it cost more than the radio was worth to get another from Icom. It had a poor receiver and poorly thought out controls to boot.
My very first antenna tuner was an MFJ. I don't remember the model number. I hooked it up to a TS-120S on 10m and it arced over on the first try. I returned it.
The Kenwood x21A series (and I bought all four) were frequent flyers back to the factory under warranty. I don't know how many mic. failures I had with them as well. Got them all fixed and sold them off.
The Kenwood TS-670. If the last digits of the display were 00 the sensitivity dropped to nothing. Kenwood told me it was a design problem and they couldn't fix it. The GC-10 board (general coverage receiver) was also deaf. I traded in a TS-660 for this P.O.S. and ended up finding another TS-660 to replace it.
The Yaesu FT-202 FM handheld. Too many fragile little wires going every which way. Add/replace a crystal and you probably had to replace at least one wire as well.
That's my list.
73,
Caity
K7VO
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4SRT on February 5, 2004
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Topping my list of worst gear would be my Kenwood TM-241A2-meter rig. I bought mine used before I knew of all the problems this model seems to have with the front panel connector. Very poor design, though the rigs works great, and I can even change frequency whenever the display works correctly (about 3 times a year). I haven't sold it because I don't want to unload it on some unsuspecting ham. Makes a great one-frequency rig, lol.
Jim
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WPE9JRL on February 5, 2004
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I assembled a Ten-Tec 705 microphone kit to work with my Pegasus transceiver. The 705 never had enough drive to get the Peg to full output. I called the service manager at Ten-Tec and his best suggestion was to ship the Pegasus back to the factory for modifications so that the mike would work with it.
Insanity.
Finally, a fellow ham was kind enough to send me a copy of a mod showing resistor changes in the mic to allow for more gain. It worked fine after that.
Too bad I had to battle Ten-Tec and their crummy "service" department over about three weeks just to get a microphone to work with one of their radio's.
Ten-Tec: The UPS man's best friend.
Ten-Tec: Never again!
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One bad experience doesn't mean the radio was crap
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by K7VO on February 5, 2004
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I have read the posts here and find some of them, well... contrary to my experience.
I see two posts for the Icom IC-701. I still have one. The receiver is decent enough, as in typical for a mid '80s synthesized rig with the typical high noise floor. The catch here is that the radio dates from 1976. Icom did an amazingly good job for the era the radio was built. It was way ahead of it's time. I get unsolicited complimentary audio reports with it today with the original stock mic. Yes, the tuning was coarse and provided a musical interlude. This is a show stopper? I think not.
The Yaesu FT-77? Very sensitive receiver, very reliable radio. I had two. I'd still recommend it to a ham on a tight budget who doesn't mind a bare bones radio. At roughly $200 they are a bargain on the used market today.
The Yaesu FT-707? Broad as a barn door? Did you adjust the IF WIDTH control? Was it working properly? Probably not. A trip to Yaesu would have fixed that under warranty. It did have a high noise floor which was typical for the era, but it was an OK if unspectacular rig. Another one worth $200 or so.
The Kenwood TS-120S/V? Sorry you had one that needed work. Picked it up used, did you? Very decent receiver, very reliable. Had one for years.
My greatest "I don't believe it" is the complaint about the FT-817. The poster had unreasonable expectations. Yes, it eats batteries quickly. All those bells and whistles in a tiny box and you have to compromise somewhere. Get a high capacity after-market Maha battery and the problem is solved. Poor selectivity? Add filter(s). Problem solved. What Yaesu did in so small a box is truly a feat of engineering. The radio is on my "most highly recommeded" list. Simply the most versatibe portable rig ever offered and very decent indeed.
73,
Caity
K7VO
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 5, 2004
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FOR THE RECORD. IF you did get a stable enough EICO-753,it did work. Yes you had to have one hand on the RIT.
However the TX and RX audio were nice. There where stabilty mods. The power supply will work with the HW-101. If you see one for $75, you will do better than buying an MFJ CW only rig. I did rack up about 35 states on 80 and 40M CW on the EICO-753.(about 60W out)
When I got my general ticket, I did work some DX on 20M phone.
I guess the worst thing you could do is have an entire shack of MFJ! Transceiver, tuner,clock, and all thier other trash.
For some reason MFJ's grandmaster memory keyer held up very well. Stupidly sold mine in the late 1980's .
Not all MFJ sux. Just everyone of their tuners do!
Anybody ever see the meters melt on an MFJ. They did on one of many I have had. The 300W rating is bull.
You can run 300W if the tuner is tuned for a 1.5:1.
However even with just 100W and a high SWR, the MFJ's arc. Also the alleged 300W dummyload will smoke out after 15 seconds of 300W.
Sorry for the soapbox speech
73 DE WA2JJH
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K2WH on February 5, 2004
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Lots of people complaining about MFJ. I have 3 MFJ tuners and (1) Ameritron amp (I believe built by MFJ) and have had only excellent results with them.
Wait a minute........
Oh yeah, the amp filament bifilar chokes opened up once. Just made the warranty by (1) day because they couldn't find the amp even though it weighs about 80lbs.
Oh and the Ameritron ATR-30 tuner, roller inductor fell apart once.
and the RF detector board blew up........, replaced that on my own.
Yes, the 989c tuner porcelain connectors came loose.
Ahhh... Yeah ok MFJ is pretty bad.
Oh, one more the MFJ power strip solder connections were all bad....
So forth and so on.
K2WH
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB9TMP on February 5, 2004
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With out a doubt the Yaesu FT-8100. When you have a radio that won't transmit on 2 meter above 35 watts without crapping out that sucks. Especially when you paid over $400 for the turkey. Then when you talk to Yaesu about the junk radio that they KNOW is defective they try to blame your power supply and antenna system for the radios faults. Poor design, poor QC, poor customer service, equals no more Yaesu radios here. I replaced that clunker with a Kenwood TM-G707A and haven't looked back since. :)
Yaesu Please Stop Using Your Customers As Beta Testers !!!!!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3XT on February 5, 2004
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I had to think for a while to come up with the worst piece of equipment I had owned. I had to go back 29 years ago to my first HF transceiver. After passing the FCC exam to Advanced class (from Novice) I was very excited about getting on HF SSB. I purchased a used Hallicrafters SR-400 Cyclone. It lasted two days before I had to find a repair shop. This was difficult because Hallicrafters was in the process of going out of business. I got it repaired and it lasted for about 2 weeks before going silent again. Got it fixed a second time and it failed once again shortly there after. Went to AES and traded it in on a new Yaesu FT-401B and I finally got on the air with a reliable radio! This radio sticks in my mind because I was 18 years old at the time and I was so anxious to get on HF SSB. This radio kept failing time after time, it was such a disappointment. In that time Hallicrafters had a good reputation, I did not benefit from it.
Sean - K3XT
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K0WA on February 5, 2004
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I am surprised that so many of your put down the Knight T-60. Rightly so too. Harmonic Generator is what it should have been called. I got a QSL card when I was Novice from the Seattle FCC office. They heard me very well on 14250 CW.
HW-100 - Now I know some you will cry foul here. But, for the most part it always had the cover off because you were fiddling with something in the box. The paper coils were change when the furnace or A/C came on and you always were realigning the darn thing. Humidity played havoc with the unit with those darn paper coils. Otherwise, I worked a lot of people with it.
Hallicafters FPM-300 - Just didn't seem to fit my style of operation. CW was an after thought.
For the most part, I have had great luck with many rigs. Preference would be Kenwood but in later years ICOM.
Lee - K0WA
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 5, 2004
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M.F.J = MORE FOOLISH JUNK
MORONIC FOOLS JEWELS
MAKE FAKE JUMPERS
MOTHER F-ak!KING JUNK
MORE FAKE JUNK
MORE FOOLS JUMP at the low cost
Martins folys July!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB1IKD on February 5, 2004
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Let me second the Hallicrafters S-120 AM receiver. I got one used as a Christmas gift when I was a teenager. I wanted to be a ham, but had no elmer or money. I learned a little CW as a Scout and at least wanted a real ham receiver.
Although the S-120 receiver had a BFO and bandspread, it had terrible sensitivity and selectivity. Everything got through its pass-band if it could hear the signal at all. It was not a useful piece of ham gear. Any of the current HTs or cheap portable transistorized table top radios with whip antennas receive as well as the S-120. I lost the S-120 in a fire and at least for that item have no regrets.
My grandparents Philco AM receiver in a large wooden console was a far better radio, even with its many tubes and loop antenna in the lower cabinet instead of an outdoor random wire. The old Philco had an amazing ability to pull in distant AM Broadcast MW signals on the crowded band compared to any of the consumer table top or automobile AM radios that I used during the sixties. The Philco was also a reasonable SWL receiver, although not as good as any of the mid to high grade modern rigs with outdoor antennas that receive SW bands.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WD0CT on February 5, 2004
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I will second the Kenwood TM-241A for the same reason the other guy did. Tied with it was a total piece of trash Ten Tec Jupiter. Too bad to even talk about.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KK9H on February 5, 2004
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For me it was a Yaesu FT-1000MP that I bought new sometime in 1996. The first disappointment was an RF feedback problem that only occurred on 15M. I tried everything to fix that problem, but to no avail. My Kenwood TS-850S which I still have, was fine and had no problem on the same band, same power supply, same antenna, etc. The greatest disappointment was that the radio failed completely three different times requiring two visits to the Yaesu's repair shop. Each time the repair was considered warranty work, but I was without the use of the radio for a few weeks and I had to pay for shipping it back and forth. The 15M RF feedback problem was never resolved either. The third time it failed, I simply sold it as is. To be fair, I must say that when it worked, it was truly a wonderful rig. Excellent receiver, good audio and the second receiver was a delight when working DX in a pileup. To bad that quality control was such an problem for Yaesu.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WD5KCA on February 5, 2004
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I will add the MFJ fiberglass pushup pole. It's light and whippy.
I won't hold up a 20m inverted v. Broke during insallation.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KA3RFE on February 5, 2004
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I haven't had this happen to mine (yet...), but a lot of people were having their finals blow on their Yeasu FT-817s. It apparently happens quite often. This little radio is otherwise a very nice QRP rig once you get used to using it.
73, Pete KA3RFE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N5NJ on February 5, 2004
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Just 2 things in 30+ years: An MFJ antenna tuner, and a Cushcraft R7000.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AD6W on February 5, 2004
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Knight R-100 drifted terribly, nearly useless, but better than my Star Roamer which was TOTALLY useless. How did I ever make contacts with that thing? No BFO! Had to use a signal generator for that.
Have to second (third?) the comment on the HW-100. Said to myself, "Self, if it keeps working for 2 weeks in a row, we'll put the covers on." Never happened. Gave it to a guy and said a prayer for him as he left.
Best rigs by far are T4XB/R4B and KWM-380, 35 and 25 years old and still in use, also Henry and Alpha amps which soldier on decade after decade.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N1HOS on February 5, 2004
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Yaesu FT 90R which even was purchase new in Jan 03 and sent back 3 times to yaesu to fix the problem, and they said there was nothing wrong. They were wrong as usual, so beware of the FT 90R 2/440 piece of junk.
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Heathkit AR-3
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by AA6E on February 5, 2004
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This was the worst, but it was also the best. This was my first Heathkit and it got me into ham radio. I got it for Christmas about 1955 or so. It had a neat copper plated chassis, and it was generally a fine receiver if you didn't care about stability or selectivity.
In later days, I added the Heath Q Multiplier, which helped a little.
Of course, being built by a 10 year old kid just learning his way around a soldering iron did not help much...
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AH6GI on February 5, 2004
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S120?
I knew a KH6 who worked Africa on 20 meters using an S120, a homebrew 60 watt transmitter and an inverted V.
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RE: Worst Piece fo Ham Gear
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by W1NK on February 5, 2004
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My Gonset G76 transceiver.... my 1st Novice rig in 1977. Practiced for *days* the tune-up procedure (off the air, besides my ticket hadn't come yet).
When "The Day" arrived I threw the switch and began my well rehersed tune-up. And....
Arc's O' Plenty! Scared the bejeesus out of my brother and I (his ticket had just come too).
Needless to say, we sold off the Gonset, and bought a Ten Tec Century 21
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K1KP on February 5, 2004
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After a few minutes of thought - I remembered an old Heathkit Mohawk RX-1 I owned for a short while. Bought it off of eBay (no problems with the sale), cleaned it up and aligned it, and it was TERRIBLE! Very drifty and unstable, poor BFO injection meant lots of distortion on SSB, and the AVC was ROTTEN!! Ever wonder why Heath put 3 gain controls on it? That's right - RF, IF, and AF gain - all because they couldn't design an AGC system to save their product!
I had it working exaclty like stock - which was JUNK!
Fortunately, I found a series of articles in ER that really fixed it up. The amazing thing was it was half decent, after doing nothing more than a few wiring changes and component value adjustments...
Sold it off, not sorry I did, made room for 75A-1...
-Tony, K1KP
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2WIK on February 5, 2004
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I worked Africa using a razor blade, a chunk of galena ore, a 2N2222 (not the "A" version, which came later), a 9V transistor radio battery, and six feet of hookup wire. And five feet were used to make all the interconnections!
Not really, but it could have happened....
For those who posted "S120" and "T60" (and I think I beat you all by posting them first!), you'll really feel badly when you hear that my "first station" was both a T60 *and* an S120. And I made hundreds of contacts with them. In many cases, I didn't need the S120's BFO at all, 'cause I could hear station's tones as heterodynes against Radio Moscow. And every 40 meter crystal I owned was dead on zero beat with some million-Watt broadcast station. Or so it seemed....
Heck, if not for the crappy stuff, we'd never appreciate the good stuff, right?
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K8LEA on February 5, 2004
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Guess I've been lucky....
My Globe Scout 680A was fine, although the audio quality wasn't the best, and doubling in the final on 6M made for a lot lower power output than advertised.
My SX99 kind of drifted off in terms of sensitivity, but if you could live with the simple crystal filter, it wasn't too bad. I'd recommend both of these for a beginner if they could be found.
Recently, my FT-1500M is working on the award, but only because it occasionally loses it's mind when I turn on the car. I wouldn't care, but I use a notebook to program the thing and can't remember how to do anything from the panel [grin]. Would be a problem if I was out of town, or didn't have the notebook along.
(I'm going to fix that - it probably needs a big cap past the relay that ties it to the battery. These newer cars do some insane things when starting.)
I've been at this since 1958, and while I never had the money to buy the best of the breed, always seemed to get something that at least worked about as well as expected. Perhaps a second-hand Standard 2M HT was an exception - really bad reciever - but it was kind of silly to expect a 2W HT to work around here anyway.
My old Brimstone 144 taught me more about it's innards than I wanted to know when I noticed that nothing in the form of "147.375" - with the "7" in that 2nd from the right position - would work. It turned out that one IC lead on a dual sided board was only connected to one side of the board. (Miracle that I found it.) Years later I noticed that it stopped transmitting - a bulb burned out that was somehow biasing a transistor.... It was also insanely expensive at $550-$650 in the mid-70's, but one of the three or four possible choices at the time, and, I think, the best. It was way too big, though....
My normal complaint still is that I always seem to find _one_ feature that the new toy doesn't have that might have been a deal breaker if I'd really dug into the specs. For example, I use the FT-1500 as a scanner. One of the local PD's channels uses DCS for some reason, and shares the channel with something just close enough to be a nuisance. The FT-1500M doesn't support DCS.... Or, my VX-150, which when in scan mode, can't be locked (or at least I haven't figured it out) so that bumping a button doesn't take it off scan mode, usually on some painfully dull channel. Set it to scan, clip it to belt, listen to "use only when the Chief is in FL channel." AARGH
Guess I shouldn't mind that - my VCR has zingers like that. Program it to tape something "weekly" and it skips the early Saturday AM run of a show that runs at 0100 each night, and insists on taping at 0100 on Monday AM, which is _Sunday_ night.... (There's no "every night" option either, of course.) Don't get me started [grin].
Perhaps the greatest disaster: I bought a brand new 1973 Rambler Ambassador back in 1973. Loaded with everything but FM and a tape or CD player. (Tape was rare, CD's didn't exist.) As I was driving from the dealer to my former office, the headlight knob came off in my hand. Then one of my co-workers wanted to see how the reclining seats worked. The driver's seat went down and wouldn't come back up.... (There are three ways to install the "clutch" that handled that. Two are wrong. It's marked, but not very well.) Downhill from there....
Funniest car disaster? Probably my "new" 1999 Town Car. (New to me - it'd been a rental in Orlando for a while.) I took it downtown, and then home. Decided to go back over to the dealership and pick up the owner's manual, which they'd promised would be ready. Wouldn't start.... I cursed a bit and called the dealer, and then went back out to wait for the tow truck. It started.... Cancelled the hook and headed out to the gas station. Filled it up and it wouldn't start. Called the dealership - who told me to call the number on the back of the manual I was on the way over to pick up! - and this time we towed it. Next AM they called me to come and get the car. Since I'd bought my previous Town Car in 1989, Ford had gone to an RFID sort of key for theft prevention. (Like anybody'd steal one of these.) They'd given me two keys. One was programmed to work with the car. One wasn't. I didn't know which key was which anyway and had just grabbed the first key my hand hit. Sheesh....
Stu K8LEA
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KG7DX on February 5, 2004
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Worst???
Anything made by MFJ, as sooooo many others have said... power strip was wired backwards and blew a very nice power supply... VHF wattmeter was the cheapest piece of mis-represented crap that anyone ever saw. BIG roller inductor tuner coupler fell apart and junctions would never stay connected. Obvioulsy, not highly recommended after a 32 year ham career.
Icom, Yaesu (except the first 708) and Kenwood have all prouced great radios. Some easier to use than others (gad! that VX-7!!) but all have been reliable. SGC is great, AlphaDelta fine, Outbacker excellent, High Sierra one of the finest companies ever.
For what it's worth... Cheers....KG7DX
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AF0H on February 5, 2004
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Clegg 6-meter - nothing more needs to be said.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W9SZ on February 5, 2004
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I think I'd agree with what many have said so far about the Eico Drift-O-Matic aka Seven-Drifty-Three aka 753. There was a mod that appeared (in 73 Magazine back in the 70's if I remember correctly) which was supposed to improve the VFO stability but I had no luck with that, either.
I'm surprised about the comment on the Heathkit Mohawk RX-1. That was the radio I used for the first 5 or 6 years after I was licensed. Mine always did fine. Perhaps the quality of the radio depended on how it was built and the condition of the tubes in it. The only thing I found fault with in that receiver was the AGC. I did a mod from a QST article to improve the AGC and it was fine after that. I still have that receiver and tried it out a few months ago to see if it still worked. It does still seem to work fine for an old boatanchor radio.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2WIK on February 5, 2004
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The Brimstone 144 brought back horrible memories!
It had the logo of a devil right there on the front panel, as if you needed any reminder where its designers came from....
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K9ZF on February 5, 2004
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This is an interesting thread!
I have had a lot of old gear, some with problems, but most were just old.
I guess I would have to get on the band wagon and say the only "poorly made" ham gear I have ever owned was an MFJ tuner. It was a 945d, I think. Not long after I got it I noticed some problems. I opened it up and found about half of the connections were not soldered at all, and some of the ones that were soldered were done very poorly. But after I finished the "kit" and resoldered every connection, it turned out to be a really good little tuner. Although I would agree with the other fella, I would never have attempted 300 watts with that tuner!
73
Dan
Dan Evans K9ZF
Scottsburg, IN 47170
{EM78}
K9ZF /R no budget Rover
ex-N9RLA
Check out the Rover Resource Page at:
http://www.qsl.net/n9rla
QRP-l #1269
Central States VHF Society
IN-Ham list administrator
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W2EH on February 5, 2004
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TEN-TEC ARGONAUT, circa 1974. The greatest TVI generator ever, next to a spark gap transmitter!.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K2GT on February 5, 2004
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Anyone who has ever owned an EICO 753 would be remiss he did not vote for it in the amaateur radio Hall of Shame.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2JKM on February 5, 2004
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Another real "winner" on my list was an early 2 meter FM synthesized rig made by Emergency Beacon Corporation. It was known as the EBC 144 Jr, I believe. One of the first synthesized rigs on the market for hams -- seems like it was about 1972-73. I think they cost about $600 too.
Dual bank of thumbwheel switches so you could scan 2 frequencies or work those big-city thingies called "repeaters". All solid state, no relays. Infamous for losing VCO lock. Infamous for blowing the final output transistor. If you got a good one, it was a rig to admire. Most of them made many trips back to the factory. Many were DOA when new.
The EBC's made the Genave crystal controlled 2M FM rigs look like real gems -- even with the compression caps across the crystals that changed with the temperature, humidity, or any other whim of nature.
BTW, a high school friend had an Eico 753, Drift-O-Matic and actually ran RTTY with it. Yup, one eye on the RIT and one eye on the scope of his TU to keep it on center. It would stabilize quite nicely if he turned it on in the morning before leaving for school and leave it on all day. By the time he got home after school, it was usually not drifting very much.
Ahhhh, the good old days. Were they really that good?
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB2YEE on February 5, 2004
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mine was the yaesu ft8500 dual band mobile and i had two. one for my xyl.Radio over heated and lost transmit 3 times. and went back to yaesu for repair
then one night went to dinner left radio on when i returned to the car we smelt somthing burning
touched the radio and it was hot touched the heat sink and burned my fingers the radio is no longer part of this world since i threw it out the window on the sag, pky on long island.The second 8500 is still new in the box with adams proraming software and all the extras it is not for sale.!!!! how can i sell it
and have a clear concience
73 kb2yee john mutt
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB5OAU on February 5, 2004
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The R-100 junk? It was my GOOD receiver, and I worked
hundreds of stations with it.
The Star Roamer I built...now THAT was a pretty poor piece of gear .... never did work anyone using it...
...but the R100 was FB!
John K5MO
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WI0T on February 5, 2004
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I guess I've been lucky....However I would vote the
worst equipment I bought (i.e. a mistake) was the
Yaesu FT-401B.
26 tubes, 60+ volts on the key (drove my TenTec
electronic keyer nuts), 560 watts PEP with 6KD6 sweep
tube finals (big honking fan on the back...) Weighed a
ton. Contacts got dirty pretty quick after a short
period of inactivity.
Consider the alternatives I *could* have bought:
Kenwood TS-520, TS-820, or the Yaesu FT-101 (I don't
recall if it was the EE or ZD model).
I did have a Tempo One for about a month while I fixed
it (it was "enhanced" for 11 meter operation), and then
gave it to a Novice to use. I suspect that rig would
be worse than the FT-401B - but I didn't buy it, so I
had no regrets...
73,
Rod - WI0T
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N9AVY on February 5, 2004
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Have seen quite a few comments about Knight rigs being crap. Used to work at factory. Some of the problems were due to inferior components. Recall the person who ordered components would call around for cheapest possible prices; when good capacitors were selling for a nickel they'd be buying the penny ones.
Just recalled another rig I have that was a zonker. A WWII surplus SST-1-688 (OSS stuff!)... chirps & key clicks made for a really outstanding signal !
Jerry, N9AVY
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by M0HDX on February 5, 2004
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Worst junk i ever bought was a brand new mfj 3kw tuner, Has i took it out of the box it rattled and clanged (loose parts inside)...Sent it straight back and got a full refund.
jim,M0HDX
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8UO on February 5, 2004
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I would have to agree with every one else's comments on the old EICO 753. Had a friend who had one and we drove ourselves nuts trying to get it working properly.
I also have had various pieces of MFJ, and they are cheaply made. Currently I have a Kenwood TM261A 2 meter rig that is the worst 2 meter mobile I've ever had. It's OK as a base station, but on transmit it shuts down on anything but low power in the mobile, and has very poor receive also. I've had other Kenwood rigs in the past that were fine radios, but this one is bad. Just replaced it with an Icom V8000 which is much beter so far.
Thanks, Ken N8UO
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AA4PB on February 5, 2004
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I don't think you guys are being completely fair to the old Eico 753 :-) It was afterall a relatively inexpensive kit. My original unit had a tube VFO and it did have a good deal of drift, especially with power line fluctuations. The major problem was in the filement voltage changes. I added a mod to regulate the filiment voltage on the VFO tube and the thing became much more stable. Later on Eico offered a solid state VFO board which helped even more. Finally I converted the VFO to multiple crystal channels for use on Navy MARS and the thing became rock solid. I'd say I got my money's worth out of it over the years. In it's final days I re-installed the solid state VFO and donated it for use in the mission field overseas.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AE4NR on February 5, 2004
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in the last 12 years it has been the Stinking Kenwood ts 440 and the mfj 962 d suppose to be a 1kw tuner I was using a sb 200 took out two of these the first time I tried to use it and this was into a resonant antenna.Sent the first one back to HRO who sent me another and the very same thing happened to this one arcing and poping and so forth HRO finally provided me with the the 989c and to be honest it has been working fine other than turns counter is a joke both tuning capacitors have come loose from the case well I guess it is not all that great now that I think of it.But to give it credit at least it has not arced over.Now the ts44o another POS had the infamouse vco 5 problem sent back to kenwood workde fine for 3 days and started the same junk gave it away to a young ham who just knew he could fix it well he didn't he gave it away for spare parts since then have gone to the Kenwood Ts 940 I do not learn my lessons very well.It started to exhibit some drifting and warbly receive audio traded it off for a Yaesu ft 900 a great little radio and then purchased a ft 990 just as nice not problems so far
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W4KPA on February 5, 2004
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Well, I think there's at least one vote for just about every radio ever made.
The all time worst for me was a Maha CH-888 smart battery charger. Two of these in a row burned up on me. I got a third one under warranty, but I never leave it unattended when it's charging.
Dishonorable mention goes to the Yaesu FT-90R. Nice idea -- lousy implementation. I've got two of them. There are weird crackling noises on the transmitted audio, a goofy squelch problem that shows up when you program the radio for 5 khz steps, and heat related shutdowns. If you read the reviews here on eham.net, you'll get the idea. They are reliable. The always light up when you press the switch. But, good grief, they are quirky.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KG4PFO on February 5, 2004
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This one is easy....my old junk kenwood TM-241.
Worthless...and now in the grave.
Will never buy another kenwood...made a yaesu man out of me.
David
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NA6DF on February 5, 2004
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*anything* I ever owned made by MFJ, including the 259 swr analyzer, which I like funtionally, but is still constructed poorly, like everything else they make..
na6df
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KR4WM on February 5, 2004
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Without a doubt, the Eico 7-DRIFTY-3. Close second was an MFJ tuner that had the inductor wired BACKWARDS. It was set up in a club station that was rarely used. I discovered the problem, and called them for warranty replacement since it obviously came from them wired that way. MFJ's response to me? "You've had it over 30 days, it's yours!" That was the -LAST- piece of MFJ junk that will grace my shack OR my club's shack! I do have a Mighty Fine Junk clock that I can't really complain about, but it was bought years ago before I found out how low-quality their junk actually is and what distances (zero inches) that MFJ's customer service crew will go to in order please a customer.
-Web
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K0XXX on February 5, 2004
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I haven't been a Ham long enough to have any real problems (thank goodness). However in my short time I guess, for the money spent, it would be a Yaesu FT-100D. Turned out to be a nice radio AFTER completion of the mods to keep it from overheating, etc.
Otherwise, a Yaesu FT-50R. Works great but is shaped like an over sized hand grenade. Very uncomfortable.
I'm sure I'll find my own "real" stinker soon enough though....
Enjoyable post and reading!
Mark, KØXXX
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8FKN on February 5, 2004
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MFJ.........model: ______________ (fill in the blank. Any product model # will suffice.)
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 5, 2004
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There is a shame difference between an EICO 753 and any MFJ antenna tuner.
If you could tame the VFO, the 753 was not a bad rig.
The RX was as good as a HW-101. A solid 90+ watts out on SSB with good TX audio. On CW the TX was ultra
clean. The EICO could deal with a 3:1 load well.
No noise blanker switch, it did not seem affected
with noise.
MFJ is a different matter! I must have had 10 different MFJ tuners. Everyone of them would have screws loosten off. Arcing caps with only 100W.
Burning inductor switch. Meters that would were never that accurate. I had one meter melt. I had one dummy load fry!
I can never say I owned a ""GOOD"" MFJ tuner!
I always bought them, thinking I would up grade to a better tuner.
You will sleep better at night if you look at MFJ tuners, as being like disposable razors! They are good for a few months, if you use 100W or less.
73 DE MIKE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K1XV on February 5, 2004
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A Gotham V-80 vertical antenna. Said you could work the world. I could not be heard 1 mile away. It would work somewhat if in the hands of an expert with a good swr bridge, but it was marketed to Novices. Ended many amateur radio careers in the bud.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8CQ on February 5, 2004
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Without a doubt, it was my Eico 7 Drifty Three (753) HF transceiver. The price was great (< $150) for 80-10 meter HF transceiver with 100+ watts output, VFO, RIT and all the bells and whistles for the vintage. Used to drift 10-50 Khz during transmissions. With sweep tube finals, you could fry eggs while operating on a Saturday morning which was probably the best use for this rig!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K4IA on February 6, 2004
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R7000 for sure. If Cushcraft had any honor at all they should have offered upgrade rebates on the R8000. At least we could have recovered something.
Second worst, the Icom 756Pro. Growls and rumbles made it unusable at narrow filter widths.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KL7IPV on February 6, 2004
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I remembered one piece of gear...the Polytronics 6. It was easy to tune, the more TVs that it killed the better the tune up was. It looked nice for it's time but it was probably the "dirtiest" 6 meter unit I have ever put on the air. I didn't keep that baby long.
73
Frank
KL7IPV
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 6, 2004
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hay you all!
old timers?! yep i guess i am one member of QCWA , ben a ham for over 30 years!
i forgt that i had a Icom 245 cw/ssb POS. what a hunk a cr@p it was. I paid $700 for that f#!@%n radio. that radio has frequent flyer miles on it! hi hi! :^)
however Icom has been cranking out some good radios recently. i have a 706mk2 & a early 746. not to bad of radios.
Hha yes might fine junk.
sone one wrote that MFJ makes the Ameratron Amps. WRONG!
they own the company. if they are smart they will leave them people alone that know how to build a resonable priced amp. wee shall see.....
so far Ameratron does pritty good work. I have a
AL 80B nice table top amp. never had any problems. knock on wood.
i have a friend that told me a story about his mfj 300 watt tuner that had a neet light built in to it. but only on 15 meters?
it would turn on when he hit the key. how neet, RIGHT?
it started to smoke, i was asked to look at it.
i replaced the induction switch with a heaver ceramic switch able to handle 300 watts, un lile the cheepy plastic switch.
i forgot , i had a 1.5 kw tuner by mighity fine junk.
the caps looked like some one home brewed the plates on the stator, no kidding.besides having burs and non smoth half moon shape it would arc at low power.
i had to take apart both tuning caps. and re form the stater plates. using a half moon wooden jig i would clamp in to a vice and do about 5 to 6 plates at once. wonderful!
the roler inductor has a shorting thing that clickes in when the tuner is used on 20 - 10 meters, to elimanate series resonance and r f voltage build up. well i fixed that little mechanacal problem as well.
i have the antenna analizer 259, now a "B" model.
i first bought this , then like 2 weeks after i got it the "B" model comes out. well for around $70 you can get it up graded to a "B".i ship it off. they had the G.D. P.O.S for about 60 days. i made a lot of phone calles to get it back and up graded.
got it back it didnt wotk right at all!
i had to go back to using my eico 710 grid dip osc. and a heathkit antenna bridge. both fairly efective for ther time.
i sent the mfj 259 back to them to fix there inability to test it. AAHHH quality control! at its worst!
i finaily got the POS back the 2ed time. it worked that time.thats why i call it Mighity Fine(when it works), Junk(when it don't)
later
dale
n4ede
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W5DXP on February 6, 2004
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Mine would be the Heathkit controlled-carrier AM transmitter that I built in college in the 50's. It had as much FM modulation as AM modulation.
--
73, Cecil, W5DXP
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 6, 2004
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hay you all!
old timers?! yep i guess i am one member of QCWA , ben a ham for over 30 years!
i forgt that i had a Icom 245 cw/ssb POS. what a hunk a cr@p it was. I paid $700 for that f#!@%n radio. that radio has frequent flyer miles on it! hi hi! :^)
however Icom has been cranking out some good radios recently. i have a 706mk2 & a early 746. not to bad of radios.
Hha yes might fine junk.
sone one wrote that MFJ makes the Ameratron Amps. WRONG!
they own the company. if they are smart they will leave them people alone that know how to build a resonable priced amp. wee shall see.....
so far Ameratron does pritty good work. I have a
AL 80B nice table top amp. never had any problems. knock on wood.
i have a friend that told me a story about his mfj 300 watt tuner that had a neet light built in to it. but only on 15 meters?
it would turn on when he hit the key. how neet, RIGHT?
it started to smoke, i was asked to look at it.
i replaced the induction switch with a heaver ceramic switch able to handle 300 watts, un lile the cheepy plastic switch.
i forgot , i had a 1.5 kw tuner by mighity fine junk.
the caps looked like some one home brewed the plates on the stator, no kidding.besides having burs and non smoth half moon shape it would arc at low power.
i had to take apart both tuning caps. and re form the stater plates. using a half moon wooden jig i would clamp in to a vice and do about 5 to 6 plates at once. wonderful!
the roler inductor has a shorting thing that clickes in when the tuner is used on 20 - 10 meters, to elimanate series resonance and r f voltage build up. well i fixed that little mechanacal problem as well.
i have the antenna analizer 259, now a "B" model.
i first bought this , then like 2 weeks after i got it the "B" model comes out. well for around $70 you can get it up graded to a "B".i ship it off. they had the G.D. P.O.S for about 60 days. i made a lot of phone calles to get it back and up graded.
got it back it didnt wotk right at all!
i had to go back to using my eico 710 grid dip osc. and a heathkit antenna bridge. both fairly efective for ther time.
i sent the mfj 259 back to them to fix there inability to test it. AAHHH quality control! at its worst!
i finaily got the POS back the 2ed time. it worked that time.thats why i call it Mighity Fine(when it works), Junk(when it don't)
later
dale
n4ede
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 6, 2004
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hay you all!
old timers?! yep i guess i am one member of QCWA , ben a ham for over 30 years!
i forgt that i had a Icom 245 cw/ssb POS. what a hunk a cr@p it was. I paid $700 for that f#!@%n radio. that radio has frequent flyer miles on it! hi hi! :^)
however Icom has been cranking out some good radios recently. i have a 706mk2 & a early 746. not to bad of radios.
Hha yes might fine junk.
sone one wrote that MFJ makes the Ameratron Amps. WRONG!
they own the company. if they are smart they will leave them people alone that know how to build a resonable priced amp. wee shall see.....
so far Ameratron does pritty good work. I have a
AL 80B nice table top amp. never had any problems. knock on wood.
i have a friend that told me a story about his mfj 300 watt tuner that had a neet light built in to it. but only on 15 meters?
it would turn on when he hit the key. how neet, RIGHT?
it started to smoke, i was asked to look at it.
i replaced the induction switch with a heaver ceramic switch able to handle 300 watts, un lile the cheepy plastic switch.
i forgot , i had a 1.5 kw tuner by mighity fine junk.
the caps looked like some one home brewed the plates on the stator, no kidding.besides having burs and non smoth half moon shape it would arc at low power.
i had to take apart both tuning caps. and re form the stater plates. using a half moon wooden jig i would clamp in to a vice and do about 5 to 6 plates at once. wonderful!
the roler inductor has a shorting thing that clickes in when the tuner is used on 20 - 10 meters, to elimanate series resonance and r f voltage build up. well i fixed that little mechanacal problem as well.
i have the antenna analizer 259, now a "B" model.
i first bought this , then like 2 weeks after i got it the "B" model comes out. well for around $70 you can get it up graded to a "B".i ship it off. they had the G.D. P.O.S for about 60 days. i made a lot of phone calles to get it back and up graded.
got it back it didnt wotk right at all!
i had to go back to using my eico 710 grid dip osc. and a heathkit antenna bridge. both fairly efective for ther time.
i sent the mfj 259 back to them to fix there inability to test it. AAHHH quality control! at its worst!
i finaily got the POS back the 2ed time. it worked that time.thats why i call it Mighity Fine(when it works), Junk(when it don't)
later
dale
n4ede
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AF4OD on February 6, 2004
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A ten tec scout. I really wanted to like the radio, but it just wasnt worth the money it cost.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KE2IV on February 6, 2004
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40+ years a ham I've seen a lot of P.O.S.
But, beyond 1960's era Hallicrafters, one time Collins wannabes.
I have to agree with:
1) NJ3F - The Tempo 1 has to have been the crappiest ham xcvr made. Of course, it was mainly sold to be "modded" as a hi-power CB rig with the full 40 Channell plus SSB capability just needing a "tweak".
2) WB8JKR - Anything made by MFJ is simply Mighty Fine Junk (including all the "names" they've bought)! So long Hy-Gain, now you're just Migthy Fine Junk!
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Seven Drifty Three...
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by K7FD on February 6, 2004
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I never owned a 7 drifty 3, but heard many of them. Or was that the same one as it drifted down the band? Really, they should have labelled it the eICo 753 trANceiVEr...
Another rig I never owened but if I did I'd consider it the worst is the Ten Tec Scout. Again, the lack of frequency stability earns it a status as a true DOG.
I guess I'd have to chime in on MFJ as the worst stuff I've owned. The antenna analyzer was dead out of the box and a small mobile tuner arc'ed like crazy. Still, it's nice to see an American company making ANY ham gear at this stage in the global economy...
73 John K7FD
http://www.cwoperator.com
PS. The BEST piece of gear I've ever owned is a Wilderness/NORCAL NC-40a
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 6, 2004
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More P.O.S. I have owned and throwned.
FT-707 very first all solid state rig for me. Even with a dual 8 pole XTAL filter IF shift control, it sux!
Motorola HT-100 series. A ham H-t had netter IMOD
rejection. Had to program it with a 386 computer.
Side band engineering SBE-33 Solid state, tube final 3 band mobile SSB P.o.s and schlock in general. I was 16, the man told me it worked the last time he used it!
Hey, we all felt for that one once!
Tempo S-1 The very first synthesised 2M H-T. overpaid $400 in 1978. No PL, no memories, no odd ball split, and highly breakable 19"" telescoping whip!
Mororola STX it STUNX!
Standard 2M H-T..Standard ha...It was a below standard radio!
Dentron GLA-1000 sweeptube 1KW. Arc city! To add triple injury to insult...I did over pay on EBAY!
About 10 MFJ antenna tuner/swr/powermeter/P.O.S.its over 25 years. They do not last. I keep saying I will buy a better tuner the next time!
6 MT-500's on ebay, no batts, charger, chnnel elements or chance! OK for $20 FOR ALL....nOT BAD P.O.S.'S!
4 MX-360's UHF synth. again $20bux for all!
Big mistake 100 f00T radio trash Psuedo RG-8X cable assembly! thats what you get for being lazy.
I should have a P.O.S. and tupper wear party!
73 and may all stop buying P.O.Shts !
MIKE
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K6BBC on February 6, 2004
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10 Meter Johnson Ranger. I don't even think it is a radio.
A friend had an Eico 7drifty 3. WOW! that was something.
K6BBC
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2RCB on February 6, 2004
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Worst (mobile) radio I ever owned was the Clegg FM-27B. Had 4 large knobs to select the Tx/Rx frequency that was 100 times more distracting to use while mobile than a modern cellphone. The thing would also drift 5 or more Kc's with every subtle change in temperature. The worst antenna I ever had was the AEA 2-Meter Isopole. Most of the rivets holding the 2x cones together gave way after one year of exposure to the weather. Never worked worth a darn as a radiator of RF but it did make a good free-air-dummy-load. It was very satisfying when I pulled it off the mast and sent it right into the ash can from off of the roof. Curiously however, and in reference to other poster's commentary, I have owned two MFJ antenna tuners and never had any problems with either of them. Only reason I sold them was for a trade-up to a pair of Dentron 160-10AT's that I still have and are built like the proverbial battleship. Much more sturdy construction than the MFJ.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W5AAX on February 6, 2004
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A National NCX-3 triband transceiver. Most unstable!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WM5Z on February 6, 2004
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Years ago I had a Kenwood TS-180. Kept burning out the bulbs in the meter, drifted bad, unless the external VFO was used. If the SWR was above 1.5:1 would just shut down the output. Memory batteries had to be replaced every couple of months. On CW it would hang up the receiver if you tried to QSK with it, and don't use head phones and try to have a QSO as the loud audio pop would really hurt.
Never had a good More Friggin' Junk that I would keep. Tried two different tuners....
Best radio I ever had was an FT-900. Wish it hadn't been stolen in a burglary.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KD7KGX on February 6, 2004
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The worst piece of ham radio gear I've ever owned (in my short time as a ham) was a Heathkit HW-7. Definitely NOT the rig to get for a CW beginner. I think I could get a better signal by sticking a fork into a filling.
Seems that MFJ is "winning" the dubious distinction of being mentioned the most in this thread. I have had three pieces of MFJ gear. My MFJ 784B filter worked as expected... but since I purchased radios with built-in DSP and good crystal filtering, I didn't need it and sold it to another ham on eBay for more than I paid... and he was happy, too. My second piece of gear was an MFJ-1116 Deluxe Power Strip. It worked as expected, too, but was replaced by a RigRunner. I've noticed that MFJ has a competing product out... except that the PowerPole orientation seems to be opposite of the RigRunner series (the ARES standard), so how many hams who work with ARES/RACES are going to buy one? I hope they correct this, as I do think their product has some interesting features.
My third piece of MFJ gear is a 492 keyer with the additional memory and remote keypad, another eBay purchase. The keyer works fine... except that when someone wrote the firmware they got the numbers backward. If I want to include memory #1 in a message in memory #2, i.e., my call is in #1 and I want 'CQ CQ CQ de call call call' in #2, then I have to tell it to use memory location #7. That's right, the lookup table for the memory locations are dot-dash reversed. Oops.
Which brings me to my point: quality control is the difference between MFJ being a well-respected or a well-ridiculed company. If you don't believe this, just scan through the reviews of the various MFJ products on this site. Almost every negative reviewer says the same thing... 'if only the product worked as expected I would have been a satisfied customer.' But it is always some simple QC-related problem (nuts backing off, wires not soldered, etc.). If you don't have the time or money to do it right initially, do you have the time or money to do it again for free?
Their advertising, while generally good, also tends to run to the hyperbolic. For instance, why do they brag about 'tooled manufacturing' (a nonsense phrase if ever there was) in the making of their Hy-Gain line of antennas? News flash: EVERYONE uses tools! If they mean that they use machined dies to stamp their parts instead of just bending a piece of aluminum around a form... then say it! And they're STILL beating up on the Ten-Tec Centaur amp in their AL-811 advertising even though the former has been off the market for many years.
MFJ must sell mostly to new hams who, like me, admire the breadth of their product line, but who do not have enough experience with their products to worry about QC problems. Come on, Martin! Spend $50k to hire one person and make them in charge of developing and implementing a comprehensive product-wide QC department. The money you save on warranty repairs, and the money you make on increased sales, will MORE than pay for it!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KE2IV on February 6, 2004
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KD7KGX:
Welcome to the wide world of Hamdom.
No need to defend Mighty Fine Junk. You got 'stuck' like the rest of us!
We all own one or two of their P's O S!
Problem is, Martin has a lock on things now.
Can't honestly say that the amps, antennas and tuners of the "names" were any better in the end - but he own's them all now.
We're stuck!
73,
George
KE2IV
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by LA1SJA on February 6, 2004
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1st. place: HW-7. Went almost directly from the lab bench to the storage shelf. (In the early 70' ?).
Ended up beeing dropped in the dustbin while moving house.
2nd. place: The R-7000 vertical. While it's predecessor, the R-7 is an exellent antenna (except for the few days every year when it suffers from weather sickness), there is not much to be heard on the R-7000 at all.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KL7EDK on February 6, 2004
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Guess I'd have to say an Eico 753 Triband Transceiver.
Several modifications were eventually made and I also built a heavier duty power supply which resolved some problems. Frequency drift was a continuous event. Fm'ing when using a marginal power supply was very common.
By the time I got most of the problems resolved to the point of making it "not a pain" to use there were other kits (better) available. I could never sell it...there were already 3-4 others in town so the word was out, even though I had most of the problems solved.
I eventually 'gave ' it away at a hamfest to someone who wanted it for parts. I never asked if he was going to use it to keep 'HIS' 753 running.
Jerry
KL7EDK
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K4ADL on February 6, 2004
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I've owned dozens of HTs over the years, but the worst was a very compact Alinco synthesized 2-meter FM, whose nomenclature I cannot recall. It emitted a high-pitch whine either on transmit or receive (forgot which). I sent it back for repair twice to Alinco, and each time it was returned with the same flaw. It was as though I had mailed the package to myself.
I was somewhat miffed. I took a hammer and a large pair of diagonal pliers and tore the unit into shreds. It looked like a jigsaw puzzle when I was done with it. When I was satisfied that no part of the HT was larger than 10mm, including the case, I packaged it up and mailed it to the sales manager at Alinco.
Several weeks later I got a nice letter back. He told me he mounted the pieces and framed them on his office wall, as an example of the need for quality control. If I recall, he also enclosed another HT, which also suffered the same high-pitch squeal. I later dumped it at a hamfest, promoting it as an electronic mosquito repellant.
In all fairness to Alinco, I believe their products are much better now then they were way back then.
RUNNER UP: MFJ-1621 Portable Antenna
This was the original version of that little black box with a few knobs, a meter, a telescoping antenna, and seemingly 500 feet of coax, allegedly useful as a portable antenna. It is still being sold today, but now it seems to have a wood grain top on its case. We all know that adding decorative Contac paper will enhance your signal. Purchased by unwitting hams like me, the thrill of potentially violating the laws of physics and actually QSO'ing with others by spending $89 for this box, rather than construcing a homemade dipole for about $1.50, was short-lived.
73, Andy - K4ADL
The K4ADL Kartoon Korner
www.qsl.net/k4adl
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K8DIT on February 6, 2004
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I will not buy Yaesu ever again due to my experience with the FT757GX. I inadvertently reversed polarity one day in the '80s and instead of opening up a protective diode, the entire radio was ruined.
I will never buy a Heathkit AR-3 receiver ever again, it was my first ham project in 1961. What a dissappointment. I have since recovered from this trauma and owned many fine Heathkit products.
I like to avoid MFJ products but have been happy with their oil can dummy load, a dry dummy load, a 5-way coax switch, and have enjoyed many fine moments perusing their catalogue, throwing my head back while laughing maniacally, when considering getting one of those gizmos.
They're so easy to pick on. I like to brag that my shack is MFJ free, but its not entirely true.
I've purchased a half dozen items on ebay and have not been burned.
Brands Ive had the most fun with are Ten Tec, W2IHY, Drake, Lightningbolt antennas and Heathkit.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NF6E on February 6, 2004
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An Azden PCS300 2m handheld. Terrible audio - everyone told me I sounded as if I was talking from the bottom of a pickle barrel. The PTT switch was so flimsy that it cracked after a few months use and I had to tape it together because glue melted the plastic. The battery was a kluge of rechargeable AA ni-cads in shrink wrap with a fragile 2-wire pig tail that ended in a tiny Molex-type plug you could only insert and remove with a magnifying glass and tweezers.
All in all...it sucked. But it was my very first synthesized 2m handheld (circa 1981) and I loved it.
Here's a picture of it:
http://www.rigpix.com/azden/pcs300.htm
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K9WLF on February 6, 2004
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Mine was an old Motorola power supply that I bought with an ICOM 720 for field day. I was out camping with the club doing the fall sweepstakes and the voltage the voltage regulator went bad and put 26 volts into the 720. The radio survived without damage, but I rate this my worst because even my friends at Motorola could not get me a schematic of the power supply and I was unable to read part numbers and color codes to rebuild it
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB5HZE on February 6, 2004
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Guess I've been lucky, most of my rigs have been winners. The worst of the lot, I suppose, was my first novice TX, a Hallicrafters HT-40. Manual TX switch, rockbound @ 40W, and oh man that backwave drove me nuts. But it was simple & rugged enough that I could keep it up & going- and despite its faults I loved that radio like no other since.
Ron WB5HZE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by VA3WXM on February 6, 2004
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Haven't really been a ham long enough to have experienced some really stinky equipment but one does stand out for me. Not so much because it was crap but because I had been conditioned to believe it was crap and was waiting for it to fail at any moment.
The offender: the Yaesu FT-7100 dual-band mobile rig.
I bought this turkey brand new as a replacment for a tired FT-5100. Liked the looks of it, the sound was decent and the detachable face was a plus. But I neglected to consult the reviews on eHam and more or less regretted the purchase within days. But the funny thing was my 7100 did NONE of the things so many others had reported here. Still I was on pins and needles waiting for something to fail. In the end I sold it to a friend of mine who was fully aware of the myriad of caveats. He had it for about a year until it was stolen from his car recently, but during that time he had no problems either.
Who knew?!
Oh, and the 5100? I nursed it back to health and it's worked FB in the shack ever since.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB2FCV on February 6, 2004
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Most all of my equipment has been good over the years. Some of my tube gear have had their share of problems, but they are old.. they are allowed to.
The worst piece of gear I had was a two or three hundred watt antenna tuner made by B&W. I bought it new a while back. I had it for maybe 6 months and I noticed one day that all of a sudden, the meter was backlit. I thought to my self "Odd, this meter was never backlit before... where is it getting it's power from?" I disconnected it, and it still was "lit". At this point I noticed a small curl of smoke coming from it. I opened the top, blew out the flame.. and inspected the damage. All the insulation burned off. I'm not sure what happened (I had a very good ground), but it was damaged beyond repair.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by LU1HQV on February 6, 2004
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Yaesu VXR-5
ARRRJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJJ!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't make any decent contact in vhf/uhf!!
Receptor was too noisi!!
naanananana.. no more vhf yaesu for me!!!
R7000 antenna tooo!!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4SNL on February 6, 2004
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That would be everything I have ever owned that didn't work at the time. When things work, you love em! When the're kaput, they R nuthin but junk! And whether it's our fault or the OM we still hate whatever it is. One mans nightmare is another mans dream. And vers visa!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N0JYC on February 6, 2004
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Certainly MFJ tuners...knobs stripping out, arcing, etc, etc. Have had 2 MFJ (I never learn) 12/24 hour clocks...had one of the big digital red ones and it would change time every time I transmitted on HF and the other one just went poof one day about a year after I had it. Also, tried the CW decoder, I think the 462 model, it couldn't decode a thing!
Crashcraft R7000. It now works great, but getting there was quite a chore! Received this antenna with many parts missing. Started putting it together and realized one of the tubes were missing. Called Cushcraft techs and after leaving 4 or 5 messages and not getting a call back I emailed them. Got a response that a tube was on the way. Got the tube 2 weeks later and continued on with the construction and got near the end and realized the 6 meter tube was not there (my fault should have checked everything when I realized I was missing the first part). Again tried to call and never got a response. I emailed again and this time got a very rude response...yes, they will send me the 6 meter tube, but if I call them again and tell them I am missing anything with this antenna, it will be at my expense! I will never purchase Cushcraft again!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KO4NR on February 6, 2004
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ICOM 211 all mode 2 meter radio. Utilized a wiring harness to the PLL box that had to be kinked to fit. That caused broken wires and loose connections. Found many bad solder joints on the PLL board as well as breaks in the circuit board traces. This rig had never worked properly. It had many IC's in it as well as a lot of discrete components. Looked like it came out right at the transition from discrete componets/wiring harness to IC's. When it did work it would develop intermittment thermal problems. Work ok cold then go all to heck when warm. A day or so later the problem would dissappear.
A fellow ham had one as well and it did about the same thing with him. He threw his in the Roanoke River off I-95 in North Carolina!!
I sold it to a guy for $50.00 who wanted it a lot worse than I did.
73,
Bill
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K0RGR on February 6, 2004
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I must be awfully lucky. I've only had two rigs that were extreme disappointments, and I've had lots of them.
The biggest disappointment ever was the ICOM 725 mobile rig. The receiver was just junk, even after some serious modifications to try to correct its total lack of dynamic range. If you engaged the noise blanker, strong signals anywhere in the band would pump the AGC and cause buckshot. Of course, the Japanese manufacturers really have never figured out the noise blanker. Collins and Drake had the best ones ever built - they actually worked.
The ICOM 2720H is a close second for the same reason. I've never had anything this prone to intermod. I still think they used the wrong diodes in the T/R switches on these, but they're much too small for me to see and check it out.
My Eico 753 was at least usable after adding a voltage regulator and a buffer stage for the VFO. Still drifted, but you could at least follow it with the dial, and the station you were working could follow you if you didn't talk too long. I always used a tuner after my T-60, because I already had a pink QSL from the FCC monitor in Grand Island with a previous rig. And I always admired the HW-100's and 101's owned by my friends when I was a kid. They were the poor man's KWM-2 of the time.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N9CYS on February 6, 2004
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A MFJ Tuner. Nuff said! Replaced it with a Drake MN-2000 which is built like a tank. Oh, also a Daiwa wattmeter. What was I thinking? Replaced it with a Bird 43 (and 3 slugs) I picked up from a SK sale for $100. These two pieces aren't going anywhere!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K2JX on February 6, 2004
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Anything I bought that was made by Heathkit aka "Griefkits"...a Genave GTX 100.. yikes watta P.O.S. that was...MFJ's MFJ-815B watt meter, 6 db loss at 50.1 megs geezzz...Some Astron DC supplies, made in the MFJ plant? Hi hi...poor soldering, no soldering..puff !
Although I do agree with another that MFJ's 989C Versa Tuner has a junky plastic turns counter and some awful soldering, mine works well and was fairly well made. Maybe 'cuz mine was built in the Winter and not after a 3 day Summer weekend !
On arrival the turns counter had fallen off into the cabinet. Rather than hassle with UPS and MFJ, I put in on the bench and repaired it. I fully agree one does get what one pays for ! 73, Jack K2JX
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by DL9FCC on February 6, 2004
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like to put on my own philosophy way i see it
i did read all the other review about this issue and i have to say when we all enter to this fine hobby of HAM RADIO we all knew that this HOBBY is all about experiment.
as well all the 3 big [more or less] company try to do the perfect radio for a very long time
i got my ticket in 1970 as 4Z4UN and had home made tx rx like sp-600 and Gelosso .
i was very happy years to do lots of qso in Cw on every day Basic and my antenna was a poor
inverted v , then hw7 and so on, i do agree that people out there pay top of day hard
working money in order to buy the best radio out there, but i will have to say as well that
there is no perfect and will never be, i have a good friend that have sport car that cost
$255.000 YES [to high for me], he keep complain that he have problem on .
the dealer replace the car for high spec one on his cost this just to make this friend
of main happy, still he don't like the way seat are and ETC.. SO THERE YOU GO
i think you can find it in every day car tv hi fi wife and so on.
years ago i think the ARRL as a ham radio representative need to have a comity that will help on big complain like key click, we do not have to do any modification at all on $3000
radio, we all have to sign a petition and then send it to who ever can do something about it.
some people do not like it, i can say why not to buy the nice kit from the company that
out there they have a very good service and listen to us, 2nd build your own radio
but till then if you buy it is all your on risk, over the years i see that we more and more PICKY about the radio we all buy think what was 30 or 40 years ago.
all the best to you all GOD BLESS
HOPE TO WORK YOU ON CW OR SSB SOME TIME
thank you for reading
Elan g0uut/dl9fcc/4z4un
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3UD on February 6, 2004
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Ah....Gotham
The problem with Gotham was not the antenna. If the antenna was set up properly with a decent radial system and some time time taken to determine where the taps on the coil were in order to get the lowest SWR on each band, It worked as well as any shortened vertical could work. I had the V-160 which when set up right, worked rather well.
The real problem with Gotham was the advertising which was aimed at new hams in the Novice class and touted as an all band vertical without adequately explaining what that really meant.
I suspect that may newer hams sent in their 16.95, got the antenna, put it up attached the coil to it and then the coax, maybe the shield to a single ground rod, maybe not, and proceeded to attempt to use it. Since it was an "all band" antenna, it was thought that, hey, I just have to flip the bandswitch and I am all ready to go.
The advertising never did say much about resonating the antenna by changing the taps on the coil, never did say anything that I am aware of concerning the need for a radial system, but always, and this is not exageration for those who have never seen the ads, always talked about all the DX you can work with low power and how K6INI was an all time champion DXer using his V-80 Gotham antenna. This was complete with a log of stations worked.
It was great advertising and Gotham lasted into the early 80s until the one of the principals in the company died. Gotham started business in New York and later moved to Miami.
As I said, The Gotham could be made to perform quite well and be an antenna that one could use to work DX on 80, 40, and 15 meter CW.
IN QST SINCE 53!
73
George
K3UD
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2WIK on February 6, 2004
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I remember the Gotham ads, they were great!
"FLASH: Switched to 15 and worked ZS1DX!"
Whoever wrote those ads left his mark, as Maxx-Comm has copied the style, and even MFJ uses some similar slick marketing.
I must admit, MFJ has become the King of SKUs (for those who know what a SKU is). They must have one million product models by now...
WB2WIK/6
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3UD on February 6, 2004
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Steve,
I forgot about the "FLASH!"
ButI remember another one....
"20 meters is murder these days but when WA3XXX switched to AM using 35 watts and his Gotham V-80 he worked" (long list of DX stations)
At least the Gotham typically sold for around $20 for most of its run. The Maxx-Comm (Sonny Irons?) sold for about $500 for what amounted to a swamping resister in series with your dipole, if I remember right.
These ads were great!
73
George
K3UD
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K7COP on February 6, 2004
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It would have to be the JRC JST-245. Badly put together, no support service that is good. Universal radio just said "Maybe we can, maybe we can't".Will never deal with them again.
Bad power supplies
bad PLL boards
clunky way of switching antennas
(Way over priced for what it was)
I could go one, but wont bother.
k7cop
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AA8X on February 6, 2004
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An easy question, the Icom IC-2700h was the biggest piece of junk ever manufactured? Mine is now in a scrap heap and also the reason I would never purchase another Icom product.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AH6RR on February 6, 2004
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Oh I forgot on my first post a M(Made)F(from)J(junk) mobile tuner that even a cb radio would make it arc and sputter. What a pile of doodoo. As far as I was concerned The MFJ name is and should always be Made From Junk and never called Mighty Fine Junk because most of the parts are not worth using ever again
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W3DCG on February 6, 2004
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I haven't been around long, so not a big list from which to choose. However, by far, the worst:
a CT-22 paddle I sent back to the distributor, and the next worse, the UPGRADE paddle I paid a bit more for plus restocking fee:
Hi Mound 706 knock-off, implied to have been made in Japan, but no "Made In" sticker, badge, or stamp was anywhere to be found. It flexed like an ultra-lite spin-casting rod.
The CT 22 had very insufficient tension range, and at it's lowest setting, waltzed from side to side as I looked on in wonderment, unable to fathom how anyone could have seriously considered marketing such shiny junk at over twice the cost of MFJ Bencher knock-offs, which would have performed infinitely better than the CT 22.
On a brighter note, I'd say the best price vs performance/features product I've been lucky with has been and still is, the Idiom Press K-3 keyer. As far as paddle happiness, one Kent twin-lever has found a permanent home.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3DWW on February 6, 2004
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A small ICOM Handi (Can't recall the model) with an internal battery that went south every few months then the rig had to go back to Icom for a new one.
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RE: FT-207R(otten) and the FT-90R(otten)
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by K3DWW on February 6, 2004
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OTOH my XYL and I carried FT-470s strapped to the front brake master cylinders of our Harley-D's on four cross-country trips and to commute 70 mi each way to work with nary a hikup. Still use them for ARES/RACES.
Also have FT-90 in my PU for 2 yrs, only trouble is display quits when cold.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KC0TJ on February 6, 2004
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Years ago I bought a new 707 HF tranciever made by a company that starts with the letter 'Y'. It never operated on all bands and did not run at all until input voltage was over 13 volts. I repeatedly returned it to the dealer (UPS) the same day returned to me. When the warranty was running out and not having it for more than a day at a time, I called the national 'Y' office for help. I was told by the manager named Chip, that the warranty was with the dealer and if I sent it to 'Y', I would never see it again. So went to another dealer and sold it to them for $400.00 less than I paid for it. My ham family has bought more than 25 rigs since, and non start with the letter 'Y'.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by VE3WGO on February 6, 2004
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Worst has to be my Ten Tec Paragon transceiver. It keeps needing me to resolder the PLL components. There are several of these circuit sections, divided into bands in the main PLL system, and every so often, I start to hear the dreaded intermittent broadband noise problem again in the receiver audio, so out comes the toolbox. Ten Tec helpline has been very helpful, but that doesn't fix the problem once and for all. They said temperature cycling of the potting compound in those component cans (like when you turn the radio on) causes the components to fracture solder joints over time, so resoldering is necessary. I also don't like having to replace the memory backup battery so often.
Other than that, my station is still humming ok. (Kenwood TR-751A, and Yaesu FT-847).
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NT9E on February 6, 2004
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Had to be an Allied Radio A-2516 (circa mid 70's) amateur only solid-state receiver. Really nice modern looking door stop. Drift, microphonics, and front-end deafness rendered this receiver unuseable.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8FVJ on February 6, 2004
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Diamond F21 2 meter antenna. I was shopping for the ultimate 2 meter vertical antenna- no money held back & long life type of purchase. This high gain colinear looked just like the ticket. A few years later the fiberglass rotted off the top of the antenna. Not a lot of ultra-violet in N. MI either as it is overcast here 4-5 months out of the year. Wrote Diamond & never got a reply. Errr......
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W1WH on February 6, 2004
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Probably a homebrew transmatch I built back in the mid 70's. When it wasn't shorting somewhere it worked great, but pretty it wasn't...it was the worse case of "workmanship" I've yet to see...for which I claim full responsibility!
Bill - W1WH
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8FVJ on February 6, 2004
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As for Transceivers-
Tempo 1: Just yuk!
TS-450S: This new radio was about as selective as an old Heathkit. The audio was so full of intermod & siblance on voice, it drove me nuts. I returned it to AES at a $100 loss and got an ICOM IC-728. Nice radio!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 6, 2004
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WELL it is a 'good thing' that MFJ does not make LW
Nuclear Reactors!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N3TVV on February 6, 2004
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Yaesu ft-530
Receive works great and it was an ok radio, until, the bnc connector came loose. I took it apart to tighten it back up and found the small piece of coax that connected to the antenna was breaking off too.So I soldered it back into place and then epoxyed the bnc connector and the Stupid thing came loose again.Arghhhhhhhhhh :~
It's now a permanent scanner,since everytime I move it, the blasted bnc connector comes loose.
My Best HT was a yaesu ft-416 ,which got lost on a hiking expedition :( . I Did search the whole hiking path 3 times from top to bottom before giving up,so much for getting a better radio.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA6DLQ on February 6, 2004
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The ICOM IC27A 2 meter Transceiver. Loaded with cold solder joints!!!!! Had to re-solder all joints from the front end thru the discriminator!
The ICOM IC701 HF Transceiver. Noisy clacking relays for band changing, solder splash on voltage regulator making intermittent contact and loose hardware on the power lead in the radio!
Vince WA6DLQ
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K7VO on February 6, 2004
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I've remembered a few more. Since most of these are fairly obscure I won't bore you with the details. See the reviews section :)
Belcom Kappa-15
KLM Echo 2
NCG 15SB
Also, without modification I found the Yaesu FT-290R to be deaf as a post. With the Mutek mods they were fine. Not what I wanted in a 2m all mode. The FT-480R impressed me for a while. I even wrote a positive review of it. Then I worked a contest and received a big gun station 15 miles away across the entire weak signal part of the band. Talk about overload!
I'm still trying to figure out how a Ten Tec Scout 555 made this list for someone. It's got an amazingly good receiver in a very inexpensive rig. The Jones filter works extremely well.
73,
Caity
K7VO
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N3IJ on February 6, 2004
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A Gotham 20M beam. Flimsy aluminum tubing held together with automotive clamps. Vibration caused the elements to break at the point where the half-inch tube entered the five-eighths tube in the center. The broken pieces landed on my neighbor's roof. I went up and got them when he wasn't home and just shortened the element a bit. When it broke a second time I put a piece of chain through from end to end so the broken pieces wouldn't fall. This made an unacceptable racket, so I replaced it with steel wire. After that, when the element broke in the Ohio winter winds, the wind spun the broken part so rapidly that the 33-foot wire twisted off and again droppped the element on the neighbor's roof. Solved that problem with a swivel in the center of the wire. All was well after that. As soon as I could I replaced the beam with a HB quad, which is another story.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KZ1A on February 6, 2004
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I would say,
Anythng MFJ.
The Cushcraft R-7000 Plus, worst vertical I've tried using. Very narrow and poor efficiency, even with tons of radials.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KZ1A on February 6, 2004
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I would say,
Anything from MFJ.
The Cushcraft R-7000 Plus, worst vertical I've tried using. Very narrow and poor efficiency, even with tons of radials.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3YD on February 6, 2004
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Some Nominees:
1. Anything made by MFJ. Everything which I purchased had to be completly rebuilt.
2. Many Heathkits because of the designers' use of odd-sized, non-standard value parts. I had a Power supply for the HW-202 which needed new filter caps. It took months to find some with adequate rating which would fit into the box.
3. The Cushcraft RV-3 antenna. Mechanically it seemed fine, but I never could get the SWR on 15 meters under 4:1.
4. I was lucky enough to have never owned an Eico 753 but worked a few when I could turn my receiver dial fast enough ;-)
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KG4YJR on February 6, 2004
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>>What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?<<
>>Probably a homebrew transmatch I built back in the mid 70's<<
LOL! Bill, at least you've made the best post in my opinion.
73
Dave
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NI0C on February 6, 2004
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During the early 1980's, my son and I purchased a Ten-Tec antenna tuner kit. The main problem was with the assembly manual. Recall the old saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words" ? Well, for each step, Ten-Tec chose to provide the thousand words in lieu of the picture!
73 de Chuck NI0C
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NG1I on February 6, 2004
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OK......so I guess getting a new 3kw MFJ tuner from HRO is out.....yes?
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 6, 2004
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I also fell for a GOTHAM antenna scam. Dirt cheap $35 in 1978. Ad eluded to 10-80M operation.
Package arrives. 20 feet of aluminium tubing, a loading coil, and a few nuts and bolts!
Missing-Mounting bracket, U clamps, mast adapter!
What a rip off. For 10-80M one had to find the correct tap on the loading coil.
A complete rip-off!
Still the EIC-753 has a bad rep. If you did some work and put mods in, you did have a usable rig. I wasted no time working many states and DX.
Everything on the 753 were right on the money except the drifty 10KHZ divided VFO.
I did all the stabilty mods. On CW as goos as any rig. SSB, OK at the end of the QSO, you would ask the OM you just worked, how far off you drifted.
I would always get about 1KC for 15 minute QSO.
2-3 KHZ for real rag chews.
Except for the VFO, it was not a bad radio from the mid to late 1960's!!! To their ex-owners-how close could you get 0n SSB
Any EICO OT's want to set the record straight?
AS FOR MFJ....They sucked in 1976, when they produced their first L network tuner.
They suck today with their latest legal limit garbage!
GEE MFJ could have made money sellinG 753 EXTERNAL vfo'S!
Hey, they are consistant. Never once did one good product slip out!!!!!!!!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AB7UW-MONTANA on February 6, 2004
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My absolute worst piece of sh@t Ive owned to date is the MFJ fiberglass push up mast IT CANT EVEN HOLD A SIMPLE 20 METER DIPOLE! It broke as I was putting it up for the first time! I have had two MFJ tuners at different times,both 949e models with no issue Good tuners for me. Nothing loose,nothing falling off or arcing. Ive also had the pleasure of owning a Cushcraft R-7000 vertical, total and complete crap! Now I saw were a guy posted that he hated the Icom IC-725. I love this rig! I use it at home quite a bit. I also have a Kenwood TS-930. Frankly, sometimes my little IC-725 hears better than the legendary Kenwood TS-930! I have a 500 hz cw filter in it, and sometimes I swich to the 725 to dig out the weak DX station. I give the Icom IC 725 a solid 10 out of 10. WE all have to learn the hard way about MFJ. When there good there good when there bad they are absolutly horrible. 73! Vaughn N1XV ex AB7UW
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NN6EE on February 6, 2004
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Let's see!!!
HMMMMM!!!
I'd say my worse piece of gear HAD to be the National Radio Co.'s "NC-57 General coverage receiver" because even if it had been warming up for an hour or so if you looked at it the "wrong way" it would move in frequency as much as 10kc. or more!!!
Now that I think about that crappy rcvr it's amazing that we made any contacts at all using the damn thing especially when I was a Novice class back in 1962!!!
Ah the "Good Ol'days!!!"
EE
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K8LEA on February 6, 2004
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Incredible number of posts on this one....
Makes me happy I stayed a Tech and off of HF, since I probably would have bought all those junkers.
I noticed a complaint about the old Tempo S1 HT. I've got an S5 here that still almost works. No features at all, although a tone burst was an option, but having a fully synthesized HT in those days that wasn't bigger than a breadbox was pretty good. Don't judge that by later standards like my FT-23R.
The Brimstone 144 was impossibly expensive, and somewhat quirky (and like intermod), but it's only real disadvantage for the time was it's size. The guys in Kansas couldn't understand people worrying about a rig being mistaken for a CB. I had it in three cars. It fit in the glovebox of a '77 Ford LTD Brougham (channel changing was iffy without a co-pilot), and I later had it in the trunk of an '84 Crown Vic. All of the important audio lines and PTT came out the back of the radio, so working up a remote control was pretty simple if you didn't want to change channels. The squelch in that radio really could have been replaced with a slide switch - on or off...
I designed an interface that would let me remote the frequency controls (and add DTMF and an autodialer), but the vagaries of TTL in a car got to me before I was able to build it. Probably better that way 'cause by then the various popular brands (Icom, Yaesu, Kenwood) had more competent offerings in very small packages.
Other than the intermod issues, that radio just worked.... AFAIK, it's still working, although I haven't powered it up for a few years.
For the guy who posted the link to the picture of that Azden HT.... I've got a Regency handlheld scanner here that appears to have used the same case and front panel. Even the PTT switch! Hm....
Typical YMMV, of course, with all of this, but the trends are interesting when you look at MFJ and those Eico rigs.
I built an Eico scope for maintenance guys at the former day job when our Heathkit quit. Couldn't find a transformer for it. The Eico kit came with a two page note indicating that all resistor and capacitor values were now supplied in standard EIA ratings, but the manual and schematic hadn't been changed. "Here's the chart:".... I'm not entirely sure why the thing worked at all, and the idle "straight line" display wasn't all that straight, but it was good enough for the maintenance guys.
I've found Yaesu, Icom, and Kenwood fine for VHF gear, though. Just lucky, I guess.... The TH-77A I've got here (inherited from N8PDT) did have to go back to Kenwood once - broken BNC connection, I think, and my old Icom micro2-AT went back once - same problem, but I'm sure the connection was broken. In fact, Phil broke it - I'd loaned him the radio, and he was bigger around than I was (am). Too much pressure from the duck on his belt [grin].
(Icom told me the battery was fine, too, when I asked 'em to check that while they had it. Ended up having to buy a new battery insert about two weeks later.... Ooops....)
I suppose it goes that way everyway.... My last Lincoln ran for 11 years with one major breakdown, and was driveable even through that. My wife's '87 Taurus was in the shop so often that she had her own parking spot, and the kid's '99 Taurus (which tried to become a submarine in August during those floods) is working on that record. The wife's '95 Sable seems to tear up tires, but runs fine otherwise. Mom's '98 Caddy is forever coming up with something silly, but it also always starts. I had three Ramblers between 1964 and 1977. All three drove me nuts with repairs, but were still more or less as reliable as anything else anybody I knew was driving, and we're not talking about $50 "work" cars.
I suppose we're having fun with this too, although I hate to be an unpaid beta tester [grin]. That, I think, is the major issue - you really shouldn't have to spend a pile of money on something that's junk from the beginning, or have to be skilled enough to do major repairs to get something working. Many of us probably would be qualified to fix those MFJ tuners, for example, but I know I couldn't have when I was a Novice....
(OTOH, I remember buying a trap vertical - Mosely, I think - that turned out to require radials. What's a radial? I was fourteen at the time....)
I was lucky - dad was a Dentist, and could afford to help me pay for these toys better than some of the guys here, but even then he was _very_ careful, and I had to toss a lot of money in the hat too. I blame dad for all of this - he was stuck in TX in 1952 in the Air Force, and bought a copy of the Handbook for something to read. He'd built his own radios back in the early days when you could get the parts at the local hardware store. I found the Handbook, and decided I wanted that Harvey Wells Bandmaster. Never got the VFO, but I did scrounge the rest of it. It took me about six years to get a license, but I wasn't in a hurry.
Stu K8LEA
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2WIK on February 6, 2004
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Speaking of Brimstone 144's, does anyone remember the EBC 144Jr? Made by EBC (Electronic Beacon Company) in NY? Oofa.
Someone here mentioned the Polytronics-6 six meter rig. It was actually called the "Polycomm 6" I think. There was also a Polycomm 2, and even a Polycomm 6&2. Those were all manufactured in New Jersey, very close to my home town, and I knew of number of hams who worked for Polytronics. They were really popular in the mid-sixties, and the only really bad thing I can recall about them was how incredibly hot they got. That could be a good thing on a cold winter day if the heat goes out...
Someone else mentioned Clegg six meter gear being "bad." I sure don't agree with that one. Clegg made probably the best VHF gear of anyone, anywhere back in the sixties and a little bit into the seventies. All the transmitters had the best modulation quality (highest % modulation with least % distortion) of anything on the market. One of my college professors in engineering was WA2GCM, who used the phonetics, "Great Clegg Modulation" for his callsign, and everyone I knew agreed. They also made the very first 6m SSB transceiver on the market (Venus), the first plate-modulated high-powered 6/2 meter transmitter (Zeus), and the first Civil Defense approved VHF transceivers for RACES work using Federal funding, after Gonset (Gonset led the way with that in the fifties, but Clegg took it over in the sixties).
So, especially since Ed Clegg was my neighbor and I worked for him after hours during high school, I have a soft spot for Clegg gear...
WB2WIK/6
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 6, 2004
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I have seen TWO postings of people backing
the EICO 753 P.O.S.
UN-BE-LIEV-ABLE!
some one om e-ham or qth.com is selling one.
GO FOR IT!!!!!!
in 73 magazine i made the power supply mods , 6080 tube 12ax7 and a gas tube. and i wished i had keeped the power supply, that worked very well after the mods.but then, maby not!
i took the radio to a repair center on the NASA side of redstone arsenal,ala. with the help of a friendly NASA E.E. and a ham from the huntsville radio club. i did get the vfo to slow down some from a cold ON! this one had the transistor vfo as well!! it was and still is a P.O.S!!
Thank You Henery Smith where ever you are for trading me that EICO 753 P.O.S. for a good working
Heathkit SB-303 and a nice home brew antenna tuner.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 6, 2004
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I was the sucker, who brought up the EICO-753 on this thread from the get go. True the EIC0-753 was my least disirable rig owned. HOWEVER a P.O.S.....hardly!
On CW no prolems. Worked over 30 states with it. The RX was good. The TX was clean.
One SSB, The rig would only drift about 2-3KHZ in an hour. Mine did have the NPO cap mods, the filiment regulator, and the solid state VFO.
In conclusion, the 753 was a good P.O.S.!
Hi-HI and 73 DE MIK$
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 6, 2004
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If EICO were around today mighity fine junk would buy them out. and then they could make a H F rig and use cr@p just like EICO did.
i remember using the 753 i could count on being able of 1 hr. of operation to 2 hrs. of making repairs to it. it was like old fath full. except old un fath full in this case.
the EICO 753 was not a tribander radio it was a poor preformer at best on 80 & 40. the 20 meter position was ther to make you think it would work like a
(Gotham Vertical!) i had one of thoes P.O.S. as well. wooden dowl rod, what were they thinking? SCAM-A-ROUNIE i think... i didnt pay a lot for it . in fact i made a trade with a very old heathkit grid dipper GD-1 that was at best so , so. it did work ,sorta.
later my friend and i after haveing several 807's
i said to him that i thought i screwed him on that trade on the GD-1 , NO that Gothom vertical was a P.O.S, No NO, i screwed you!
we both had a good laugh over that!
I remember 73 magazine. a good one , sorry to see it go. any ways i remember a artical in there of a Author/ham that had made the mods to the 753 P.O.S. to the I F board that made it preform better on 20 meters. my unit all ready had the mods in place??!!
i wonder what the receiver was like with out the mods to the I F board?! it must of been a real BOWSER!
any ways the Author of the Ad goes on to say after the mods and original dipole for 20 meters. it still didnt work to good. he goes on to state that he put up a known good Mosley TA-33 tribander beam at like 55-65 feet. and still the receiver would not pull in any DX!
if it was me i would of stoped way before the beam and tower,and i would seek out the aid of Mr. Stanley Claw Hammer!!!!
S-M-A-C-K-O!!!!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K9TH on February 6, 2004
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Without a doubt - MFJ. I made the mistake of buying an MFJ TNC wanting to get into the digital modes. That thing was both deaf and dumb. That POS wouldn't know a RTTY signal if it tripped over it. And the single time I succeeded in getting it to work at all, the gain had to be turned so high no one could stand being in the room. So I did what every good HAM would do....pulled out my pistol and shot it! Someone needed to put that piece of crap out of it's misery!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K5LRS on February 6, 2004
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No doubt about it, my Kenwood TS930SAT tranceiver. Never had so much trouble with one radio in my life. It was sent to Kenwood (East) twice for repairs and never was correctly fixed. The VFO board was the culprit and a new board was put in only to fail again, shortly after I got the radio back. I still have the radio and I still have the problem. Two boards and the same problem came back again. The radio would just lock up on a frequency and you could not move it off that frequency until you opened up the radio and put pressure on the board. That would cause a connection and you could use the radio for a week or so until the same thing happened again.
I have picture of this radio with a hammer laying on the board to keep it working during a contest. Don't remember any other piece of equipment giving me that much trouble at any time during my years in ham radio.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB2SSA on February 6, 2004
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Without question any product made by RadioShack or Alinco.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2RCB on February 6, 2004
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I've read a few comments about how National Corporation
radios of yesteryear were infamous for drifting. This is true. My first National was an HRO-60 and it too would drift several kc's until it warmed up for 15
minutes or so. I sold it in 1979 and regreted it as it
was a gem. Since then I've managed to find several other products from Malden, Mass, including a pair of
NCX-3', NCX-5, NCX-200 and a rare HRO-500. With the exception of the HRO-500 and NCX-5 all of the others had drifty issues. The root cause of the problem is the NCX-3/5 series Nationals used very inferiour quality 10% tolerance resistors and disc capacitors. To cure the drift problem on an NCX-3 or 5 you need to replace all the resistors and capacitors attached to the VFO tube socket. Use good quality 1 Watt carbon composition or film resistors and good mica or ceramic caps of a 5% or better tolerance. Re-align the VFO of the radio afterwards. Also check the components under the 0A2 VR tube and the large power resistors connected to the same. I've ressurected a few Nationals for others besides myself and in almost every case a new set of modern passive components and in 2 cases a new VFO tube cured the drifting issue.
Hope this helps other NC owners out there! :) e-Mail me if you have some question or tips for NC rigs. :)
Pic of the NCX-3: http://www.io.com/~nielw/nat_list/ncx3.htm
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N6AJR on February 6, 2004
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a sbe 34 , a sbe 33, both lousy, and a la 1000 nt..all junk..
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 6, 2004
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When I was 16, the EICO 753 and SBE-33 were in my budget. I agree they are POS's When your a kid starting out and you making contacts with these POS rigs, you think you have a good rig!
All of the POS rig makers are not around anymore.
Which brings me to MFJ! I bought my first tuner from them in 1976, it was a POS!
Every other MFJ tuner turned into a POS.
Thier new alleged legal limit tuners get POS review's!
What gives?
73 DE MIKE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 6, 2004
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When I was 16, the EICO 753 and SBE-33 were in my budget. I agree they are POS's When your a kid starting out and you making contacts with these POS rigs, you think you have a good rig!
All of the POS rig makers are not around anymore.
Which brings me to MFJ! I bought my first tuner from them in 1976, it was a POS!
Every other MFJ tuner turned into a POS.
Thier new alleged legal limit tuners get POS review's!
What gives?
73 DE MIKE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8MMZ on February 6, 2004
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Ditto the LaFayette HA 750. Heck, I prob. bought WA1KWA's old one back at a hamvention years ago. That radio was pretty bad (although it looked okay). What was I thinking?!?? I was swampped from neighbors 49MHz cordless phones when I owned my copy.
Hey folks - quit knocking MFJ - they fit the low end market nicely - they provide a service - affordable new equipment. Yes - I wish they used ceramic coil forms - yes, I've melted down the coil forms in one of their tuners before from high SWR - but it was easily fixed (got out my hot-melt gun - hi hi). I needed MFJ when I didn't have the money to purchase better stuff, but needed to radiate a signal.
73's
N8MMZ
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K1ROD on February 7, 2004
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Collins????? Man, I can't think of anything Collins that I would put the label "crap" on. Art Collins was a genius with some of the highest quality and most innovatve products of his time. (The above is not fact, merely my humble opinion)
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3UD on February 7, 2004
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Re: Eico 753
I posted that this was probably the worst rig I ever had primarily because of the very excessive drift. However, It was inexpensive to buy and got a lot of hams on SSB.
The ham to whom I gave it to thought it was quite a step up from his Heath DX-20/Hallicrafters S-40 Novice combo. Just goes to prove the line about one person's junk is another person's treasure.
I notice that some have mentioned Clegg gear as being the worst they had used. I have used the Clegg Venus/Apollo 6 meter ssb rig, the Zeus/Interceptor AM twins,the AM version of the 22er, and some of their custom 6 and 2 meter converters. The Clegg Thor 6 meter transceiver sounded awesome on the air (never used one though) All great pieces of equipment, kind of the Collins of VHF in their day. Unfortunately there are some clinkers that make it out of every factory as posters on this thread can attest to.
Someone mentioned that the Polycom 6 meter transceiver ran hot. Anyone here ever use a Utica 650 6 meter transceiver? A lot of tubes in a small package set in a bright chrome case. Ran hot enough to keep your coffee warm. You could ge a first degree burn if you kept you hand on the case. Not a bad radio though.
Almost Every radio and accessory mentioned in this thread would maybe be a step up for someone who had worse, or nothing at all.
73
George
K3UD
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K8LEA on February 7, 2004
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And more....
I had a Clegg 99'er. The receiver sensitivity wasn't great, and it didn't work well mobile.... The absence of PTT didn't help either (I added that), but it beat the Sixer. I had an "original" - the one that used the fifth-overtone crystals. A vernier dial, of all things, actually helped the super-regen receiver, which was wide enough that tuning around for local contacts wasn't necessary. The trick was to tune very carefully to move the signal you wanted to hear around in the passband so that the QRM wasn't there.
(A 5 element beam helped too [grin].)
I lusted over the PolyComm gear, as well as the "bigger" Cleggs, but wandered into other things (like keeping a car running, girls, etc.) and didn't buy anything else until I found an old Motorola "Dispatcher" (nominallly a motorcycle radio - lots of mini tubes and hilariously unreliable T-Power). That lasted about a year until a friend sold me an older than dirt RCA LD-150. (The receiever wasn't too terrible. The transmitter was RCA's version of the Globe Scout. The microphone looked like a toy. Worked fine for local repeater use, though - all of two channels.)
That Standard HT was junk, come to think of it....
And, yes, I remember that "EBC" or whatever it was called. Another rig I lusted after. The local Civil Defense gang had some Gonsets and some Globe Kings too. The former always seemed to be good enough.
I also had one of those little 10-watt Heathkit 2M rigs - the little crystal-controlled one. Six channels? I put a GLB on it and one of the Buffalo preamps. Worthless in my apartment - the neighbor's sweeper used to take out the receiver, but it made a decent mobile. It was stolen along with a Regency scanner and a camera. I miss the camera [grin], but I really wanted the GLB.
I built one of those cheap Knight receivers for somebody, too. NBD to build it, but it didn't really work well enough to excite me.
I always found Heath's manuals to be superb, although there's no question that the builder's skill had a lot to do with it, and yes, some of the components were "odd". My old Heath Color TV (circa 1972) had some parts in it that you could only get from them, or perhaps in the Book of Revelations.... It worked until my daughter (born in '86) got big enough to haul herself up and diddle the horizontal and vertical hold. By then they'd become so sensitive that it took ten minutes to tweak 'em "on". I gave the set to a childless friend.... IAC, the builder's skill made the unit with Heath gear. I was very lucky [grin].
Too bad Heath's not around anymore, but there's no way to compete with the current gear. They were the only choice back then.... Yes - there are good kits out there now, but they're very very simple to build. Heath tackled some serious projects. Fun to build, too.... (I used to try to get in one a year if the budget allowed. The only things left are a DVM, a VTVM, and if I can find it, an old Q-Multiplier. That was my first kit, btw. For some reason I built it on my grandmother's dining room table. I'm sure she was concerned I'd solder something to the tabletop, but she didn't say anything. Come to think of it, _nobody_ had any idea what it was for. I wasn't too certain either - somebody told me I needed one, and I think it was $10.... It did help the old SX-99....) (No - I didn't burn the table, but I really don't know why I built it there. I think I was 12 at the time....)
Stu K8LEA
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W6TH on February 7, 2004
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MFJ is overpriced, but never found to be junk. My gear listed below could never be junk.
BC 610 by Hallicrafters. Receivers: National SW3, SX28, SX24, HQ129X, Collins KWM-2, SP-600-JX and the Racal RA 17C. All my home brew gear was great also, no junk. You get what you pay for.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N7TRZ on February 7, 2004
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K4ADL: I think they did say they had a portable with an
electronic mosquito repeller...yours wasn't it?
More SWL than ham, but I ditched a Kenwood R-1000 that
I desperately wanted to replace with a FRG-7. The 1000
AGC pumped, easily overloaded by any hunk of wire over
10 feet, and a tuning rate that was too fast for AM
shortwave broadcast, much less ssb. Was nice looking
and never broke tho....
The rest of the stuff I've picked up works great... IC-207H is recent vintage, but there are many great radios to be had, and I'm rediscovering many of them. Clegg and Midland crystal FM units, IC-22A thru
22U, a 245 that works fine on a shelf. No way I'd mobile it. A IC-255 and a 280...its sure easier to give a squirt of contact cleaner and tighten some screws than wrestle with SMDs. If an IC pops tho...parts rig!
Most operate just fine for years, just like they have for the 20 they saw before I found them.
They suit me, as a wise old guy once said. 73 everyone.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W6PMR3 on February 7, 2004
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Icom 211/245, JUNK, nothing but months of fixing intermittant solder joints. I laugh when I see people buying those things on E-Bay.
Yaesu FT707, Lousy front end, noisy AND deaf ! I also loved the way the display acted like a frequency counter run amock when the CB'ers drove by on the freeway, garbage but was a great looker.
National NCX 3, cant say anything more then what has already been said.
Yaesu FT100, mine was a nightmare, never worked right, RF in audio, SWR shutdowns, and never any probs with a TS50, 706, or FT900 in EXACT same set up !
Yeasu FT90, Mine got so hot it melted the mounting
screws clean thru the dash and the radio fell to the floor !
Honorable mention,
Kenwood TS440,... 430's and 450's are OK but this baby wasn't.
Icom 701/720, Just had mechanical probs with age that are a nightmare to fix, relays and switches
drop like flies in these things, watch out for bad bandswitches. Have friends that love'em,...I keep my mouth shut.
OK. Most anything MFJ,...For some reason my 989 tuner works!!!!, don't tell anyone.
Kenwood TS 180, another low for Kenwood, the one I had, always had problems. Traded for a 430, best trade I ever did.
Anything Azden or Alinco that I owned was like a half-step up from MFJ.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB4FUR on February 7, 2004
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All: I have read numerous comments knocking the Knight T60. That's contrary to my experience. I had one for a number of years, and it did what it was supposed to do: basic radio. It needed too much VFO drive, but other than that it did the job. Mine even tuned up on 6 meters (no kidding, folks).
My HW-100 is still here after 35+ years (I went halves with parents on that one, and I'll never sell it). I didn't have problems with alignment, and logged thousands of miles mobile with it as well as working lots of DX. The only problem I ever noticed was shifting of grid bias on the receiver tubes caused by one leaky 6AU6.
I'll agree on the Knight R100 and the Eico 753. Very poor performance from both of them. I'd add the Knight R55A to the list. Mine was poor--could have used more selectivity, more sensitivity on high bands, more stability, etc., etc., etc.
Best rigs I have operated are commercial equipment from Transworld (we had two of them at the NASA facility where I worked). We also had an ICOM 765 which was really solid.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W6VZV on February 7, 2004
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The Eico 753 transceiver. This was far and away the worst-designed piece of junk ever to grace the shelves of a ham radio store. I picked mine up in 1968, and I have never seen a radio with more quirks, design flaws, and intractible problems.
First, the drift. The Eico drifted so much that when you first turned it on, you literally had to keep your hand on the frequency knob when listening to a station, to continuously retune.
Second, the audio. This beast had pretty good audio when you first turned it on, with decent punch (no speech processor). Unfortunately, once it warmed up, the audio on SSB mode would fade, and even at full gain the rig had weak, undermodulated audio. This problem defied all efforts at diagnosis and repair. (Well, it was probably good for my high school grades; I could only work SSB for about 45 minutes before the audio faded away, so back to the books, grin.)
Third, the receiver. It simply stank. It was unselective and not very sensitive. When I finally got my Hallicrafters SX101A and outboard transmitter, replacing that ghastly Eico (I didn't sell it, I simply threw it away; no one wanted it) I couldn't believe what I had been missing.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB5ITT on February 7, 2004
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>A toss up between ANY MFJ gear I've owned or
>a Knight T-60 transmitter.
>Mark WB8JKR
A T60 was YOUR worst? You must not appreciated it much! I had a T60 as a Novice in 1973....worked like a champ on any antenna, 80-6m....used it after I got my General...in fact didnt get on HF SSB until I got my Advanced...and then with HeathKit twins....but the old T60 was still plugging away on 6 AM and CW by then..
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KD0UN on February 7, 2004
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1. Eico 753 (I won't rechew this)
2. Knight T-150 Not yet nominated. Drifty -- spurious -- harmonic radiating -- FCC warning generating (Got full refund from Allied).
3. Heath AR-3 (I was too dumb to know it was bad)
I used it for several years on CW without the BFO -- read code with the whoosh and thump.
4. Heath HW 202 ( I didn't build it )
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W6XK on February 7, 2004
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Ten-Tec Ranger from the early 90's (the one with the interchangeable band modules)...poor rcvr, terrible CW note, unstable power supply, and a service tech who treated me like a novice when I dared criticize a Ten-Tec radio! Went through two trips to the hospital (under warranty) and finally, I demanded a new unit. The second unit was worse than the first. Practically gave it away. Never again...
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 7, 2004
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I dont know Guys?
how good was your kit building back when you were a novice? come on!........
admit it! ........ maby a little shackey....
I had built a few kits. my soldering was very good. somtimes when they say go back and check your work.
I never did.
How About You?????
and somtimes i had the wrong part where a resisror of similar color code should not be.....
Come on...... you know......
the 2 knight kit T-60 worked all right for what they were. a low cost novice transmitter. mind you i am center of the road here. i am sure ther were some Oh Oh tickets and fcc violations sent out. and the reson for them could be any thing. if you didnt have a elmer to help you out now and then.
i moved up from a jim white bai essecntials transmitter (50C5 and a few crystals), to the T-60.
it made me a happy camper, i used it with a very nice solid state keath kit sb-303 one of the best receivers i ever had in the early to mid 70's. you had to have a 8 pin octal plug wired to complete the cathode to key or ground for it to work!
it did have a wire error on the schmattic to the 6DQ6
p.a. tube. there was a grid leak bias resistor to ground on signal grid #1 and also a 100pf? to ground that was wrong! the 100 pf should of been a couppling cap from the driver stage. I changed my couppling cap. value to a .01 at 100vcd. the grid leak bias to that tube now worked very well on 80-10. i never tried it on 6.
if you followed the assembly manual, it worked. if you followed the schmattic, for a repair , it did not!
later
D.T.
ne4ede
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB8DDI on February 7, 2004
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Having been a Ham for almost 40 years, I can say that I have not had a piece of ham gear that did not meet my expectations for the time. My first station consisted of a Heathkit DX60A & A Hallicrafters SX16. Eventually purchased a used Heathkit SB301 & SB401. Sold the pair & purchased a used Atlas 210X which I enjoyed. Sold the Atlas & purchased a Kenwood TS-130 & eventually a TS-530S. Sold both & purchased an Icom 746 which I kept for a year or so then purchased my current rig, Icom 756PRO. I have also had amplifiers for Heathkit, & Ameritron..AL-811H & currently ALS-600.
I have had multiple products from MFJ & have never had any problems, maybe I am just lucky. During my 40 years, I don't rember having a major issue ( except for those that I created) with any of my equipment & have never had to send a rig back for repair. I also had the infamous Cuschraft R7000 vertical antenna & never had a bit of problem. Currently use Cushcrafts MA5B mini antenna.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N9GKH on February 7, 2004
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Heath-kit 2036 meter rig. Very horrible rx audio. PLL frequently going unlocked. Unstable CTCSS encoder (simple potentiometer tuned oscillator)
Was not a fun project to build either. I also had the HW202 with bad crystal filters from the factory. That worked ok for quite some time and was a decent value at the time.
Used Globe Galaxy Mark V was probably the worst thing I purchased at any price. The output tubes have not been available from about 4 years after the rig was still sold new. (6LF5E ??? don't remember anymore). Made one cw contact and toasted the PS. I still have it somewhere in storage. Anybody need parts? The last time I even touched the radio was about 15 years ago.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WW7KE on February 7, 2004
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AA6CC: Sorry to hear about your TS-940 troubles. I've had one since 1985 and the only thing that's gone wrong has been the clock display quit (dead backup battery?). Works perfectly otherwise.
My biggest POS rig was my Drake TR-22 (the original, not the 22C) 2 Meter rig that I bought in 1972. I was repairing the microphone (constantly-breaking connector) and tweeking the crystals every week or so. The receive intermod was pretty bad, too.
Been pretty lucky otherwise.
73, Keith WW7KE
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W5HTW on February 7, 2004
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Worst: MFJ 989C tuner. I still have and use it, but had to go into it and tighten all the screws, have had to resolder the RF board and connections, and replace the antenna switch. Gave up on the rubber drive belt - I just count turns when tuning it. But it works well these days.
Heath DX100 (not the B model.) Hated the VFO - mechanically unstable. Of course I bought it used, so maybe it was built poorly, but it worked well otherwise. Also bought a used DX100B which had no such VFO problem and made a nice AM/CW rig. Kept that one about five years.
On the "contrary" side: Had a Heath Mohawk which worked very well. I didn't build it, another used purchase, but inside it was well done. I have no idea who did build it but it was a very good - and stable - receiver.
Similarly the HX10 Marauder I owned (used) also worked very well. A friend put it on his Singer analyzer and indicated it was in very good condition and spec.
Heath HW-100. I bought new and built it. Kept it several years, starting as my primary rig, then moving to backup rig behind my Drake B twins, and finally modified it by changing crystals and retuning to be my MARS rig. It was reliable, worked very well through all the time I had it.
Hallicrafters S-85. "Old Jumpy." Heck it shifted freq if someone knocked on the door. I bought it new. Kept it several years. Good BC and SW receiver but not worth a crap on CW, though that is where I used it.
SBE33. Hard to keep it running on freq.
Gotham vertical! Mine worked quite well. I lived on the beach and had the vertical ground mounted in the sand. I used it on 40 and 80 CW, and worked LOTS of DX with it. Later I moved to a mobile home and put it on the roof, adjusted for 75 phone. Again it worked, but couldn't change bands unless I got out the ladder and climbed onto the roof. But it worked for me. Cheap and basic, but if set up and left alone it did a good job. I never tried it above 20 meters.
Ed
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NE0P on February 7, 2004
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I must be different than everyone else, as my MFJ stuff has worked without falling apart. Did buy a Murch Ultimate Transmatch once, couldn't get it to load the wire up on 80 meter when the MFJ did just fine. My 2 biggest pieces of junk are still current on the market:
1. Icom T90A-Intermod city. Got clobbered on 2 meters when every other HT I have had never noticed the pagers. Terrible receive outside of the ham bands, and very tough to use. Many things that deserve dedicated keys require you to go into the menus. Then there are expanded menus 1 and 2 which prevent you from getting into the regular menus?? To top it off, a full battery charge takes 15 hours (this is a LiON battery) and the rapid charger is $90 plus. Got a VX5R instead and it runs rings around it.
2. Yaesu FT847-This was originally an $1800 radio with no SWR meter, VOX, or memory keyer. Yaesu defended their decision to leave those things off by stating that it is meant to be a satellite radio. Then they add a voice monitor. Duh!! You don't need a voice monitor on a satellite radio because you can hear yourself on the downlink! No option for 1.2G that the 736 had, no TCXO option, very broad receive (could hear stations 5 plus KHZ away), and not very ergonomic-little tiny band buttons and the frequency display didn't change to the transmit display when running split. To top if off, the power cord was 4 separate wires instead of zip cord, which was really a mess. As a replacement for the FT736R (great rig) this was probably the worst sequel in history.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KE5GK on February 7, 2004
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Any MFJ Antenna Tuner that has "9" in the model number!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8RAT on February 7, 2004
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Without a doubt, it would be the Alinco DR-110T. The transmitter worked well. However, the receiver was a different story. It picked up pager transmitters better than my beeper! I mean intermod city. The thing sounded like a 5 piece musical band with all of the beeps, boops & squawks! I eventually gave it away as I couldn't bring myself to take someone's hard-earned money for the thing. I replaced it with a Kenwood TM-241A. Much better receiver. After returning to Kenwood to repair the famous display problem, it's worked perfectly!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N6TZ on February 8, 2004
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My worst was Heathkit HW-100. It had a viscous damped tuning knob that had so much backlash that you could barely work CW. It had a numb receiver and bias problems. I don't know how they could put such a thing on the market and believe they were building a return customer policy !? I guess they were on the down slope then and didn't plan on return business.
Also the Yeasu FT-100, I guess you should never buy a model with "100" in it. The Yeasu worked as long as there were no AM broadcast transmitters within 5 or so miles. So much front end mixing made for use only with the 30 db attenuator on all of the time in my area of east Los Angeles. Again, how could they do such a dumb thing.
The Gotham vertical, well it was also the fault of the magazines that allowed such bare-face lying to go on year after year.
The MAXON auto antenna tuner, yes it was a resistor in the center of your dipole and cost like Hell. Yes, your SWR would be low, but in some configurations where the feedpoint would exibit a high impedance, you may have lost 20 - 30 db.!! If that is the way to transmit into random length dipole antennas and have all band operations, then lets just build rigs with a fixed 50 ohm resistor right across the output all the time and save a lot of effort. QST did not allow them to advertise, and QST showed the con game for what it was and even did an X-Ray of the unit wich had some unused components potted in it. But some of the other magazines did run it, - - where was Kurt N. Sterba - did he not see the ad right under his nose???!!! Come on Magazines, you shouldn't have done that to your fellow hams.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W9SN on February 8, 2004
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Dentron HF200A (Dentron's first/only HF rig)
What a flop!
Was I the only fool to jump at this??
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W7DUD on February 8, 2004
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I have had various new Ham gear items, in the last 47 years.
In the context of this discussion, I would like to define "lemon" rating as the usefullness/cost ratio.
The "lemon" that rates number 1, for me, would clearly be the Ameritron AL-572, that I have described under the amplifier reviews section of this web site. It was DOA, having a plate dissipation of about 800 watts, with no drive, shorting tubes, factory installed "exploding" capacitors, and none of this was repaired, when I received the amplifier back from service. It is still DOA, and I am seriously considering winding a coil, mounting the coil on top of the AL-572, and re-wiring it into a nice looking Tesla coil, with nice lights, and meters. It is currently being used to elevate items off of the basement concrete floor, to prevent damage to them.
The "lemon" that rates number 2, would be the Ameritron AL-800, that was the replacement for "lemon" number 1. This amp arrived DOA,and the assembly was not complete. The knobs were laying in the bottom of the box, and the panel had not been screwed on yet. There was a bad circuit board, that made it DOA. After I paid about $40.00 for a new circuit board, and wired it in myself. The amplifier worked, but output kept dropping to zero, with arcing. After a year, I found solder shorting the plates of the Plate tuning capacitor. This capacitor, is completely covered with metal panels, and the solder short, was most likely infilcted during factory assembly. The amp works fine now, but grid current is a bit too high.
The "lemon" the rates number 3, is the now thrown away MFJ Super Menu Driven Keyer, in which the memory never worked, even after installing a replacement memory chip from MFJ.
The "lemons" rating 4, and 5 would be the MFJ delux keyers, one DOA, and the other defunct after 2 months of operation.
My "lemon" number 6, would be anything else from MFJ.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W7DUD on February 8, 2004
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This is a post script to to my previous entry.
In addition to MFJ, I will never buy from Ameritron again. I am very tired of finishing assembly, being the troubleshooter, and the quality control department for MFJ and Ameritron. Using customers to provide quality control, is very bad business.
Life is much too short to do all of the above, to new expensive Amateur Radio equipment.
With respect to the AL-800 above, now that I have fixed it, it is a joy to use. The only additional problem, is that the solder on the tank circuit tap periodically melted, at 500W RTTY into an SWR of 1.25:1. I repaired that with some Silver solder. The only constantly good part of this amp, is the Eimac 3CX800/A7 Ceramic tube, which has functioned flawlessly, and that is not Ameritrons fault!!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 8, 2004
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yah, Maxon, should of been max con.
i think most older hams figured that one out. how could you have a perfict 1.1:1 swr ratio from 1.8 to 147 mhz. well a BIG 50 ohm resistor would do it.
that remindes me of a prank the hame i worked with wanted to se if i would jump on the band wagon of April Fools Day!. like Q.st. ,, electronics illastrated in the month of April some year?? (April-1) fools day. some of the guys shoed me a artical of "The Bat Wing Antenna." it showed a short wave station with this rather poor pix of a normal am bc station tower and a hand draw in of a Bat Wing Antenna sort of like a corner reflector with flairing ends (Bat Wing) rather large for the tower load!!! in the island of Tibby Tibby, or somthing like that. HAY Sonny! The BAT Wing Antenna was a April Folls Joke! published in E.I. around the mid to late 1960's.
if QST didnt advertize it it was more or less a scam.
i had a standard src 144 hand held BRICK.
it didnt last to long. in a moment of frustration when repairing it I asked Mr. Stanley Claw Hammer to pop in! he found he way in the speaker, several times!
later :^)
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K8DXX on February 8, 2004
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Re: Gotham.
Whenever I bought my V-160 (early 70s), I was aware that it was a base loaded vertical that required adjustment of the base inductor and installation of radials. To me, it was sort of a large version of the HyGain 18V. I think I bought it to use on field day when we lived in an apartment. My gripes included the lack of a proper mounting bracket, coil tap and the poorly 'engineered?' joints between tubing sections. I also got it working on 80, 40 and 20 and did work some DX from a campsite, probably in the mid 80s. I still use pieces of it around here someplace.
Come to think of it, that was deceptive advertising! I did know a lot of people in the 60s who used Gotham aluminum 2 element quads. They did work well. How long they lasted, I don't know.
73 de Bill / K8DXX
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB1FPA on February 8, 2004
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Worst? # QRP Plus. Just never worked even close to as well as even a FT-747. Bitter pill...
# An Icom 706 (1st generation) lasted two days because of TVI to properly installed cable (no other transceiver I could get my hands on had this problem when identically connected).
# Knight T-150, drifted & spurious output.
# Icom IC-718 (early) Rx overshoot on S9 or better signals (overshoot to about 40 over!) Fix? Change R1205 & R1305 to 3.3K to 10K or replace C1308 & C1203 with 470 pF 0306 SMD caps.
# FT-757GX II , don't even think about using the speech compressor... magnetic fields from PA unit feed back into the inductors used in the low pass filter at the output of the speech processor.
# Alinco DX-77T; Sqwauks at you while you talk on SSB (even into a dummy load) Fix? Add a 12V 1W Zener diode across C1604 on the front panel board.
!!! Best rigs; Yaesu FT-900AT & Icom IC-735, love em both.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB2GMK on February 8, 2004
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Anything MFJ I have ever bought has been a total P.O.S. Perhaps the worst was the MFJ-1215 (or was it 1214) digital interface ..... not only was it a hunk'o'junque electrically, but the software that came with it was converted from German .... so it would revert to German from time-to-time. Thank goodness I knew what "drucken" meant .... otherwise I only know a couple of German swear words which didn't help when that happened, except that I could say them to let off steam. If you were a really, really good tuner, and you hadn't had any alcohol for the past 48 hours, you could maybe tune in a RTTY or AMTOR signal to where it would print to the screen, or maybe not.... you had to have very good karma to get any use out of it .... Then I bought one of their clocks, what a joke that was. It wouldn't hold a correct time setting for more than 15 minutes. I wouldn't buy something from MFJ now if it was free......73, WB2GMK
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N2PQQ on February 8, 2004
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I would have to say the yaesu ft 8000 dual band mobile. The uhf band went dead after two weeks time.
Other yaesu problems where a yaesu ft-50r HT.
inter mod city on that one.
And last but not least a yaesu ft 847 the channel knob broke after one month.
I had purchased all these radios new over time.
My favorites now are icom and kenwood.
Oh well live and learn.
Fred
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 8, 2004
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I guess I have to plead guilty as having the WORST SHACK thirty years ago.
I had the EICO-753, MFJ'S first poor attemp at an antenna tuner, and a GOTHAM so called all band vertical.
The EICO was free. The MFJ was $29. The GOTHAM HALF KIT was $30.
So all of you can scoff all you want! I have many QSL's to prove that I made do!
I guess back in my Novice days, the idea was to get on the air period. None of this $2000 rig stuff!
Even QST had an artical called Ham radio for under $39!
So for my 60 BUX, I did not do to bad!!!!!
Yes my hats off to MFJ for still being in buiness selling CRAP and POS tuners. Eico and Gotham paid for there Crap, by not being in business!
So I guess if there was a vote MFJ wins hands downs!!!
73 and nostolgic laughs DE MIKE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K9FE on February 8, 2004
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I read a lot of trashing for MFJ. Martin is doing what few manufacturers in the US are and being price competitive. You are a ham, maybe you didn't build it, but you should be able to fix it. Go out and pay the price for any other tuner. Personally, I find it nice to be able to fix MFJ tuners etc., and I own 3, 941e, 969 and 989 and all needed some TLC when they were new, but great now. Hard to build a radio now a days, so I like fixing what I can.
The worst piece of radio gear is relative as to what you have had and could afford. My FtDX-570 was a little unreliable with its 21 tubes and 350 watt output. Always needed alignment, drifted until it was on for 4 hours. My FT-101E was not as sensitive, but damn reliable once I returned it to the amateur service. (ex-wife of a CBer sold it to me for a song, just wanted out of the house) Not really sensitive, but adequate. Had a TS-140 that liked to destroy final transistors...very sensitive to SWR.
As far as quirky, the early tm-241a 2m trancievers had to have the edge connector on the display board re-soldered, but then they were bullet-proof. The MAXXON built Radio Shack/Realistic stuff was pretty lame. The mics on the HTX-212 and 242 series were real junk with junk cords (if you live north of the Mason-Dixon line...couldn't seem to take the lower temperatures) That series also would drop out the TX audio only when using a pl, and you could never seem to figure out when. The later RS stuff, past 1995, also have VFO knobs that have no relation to turns or clicks to khz. Real low quality control and poor designs.
I guess I have been lucky, not too much junk, just disturbing operational oddities.
Mike K9FE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KC8TTP on February 8, 2004
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You see many aging hams today waxing nostalgic for their Novice stations--- Not me! My whole station was garbage. It's amazing I stuck with ham radio all things considered. The worst part had to be the receiver, a Heath AR-3. Not much selectivity (like a barn door), and the accessory Q-multiplier was frustrating to use. Even zero-beating was a chore. It was so horrible that I had better results from an early '40s Hallicrafters SX-25 donated by a benevolent OT in my local club. In truth, my Heath DX-20 transmitter worked fine once I solved its annoying habit of going into self ocillation. The VF-1 VFO drifted something fierce and was next to useless. The crystals were the way to go, which meant I called CQ more than I answered. To compound all of this frustration, I had a Gotham vertical strapped to my parents' chimney. No more need be said. The best I ever did was to work Montana from Michigan on 40M. Not too bad, given what I had to work with.
My friend Dan, also a Novice at the same time as me, had a dream Novice station-- A used but well-maintained Drake TR4 with a Van Gorden Dipole. QSOs from Dan's basement seemed effortless by comparison.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NE0P on February 8, 2004
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K9FE makes a good point about MFJ. Many of us can't afford to drop $600 for a Nye Viking tuner. And some of us, myself included, have had success with MFJ products. I have owned several tuners of theirs, a voice keyer, an artificial ground unit, and a CW keyer. All worked as advertised. The only time I had trouble with the tuners was when I tried to push the limits of the antennas too far, or didn't have a good ground on the equipment. I am currently using an old, second or third hand 941D tuner, which handles the mini quad and G5RV just fine. It won't tune it flat on 160, but does on every other band. Got this tuner used for $25 since the wattmeter didn't work, and have been using it for 5 years now. Think I got my moneys worth out of it.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB2FM on February 9, 2004
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Worst gear I ever owned: Gonset GSB-100 Transmitter. It was a boat anchor the size of a small refrigerator and put out about 1 watt. It was purchased as part of an estate and I used it as a novice rig at our summer house when I was a kid. The matching GSB-101 Linear on the other hand was a respectable unit, I never should have sold it.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NS4M on February 9, 2004
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An IC-725......rcv. everything,and I mean everything.White noise out the yen-yang.JUNK........NS4M Rick
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 9, 2004
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<<<<<< Many of us can't afford to drop $600 for a Nye Viking tuner. And some of us, myself included, have had success with MFJ>>>>>>>
LMG eletronics offered a $239 300W AUTO antenna tuner.
They now sell a $129 150W tuner.
Sure MFJ's are great if you are willing to replace the plactic inductor switch with a ceramic. Look for all the fualty solder connections.
You would also do well to put in beefier tuning capacitors! Do not forget to put in your own meter bracket. Hot glue does not cut it!
And please do not rate your 300W tuners for 300W!
Put in a power derating curve. 300W for a 1:1 SWR ratio.
100W max for higher than 2.5:1 SWR's.
MFJ tuners are A-OK for 100W or less.
Yes I have totally rebuilt MFJ's, then they might make the 300W max. The S0-239's that are not press rivoted in, simply drill out the rivots and put in your own nuts and bolts.
The MFJ's should not be rted oh EHAM untill owned for 6 MONTHS! Yes new in the BOX the MFJ's will give much for the money for 6 months!
I still have a melted cross meter needle from 100W.
Rate the MFJ's and the built in dummy load for 100W
or less...Then the low price is worth it!
Your time is money. My MFJ rebuilds have much time in them!
Have fun with your MFJ for 6 months, then see if you feel the same way.
I am going to purchase the NEW LDG 100W auto tuner.
Not one single review...However I am sure it will beat a MFJ. LDK is much more ham friendly than MFJ!
I am sure my $129 autotuner from LDG will handle 100+ watts and run circles around a $79 MFJ POS Deluxe
73 MIKE
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W9WHE on February 9, 2004
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My ARRL membership!
It "bought" a proposal to "dumb down" ham radio!
W9WHE
Proudly supporting the ARRL boycott!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NE0P on February 9, 2004
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Good point on the ARRL membership. For me it is a CQ magazine subscription. Not only do they want to completely remove CW testing, but also the CW subbands. I was not going to renew my subscription, but my parents did for a Christmas present. At least they still print contest scores. Wonder if they will continue to sponsor CW contests since they hate CW so much?
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W7DUD on February 9, 2004
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I fully agree with you guys. My ARRL subscription is up this month, and I am very inclined to not renew, because of the code test issue.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W9WHE on February 9, 2004
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Do ham radio a favor...DON'T RENEW!
W9WHE,
Proud to have cancelled my ARRL membership
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W8OB on February 9, 2004
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Out of all the gear I have owned I have to say 3 of them were a real pain
1. Heath Hw-101, I ended up making holes in the top cover to I could fit a alignment tool in and make adjustments on the coils and carrier balance control.
otherwise was a fun rig.
2. Clegg FM-27b this was a loser, after plunking down big cash for a channelized rig this thing had a receiver oscillation. Sent in back to clegg for repairs came back working, Most all freq markings were quite a bit off frequency and it liked to eat pre-drivers and driver transistors like candy.
3.Eico 753 no sense repeating whats already been said about this one.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 10, 2004
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Am I the quentessionsl geek enough to say the EICO-753
worked for me. My VFO only drifted 2 -3khz/hour.
Just be quick with the with the RIT!
Mine did work! REALLT IT DID! sorry for the other 20 that could no get theirs to work. The rig did not become really viable as a rig until EICO went out of business!
Sorry My EICO-753 served it's mission. It was given to me broken for free. I fixed it. Got a solid 9 months of QSO's out of it. The Power supply blew again.
I gave mine free to a new novice. He fixed it. He is now a ""Sam Goody Ham". Sam through it out....And He said Goody!
Eico is a good/bad Karmickly.
Anyone want to start a non/can't anti-users group for the 753 on yahoo(Hi-Hi)
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KC5LVW on February 10, 2004
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MFJ in general BUT by far the MOST EXPENSIVE has been the LDG AT-1000 high power auto tuner for about $550. Does not want to tune. Per the company, it's only spec'd for <2:1 (anybody got a new solid state radio that will allow you above 1.5:1?) & "you must have some RF in the shack" (if I was resonant, I wouldn't have needed the tuner in the first place!) My problem is this is the second one I have gotten...shame on me.
73
Jon, KC5LVW
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N3YDN on February 10, 2004
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With a dobut it was the Kenwood TM-642A that I purchased new back in the mid 90's. It was the most expensive radio I ever purchased, especially after I added the UHF module, triplexer and antennas.
The recurring problem I had with the radio was that it was always "freeze up" requiring the microprocessor to be reset and subsequent loss of all memory information. Kenwood was also no help in resloving the problem they kept telling me "reset the microprocessor"
Bottom line I was so disgusted with the radio and lack of support that I eventually sold all the Kenwoods I had, TS140, TM2550, TH-225A, TH315A & TH415A. Replaced everything with Yaesu's and haven't had a problem.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB4DX on February 10, 2004
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Back when I rated the Icom 706, There was no other radio to compare it to, and I didn't want to chance buying a Yaesu Ft 100 because of the problems that it had but now with the superior Yaesu FT 857, I can honestly say the 706's that I had were real intermod / interference magnets. The transmitters were great, but what can you do with a great transmitter and crap receiver?.....Nothing. A $150 glorified cb rig (10 meter radio shack) had better noise rejection than all three generations of my Icom 706!
Other than that, most post 1990 HT receivers are useless when used with an external antenna. One exception, The Kenwood THG71a, excellent receiver!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K1OU on February 10, 2004
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K7VO,
Better be careful, Caitlyn. Afterall, ya might get W9WHE so lathered that he will threaten to use his Alpha 99 and law degree on you!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AG4RQ on February 10, 2004
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I was the victim of two Icom IC-730s. Both were lemons. The first I bought at a local ham shop. It was sold on consignment. This rig had poor receive. I had to have the receive preamp on at all times. The TX audio was low, which meant having to run the speech processor at all times. I finally blew this rig sky-high tinkering with it. Something shorted and the rig quit. The rig would still receive and transmit, but on only 1 frequency on each band. The VFO was gone. Oh well! Bought another 730 on eBay. The receive on this one was a little better. TX audio was still low, but not as much as the first one. The TX and RX on this rig was off by several KHz from the digital readout on LSB. USB was on the money. Even though this rig had problems, I "lived" with it until something went wrong. For no good reason, the rig would go into oscillation on TX on 10, 12 and 30m only. The 80, 40, 20, 17 and 15m bands were OK. I tried desperately to troubleshoot the problem, but I just couldn't find out what went wrong with this rig. At that point, I learned my lesson with used equipment. I sold the half-working IC-730 along with the "parts" radio that I blew up on e-bay. I accurately described what I was selling, and someone bought both rigs and the service manual for $260. I paid $300 for the first 730 and $280 for the second 730, both in the year 2000. Like I said, I learned my lesson about buying used radio equipment. I took the proceeds and put it toward a new IC-718. I've been happy with the 718, which will be 2 years old this May. I learned my lesson so good that when I wanted to get a 6m radio, I bought a brand new RCI 5054DX. No more used radios.
On the subject of MFJ, I threw my money out on a Vectronics VC-300DLP antenna tuner. For those who don't know, Vectronics is owned by MFJ. I bought it at the 2003 Miami hamfest. I thought it would be an improvement over my Kenwood AT-180 tuner. Think again! :-) I use a shortened 40m dipole with ladder line. With the Kenwood tuner, I get a flat SWR on all bands 40-10. I can't get it to load up on 80. I was hoping the Vectronics would load up on all bands including 80. I don't get a flat SWR on any band, and it will not load up with a usable SWR on 80 or 12m at all. The stinking thing sits in the box today after a full year - still brand new! I'll use my AT-180 until it crumbles. I got a good deal on that. I got that at a hamfest for only $75. For those of you who wonder if my problems with the Vectronics is related to my power output, no it isn't. I run a stock 100W. I guess if I ran 300, I would have cremated the thing.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W4UDX on February 10, 2004
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Dentron HF-200 HF transceiver. This radio was a disaster. Dentron should have stuck to the amps/tuners. In a part-count / performance comparison, my HW-8 blew it away!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB9UDJ on February 10, 2004
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No problem with that question. The ICOM IC-2720H. My first one went up in smoke and the fine folks at the Ham Station replaced it as it was almost just out of the box. The replacement is acting funky. We have local hams that have had 2 of the IC-2720H radios go up in smoke or just quit working.
The really sad thing is that it is a great radio when it works. It is sad that ICOM will not admit that they have made a inferior radio. If they had any responsible people out in Washington state they would look up my address using my call and contact me about fixing their mistake. The $64,000 question is if they fix it is it really fixed or is it just going to last till it is out of warranty and then die. If they contact me and make it right and where I do not have to worry about it making smoke then I will be the first to get on this forum and tell how good ICOM is. As the old saying goes, I am not holding my breath. I truly feel sorry for their dealers that are getting a black eye over this sham of a radio.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AC5XP on February 10, 2004
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Third place: Yaesu FT-767, poor radio.
Second place: Ten-Tec Paragon. A disgrace.
Unchallenged first place by far: MFJ-989C antenna tuner. A disaster.
See my product reviews on Eham for these lemons.
Loek d'Hont AC5XP
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AB5XZ on February 10, 2004
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MFJ 345 hatchback antenna mount.
The installation instructions were nonexistent, but there were, apparently, enough parts.
The problem is that the two hex socket cap screws that form the main moving parts are made of cheap steel from somewhere. THEY RUST and there is no economical way to replace them with stainless (metric, odd sizes) parts.
I wrote to MFJ and they sent me a new pair of screws (same crappy material) and a hex wrench.
Now their ad says the product includes protective caps.
I'm thinking of replacing the mount with a Comet and keeping the coax assembly.
73TomAB5XZ
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NW7U on February 11, 2004
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I've had my worst luck with accessory items:
I had an MFJ battery-operated LCD station clock that ran about 5 seconds fast per hour. That's right about an hour off in a month. Not very useful.
Next was the RASCAL interface. Any kit that suggests using tape or rubber bands to close the enclosure can't be taken very seriously. Customer service was even worse than Yaesu.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by D9AL on February 11, 2004
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<<<<<<by KE2IV on February 11, 2004 Mail this to a friend!
Sure sounds like the original poster, and his friends, got a bunch of crappy radios.
Hmmm...
And then we get WA2JJH putting in the racist crap about "rice boxes".
{Remember, JJH: sooner or later, OM, I am gonna let your fellow Co-Op dwellers on Greenwich Street know what you're doing up there and then you are dead meat!>>>>>>
ke2iv must be the worst eham poster with mailing death threats on his QSL cards, making threats of violence on EHAM, and not offering one usefull piece of information.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by PA7TWO on February 11, 2004
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My Icom 706 - 706MKII radios.
Boy, what a major piece of junk these radios are! Both broke down multiple time. First 706 within 6 hours after I took it from the box, did not startup again. Second lasted 6 months. Traded it in for a MKII, after a few months no more FM modulation, repaired. Followed by a total shutdown after two years. Icom import compagny in PA land could not repair the unit, after 13 weeks my radio shop offered me a Yaesu FT897 instead. A MUCH better radio!
Vy 73, de Kees - pa7two
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4CT on February 11, 2004
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TWO ANTENNA'S. THE JOYSTICK ADVERTISED IN CQ MANY YEARS AGO AND THE INFAMOUS GOTHAM BEAMS. I HAD A 20M ONE...THE ELEMENTS VIBRATED IN THE WIND UNTIL THEY WORKED LOOSE AND ANT FELL APART. THE MATCHING SYSTEM WAS A JEWEL ALSO...YOU JUST MOVED THE COAX SHIELD TO A POINT WHERE SWR WAS GOOD. THESE THINGS WERE ADVERTISED IN QST FOR YEARS. THINK EVERYONE HAD ONE OR ONE OF THEIR VERTICALS AT ONE TIME.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3GM on February 11, 2004
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That would be the HQ-1 Mini-Quad. It radiated equally bad in all directions. Capacitance hat spokes frequently broke off at the base leaving nothing to grab onto for removal. The potting compound around the coils melted if too much power was applied.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W3KI on February 11, 2004
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I suppose my T7H gives new meaning to the acronynm ICOM (I Can Only Monitor). I only use it as a scanner now.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K7NG on February 11, 2004
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I nominate the Lafayette HA-500 receiver I had from 1968-1971.
It was nearly deaf above 20M, whenever somebody would start transmitting on 3680 KHz or thereabouts I'd hear them regardless of band I was on, a 10 KW broadcast station 20 mi away would create squeals all over the place if I was using my 80 or 40M dipole, and it never quit drifting.
I GAVE it to a kid who just got his Novice license (with a warning about it) and he left it on my front porch one night about three weeks later.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W9WHE on February 11, 2004
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My worst ham accessory....ARRL membership.
It REALLY bit me in the butt.
W9WHE
Proud to have cancelled my ARRL membership
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N0BNY on February 11, 2004
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Ten-Tec TRITON II - it gives me a nightmare just thinking about it. I sent it back to the shop at least five times. The shop visits cost me more than the radio purchase. It had the frequency stability of water. Sometime from the start to the end of Q, it would drift 10 kc. It had more birdies than a punk band. Its noise blanker, should have been called a noisemaker. Once I gave up on cw with this rig, I did not need to set it back to the shop. Never was able to sell it. I am thinking about contacting Stephen King and maybe he could make it into a horror story.
And what was really interesting about the above, was that each time I got the rig back from the Ten Tec shop the techs would saying that it was operating at specs!!
Will sell cheap!!!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AB7JK on February 12, 2004
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All the below tied for 1st place:
MFJ 9020 - No transmit or receive, otherwise worked fine.
MFJ Keyboard Keyer - type a j get an r.
IC-718 - worst cw rig ever - cw note sounds like popcorn popping - lousy AM audio. Hams rave about this rig - shows how stupid most people are.
IC-725 - noisiest audio ever in a ham rig.
VX-150 - several programmable features don't work properly out of the box - not worth the shipping costs to send back to Gigafarts.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K1CWB on February 12, 2004
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IC-T81A, peice of shat that Icom made, had an unuseable joystick to control everything.
My 2720 is just about there, 2 times back to the factory for a blown PA, and it's intermod city!! Thing has NO front end
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K5ZP on February 12, 2004
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I'll throw a couple more into the dung heap
Back in 1972, I worked an entire summer mowing lawns to buy a used Benton Harbor lunchbox on two meter AM. I made one three mile contact on it and never heard another soul.
Here is the rest of my list:
Yaesu VX-1R - Five trips to Yaesu and still off freq. I don't think I ever made a repeater contact with it
Icom 706 (Initial Version) - Back to Icom within two weeks, Selectivity, sensitivity on the HF side and extreme intermod on the VHF side. I bagged one mobile DX contact (XE - Mexico) from Texas in six months.
Icom 735 - The quietest RX ever made - deaf. Linear slide pots were not a wise choice.
Icom T8 - Battery tabs kept breaking and held a charge for a very short time.
Kenwood TS-180 - spurs, drifts and poor transmit audio.
Any Cushcraft Vertical - Couldn't find one that ever met the advertising hype. All of their beams met or exceeded my expectations
My first homebrew handbook Novice CW transmitter - Key clicks, hum and the ability to work both 40 and 80 at the same time hihi........
On a positive note I've had many more winners than losers and even my MFJ components did the job without failure. Some of the very tops were/are: Yaesu FT-1000D, Swan 600 Twins, Lightning Bolt 5 band HF Quad, Kenwood TS-940SAT, Cushcraft 10-4CD monobander, 5BTV, Yaseu FT-100D, Gees Antenna Farm Double Bazookas (160/80/40), Drake TR4-C, Dentron DTR-3KA tuner, Heil Goldline & Classic mikes, Kenwood TH-F6A and the Heathkit HW-101.
73 Steve K5ZP / YI9A
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KF7CR on February 12, 2004
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The EICO 753, nicknamed the seven-drifty-three.
I was a young teen and had scraped together every penny to get a rig to get on phone. Unfortunately the magazine reviews back then were too "subtle"
The power supply buzzed like a rocket ship. Even with a 3-hour warm-up, the VFO would drift like crazy. And the SSB quality was poor. I quickly went beyond disappointment to despair.
Later I got a Heath SB-101.... and homebrewed a remote VFO for the SB. My homebrew was rock solid.
While I now collect some old equipment, I cannot bring myself to get anything EICO.
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MY FT-817 finals blew
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by W5ZC on February 12, 2004
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I love my 817 but the finals did blow during a makeshift backyard Field Day exercise. I'm wondering if this is why: I was operating on CW when my "Power Station" (bought from "The Ham Contact," possibly another "worst" contender") ran out of juice and rig went dark. Upon changing power supplies the finals were dead. A friend's 817 (bought at my recommendation) also experienced final loss.
Yaesu fixed it and it wasn't all that expensive; about $125 I think (plus shipping). That made up for the great price I paid for it at Dayton. I tried to talk the circumstances leading to the final blow through with the tech to see if there was a trend but he wasn't very interested.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W2CDO on February 12, 2004
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IC-245 w/CW&SSB module. All those old rigs like the R-100 and the EICO were POS yes, and low end, so expectations were low. In the case of the 245, expectation was very high. It worked for about six months, then nothing. After a year waiting for an ICOM guru to fix it and return it, it came back dead as a doornail. A local genius got it running just fine, then a bird farted somewhere in a neighboring state and the thing went stone cold again. It's up on a shelf in the storage room waiting for the right boat to anchor.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2MER on February 13, 2004
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My worst rig was my first: the Heathkit HW-17. It was a 2 Meter AM transceiver that was such a bomb that I kept it for only a few months, until I could afford to replace it. The receiver was deaf as a post and the transmitter suffered from chronic low modulation. But at least it was ugly!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KD5KJD on February 13, 2004
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What else to top off the list but MFJ Tuners! I only own one and that's because it was extremely affordable at the time. It's soon so be sold even more cheaply at the next hamfest. That thing was just a horrible experience best forgotten. Then there was the MFJ Tuner which literally fell apart, RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX, at Field Day about 2~3 years ago. Calls to MFJ resulted in nothing as did returning the thing to MFJ. I am currently looking for a tuner now, and I KNOW it is NOT going to be an MFJ product. I have to wonder if old man Jue even reads or cares what people think of his products? You'd think that after reading just a portion of the complaints here, someone over there would alert him as to the state of our disgust! But as long as we buy them, he'll just have them made as crappy as ever. Stop buying them and he MAY just want to improve the quality.... Ya think? One can only hope.....
As for radios? Has to be, hands down, the ICOM T-81A. Don't get me wrong, I love ICOM. In fact, it's their rigs I run EXCLUSIVELY... But every so often, a bad apple rolls out of the barrel... and this one was a stinker! Makes for a great battery eater, I mean it doesn't take long to go through ANY well charged battery pack and in rapid fashion. And what were they smoking when they let that 'joystick' function button even get through R&D? That thing was just wrong on so many levels. I do have to admit that the radio as a quad band HT is really ok, but it has it's downfalls. Were it easier to operate and/or program WITHOUT that button then it might make for a a really nice radio. Even though you'd have to carry at least 2 backup battery packs just to make it through anything longer than a long parade. And yes, I still have that radio!
Up to now? That's it, my Icom T-81A and my two MFJ Tuners. And believe me when I tell you that I NEVER recommend ANY MFJ product to ANYONE.
Best 73!
Luis KD5KJD
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by NN6EE on February 13, 2004
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Yah Luis I know what you mean!!!
Back a while ago I purchased a brand-new Kenwood TM-241A mono-band 2mtr. FM rig and had to have it back in the frigg'n shop 5 times under warrantee, but when Kenwood asked how they could resolve our "Lemon-Problem" with my 241A I had said give me a new rig, they REFUSED!!!
PISS ON KENWOOD!!!
EE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by AC7KZ on February 13, 2004
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It was a "Missippi's Finest Junk" tuner. I would get rf burns on the fingers everytime when I tuned up on 80. My shack is very well grounded.
Called them, and of course, they didn't know what I was talking about.
I remember before I was a ham, I was interested in one of their decoders to decode fax, rtty, and other digital modes. I called them, and they gave an excuse why the unit was not in stock.
As one ham wrote, buying MFJ stuff is a right of passage in Ham radio.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB7AWK on February 14, 2004
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I would have to say my Swan 250 6-meter rig. Just figuring out how to put it in the right part of the band was a challenge - the tuning dial is a joke because there is a 'band set' variable cap that must be set first to the right part of the band. It's so coarse that you'll never get it accurately enuf to make the real tuning dial even close to accurate. Plus it drifted like crazy, wiped out TV sets a block around, and ran so hot you could smell it. Bad memories with that rig - maybe that's why I've never done much on 6 meters!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W5ZZG on February 14, 2004
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EICO 753... You mean you can buy a radio that doesn't drift? I gonna have to get me one of those. BTW - I can't remember the cost of my EICO but I bought it used with money that I made off of my paper route. It was a lot of fun at the time....
73s, Jim
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KE8PA on February 15, 2004
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The FIRST one that came to mind was the EICO 753, but on further thought, my 6146 QST design CW rig was built on a old receiver's copper clad chassis. The transformer had the right HV taps, but little did I think about power! Hence my homebrew 'chirper'. I still have a comraderie when hearing DX chirping CW. I WILL call the poor souls.
The EICO 753 was sold/practically given to me, the grateful budding ham, by another ham who built it & gave up fixing it. It WAS my 1st SIDEBAND rig !! Lots of learning troubleshooting it to work on 20 & reduce drift. Gave me an idea of what to look for & appreciate in future rigs, hi.
In defense of MFJ...have had SOME with loose nuts. Big deal. I check everything regardless of brand. Had a 949 tuner fer 20 years. It's been a good old horse. (And the MFJ 259's aren't getting junk prices.)
Kenwood TS-440's. Ahh the PLL 'all dots'. Well documented & quite fixable. Then they never die. Mine still has original lithium battery. ( I have a backup to install, but just waiting...memory is already backed up on floppy for the day)
So the EICO 753 wins in my book & represents a challenge to anyone who'd really like to tackle making one work right. There's an accomplishment for an unknown hero!
KE8PA
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on February 15, 2004
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I would say the EIC0-753 should get a 5 for good karma(hi-hi)gtes a 0 or 1 in everything else. 5 in price too!
1)You always got one with the power supply for FREE, nobody could ever charge you for such a broken POS.
2)YOU HAD ONE OF TWO OPTIONS. Fix the rig, or get good practice trying to fix a rig.
3)When I did get yours to work(2-3khz drift/hour)You had some of your first CW and SSB QSO's. Yes you had your first drifty short DX QSO too.
4)The repair would not last, so when it broke within a year, you gave it to some new ham.
Too bad we do not have an official fix it or give it away program for newer rigs . I know some OM PITCED
that idea on EHAM LAST YEAR.
I guess the EICO-753 was the closest thing to that idea.
73 DE MIKE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K1XV on February 15, 2004
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Its a shame that Gotham only made antennas. Can you imagine what a Gotham antenna tuner would be like?
As I said in my first article, an expert ham who knew what he was doing could get a Gotham Vertical to work, but they were marketed to Novices and you were told to do things that almost guaranteed it would not work, like mount it to the side of a house with strap clamps, and no radials required. And those wooden dowels to connect the sections of tubing!!
Believe it or not, if you look through the QST magazines of the Gotham era, they had imitators offering similar antenna set ups.
The story on the Gotham guys is that they were two brothers among five brothers named Weinstein (later anglicized to "Winston") from New York City. In the 1930s, these brothers formed a hobby supply company, "America's Hobby Center". It is still in business and has a web site. Anyway, our two antenna brothers went into the military for WW2 and when they got out, their other brothers would not let them back into the family business.
The two outcast brothers formed a rival company, "Gotham Hobby". Gotham hobby sold things such as model airplane kits and motors. One of their most notorious products was the "Deezil" motor, which was poorly made and rarely worked. (Put "Gotham" and "Deezil" in Google and you will learn a lot). As a sideline, they started making amateur radio antennas.
Around 1956 they relocated their operation (which I understand was set up in a two car garage) to Miami Florida, and essentially focused on antennas only. Their advertisements were incredibly misleading. The League's present policy of limiting the claims made for antennas in QST advertising is undoubtedly based in part on Gotham's colorful advertising. My favorite one, designed to appeal to the young Novice operator, was the claim that the fate of a nation could depend on a single message getting through, and the Gotham vertical would assure that the message would indeed get through.
Based on the postings here, I see the ideal station. Icom 753, with a back-up Heath AR-3 receiver, all getting their signal to/from a Gotham Vertical.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K4IQT on February 15, 2004
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With no doubt whatsoever, my Yaesu FT-301D. "Give us the specific areas where you think it missed the mark...": Poor receive performance under crowded band conditions, temperature-sensitive VFO (it would drift one way during transmissions, then back when receiving), flaky controls, frequent problems with component failure, hard to get at circuit boards, cheap junk components with excessive lead length, simply ugly factory PCB assembly (cold solder joints, lands repaired with solder bridges, etc.), flexible chassis that caused connector problems quite regularly, and PCB connectors that were apparently not gold plated and had to be cleaned often. However, for its day it was a good-looking rig with a very cool LED VFO readout and all solid-state construction.
I kept that '301 about two years and was happy to replace it with a used FT-101ZD, which I still have today - it may be old, but it is of classic fine quality.
I also had my share of old Eico 753's, Heath SB series, etc., that were pretty sorry performers. However, they didn't cost much and I didn't expect much.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K7SVV on February 15, 2004
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Well, mine would be the Swan 500 if I had owned it but since I had borrowed it, my worst rigs would have to be the previously mentioned IC-211 and IC-245 SSB. Those two rigs certainly kept me busy keeping them running. At that time (mid 70's) we had an ICOM CRYING TOWEL net on 2 meters where we talked about the problems with these rigs. When ICOM got wind of it, they contacted a couple of us and threatened us with legal action for disparging their products.
John K7SVV
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by D9AL on February 15, 2004
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cTHE EICO 753 WAS A FINE RADIO! Comared to some the junk I used to just be operate! triband rigs ,SSb/cw rigs were very hot in the 1960's
I spent a tiny amount of money. As some other posters said EICO 753 could be had for nothing!
I thought I could risk a ittle money on an old used tube rig I bought a National NCX-3 triband SSB/CW.
AS SOON as mostly solid state rigs hit, LIKE THE TS-511 AND THE YESUE FT-101b flooded the market, hams liked the whole idea of a station in a one BOX!......Non Drake and non Collines cheap tube rigs ere around.
OK the NCX-3. Nice case and very easy to tune.
The VFO slipped. The VFO would not maintain calibation! I could be in the top end of 20M phone.
I would then QSY to 14.175. My xtal calibter would show I was really at 14.180! SO Constant VFO caliraions ere needed!
The RX audio did not even sound like tubes!
It sounded like an old tubed phograph from it's day.
Every other radio simply just sounded better than the National. lONG qso'S you got punished for! The TX audio was OK. The ALC was a lille tight.
I knew This radio was to be a tax write off, after a few months of operation!
The rig could turn into general coverage rx, when the SW DX WAS STRONG was strong. There were little tricks to do to the VFO. Puttin in some external caps would let the rig recieve a SW band mear a ham band.
CW, I could get 90 W tops per band. SSB not much better. I do not remebler what tubes were inside the RF cage I think the radio used a pair of 6DQ6's.
I think that is good for 200W SSB INPUT!
Then again i had no interest in keeping the radio!
I bought it used from a ham at a hamfest for $60.
I should have known. He had a .price tag of $120.
When i said $60, he did not even haggle!
National was not high end, it was not known as being a perfomer like a coolins or a DRAKE.
i gave mine away working to a new ham in Palermo.
The kid was very happy to have it for free.
It did have a MUCH better RCVR on 20m that the EICO 753. HOWEVER THE NCX-3 cost more money (double to triple) than the assblembled or 753 kit. except for the VFO
I thought I remember the EICO-753 in kit form to cost
about $150 or less back in 1970 a Lafayette radio Elctonics store. If someone has the old kit price on the 753, plesase post!
Lafayette had radio shack beat in ham radio back then. You could order DRAKES from lafayette. Lafayette carried much asembled and kit form ham radio gear.
I bought the AMECO 15 watt xtal control 80/40M tannsmitter for under $25 from Lafayeete.
I would saw this CW only rig TX was a good deal compared to the Nationl NCX-3.
The Ads for this national was slick! The radio was not for seruios use. The RX was poor to just OK.
I did not have dift horror stories. Let the rig warm up for 30 minutes, you were as stable as most rigs.
THE IDEA OF NOT HAVING 15 AND 10 METERS BUGGED ME EHOUGH. 15 meters used to be very hot over 25 ago.
It seemd when 20m was packed, 15M took up all the slack. Tons of DX on 15M. It could be better than 20m, some dsys.
I ended up with the TS-520'S for runner the TS-511. THE ts-511 showed me what a real radio was like!
The National NCX-3 seemed like trash compared to the Kenwood TS-511.
Like some OM wisely said it is all relitive. Some hams could be having a ball on a rig you owned 30 years ago. Tons of TS-520 owners on the air. Plenty of Collins S lines and Drake C lines on the air. I even like how drake and Collins perfrom. they just sound better. The TX audio is better too.
73 SAL
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by VA7SL on February 16, 2004
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Rubbish!
The Ten ec Transverter kits are awesome! Several friends and I built them and used them with little effort or difficulty. I worked KH6 with 10watts and 5 elements from VE7 with the 20M>6M transverter. I built it in my dimly lit garage in less than a week with little experience and training (at the time).
I highly reccomend the Ten Tec kits for a fun little project.
VA7SL
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W9WHE on February 16, 2004
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My nomination for "hall of shame" is ARRL membership. After paying for it, the ARRL promptly turned around and stabbed me in the back.
W9WHE
Proud to have CANCELLED my ARRL membership.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K1OU on February 16, 2004
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W9WHE,
I don't care. And I think I speak for a lot of other people when I say this.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4EDE on February 16, 2004
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I suppose ther were maby ONE and only one eico 753 Seven Drifty Three, out ther that maby worked like it was suposed to.
NO KIDDING FOLKS! I was trying to sell a eico 7 Drifty 3, At the Huntsville , Ala. hamfest in 1974 walked up to me and asked....
"Where is the role of tollet paper to go with the 753?"
i didnt sell it that day. i keeped it for a few years and then during a move i gave it a Big Heave Hoo in to the Garbage Can.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB8ASO on February 16, 2004
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N0BNY,
I need a parts Triton II for the front panel + a few misc parts. Mine was damaged in a fall and would like to restore it for old times sake.
My worst rig was a Dick Smith 2 Meter transciever kit. What a super POS! The PLL was soooo unstable it would lock in only in 50 khz of the 2 meter band! Looked ok, could have been a winner but turned into a pile of crap. It was worth more as an unasembled pile of parts for other projects. Paid $169.95 + untold hours of pain trying to get the PLL to work correctly.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K3UOD on February 16, 2004
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Absolute worst was a Heathkit DTMF pad that used RC networks instead of a xtal. It would work in the shack, if carefully aligned, but once in the car it drifted with the temperature.
Next is my Heathkit VHF watt meter/SWR bridge. Never could get it to calibrate as a SWR bridge. It works great as a watt meter though.
Regency 2 MTR 30W amp that keeps blowing the RF sensing diodes.
Can't think of anything else that really disappointed me.
Things I had and wish that I had never sold: Hammerlund Super Pro 600 JX; HW-101; DX-40 with VF-1 (never drifted that I noticed); National NC-98.
Things I loved and gave away to people I really like: My Drake 4B twins, great rig but I just don't have the time to care for aging radios, the guy I gave them to fixed them and they sound great; Hammerlund HQ-170.
Things I have now that I love: Yaesu FT-1000 MK V Field; Ameritron AL-811H; MFJ Versatuner IV; Kenwood TS 520; Kenwood TS-700, TH-205 and TM-211 all with Comm Specialist CTCSS encoders; Motorola HT-600s for 2 M and 440; Motorola Syntor X-9000 for 440; Icom IC T2H Sport; two Radio Shack HTX-242s, I've been running them mobile for over 5 years, no complaints.
Best ham radio thing that I ever bought: my ARRL membership!!!
K3UOD, (ham since 1962, 20WPM Extra)
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4DFP on February 17, 2004
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I'll have to cast another vote for the Eico 753. I know I state on my web page that my Heathkit DX60B was my first rig, but it is the first one I am proud to claim ownership of. After I had taken my Exam, but before my license arrived I went to another HamFest looking for a rig. I didn't have a lot of money, so when I saw the 753 sitting there with it's matching power supply for $50.00 I was ecstatic! I got it home, plugged it all up and....nothing happened. I had to rebuild the power supply. the parts were all there but this was evidently someone's first project. I got the the power supply working just about the time my license arrived. I fired up the 753, letiing it warm up for a half hour before even turning up the volume. I started listening and noticed a bit of drift. I called CQ and got an immediate response! WoW! Real Ham Radio. I followed him as he transmitted and wondered who had the problem. After I responded, I never heard a thing from him. I must have drifted so far he couldn't find me. As time went on I got better at riding herd on the VFO, but signal reports included clicks, chirps and 60Hz hum. I never could find the cause of any of these problems, though I diligently tried! I kept trying for about 2 months. I fianlly gave up on it all together when I got a plain post card from Savannah, GA anonymously posted by "Muffy Virgin" notifying me that I had a birdy at about 3550. I don't remember what I did with that rig, but I think I stripped it out for parts to keep someone else from having the same problems. THAT is when an Elmer gave me his old DX60B
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W7DUD on February 17, 2004
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W9WHE
With respect to my previous comment on this subject, I have decided to renew my ARRL membership.
I do have some strong feelings on the CW requirements. However, When I balance all of the important aspects of Amateur Radio, I think that ARRL is probably the best lobbying organization that we have, and quite possibly the only one.
In this (US) Democracy, you may show your displeasure, by cancelling your own membership, as you say you did.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by EI2JC on February 20, 2004
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Yaesu FT2600M,lost its memories regularly,if using more than 10 watts it would go into Packet mode cutting off the mic audio(even tried a work around-in the menu you could leave the mic on for packet but didn't work).
I would have thrown it out the car window only it was bolted down ! I felt very guilty taking €20/$25 for it which I reckoned was the value of the mic & an unused power lead!
I'm now very wary of buying anything on 'Special'(I notice the Icom 2725 is!! nuff said)
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB1KVL on April 8, 2004
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I have to agree that MFJ has the worst products on the market. I bought a recommended mag mount (fron local candy store) and worked good for about 15 miles, maybe. Couldn't hit my local repeater past that point. Bought a Hustler CG-144 antenna and it woke the radio up. I live 20 minutes south of Boston, MA, and now can my use local repeater to Cape Cod. Here's another MFJ antenna that the candy store recommended at the same time. MFJ 5/8 wave base omni. Everybody gives rave reviews on it. Listen to me. I'll give it to you straight. With my mobile rig, in my mobile, I received a signal strength of S5. From the same station in my base, with the same radio, on the MFJ 5/8 wave antenna up over 20 ft, it came in S3-S4. Enough said about More F Junk (MFJ).
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WB6NVH on April 19, 2004
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I managed a ham radio store in the 1980's and had a chance to try just about every radio from that era. My choice for worst all-time dog of the 1980's, perhaps ever, is the now extinct Yaesu FT-ONE. These arrived defective right out of the carton, they cost a fortune, and nobody bought them. The main problem was in the IF shift control. Another dog (surprise !): The Rockwell Collins KWM-380. We had lots of TVI complaints from people who replaced their tube final rigs with 380's. Servicing the 380 was a nightmare; a card cage with hard-wired cards, stuffed with Taiwan grade parts. Rockwell published the latest serial number ranges, then customers wouldn't buy the "older" range radios sitting in dealer inventory. The radio was too heavy to ship UPS (at the time)yet was by no means sturdy. Options such as a noise blanker were a hugely expensive field mod kit which required an experienced technician to install and which then didn't work worth a hoot most of the time. The entire KWM-380 experience was a disaster; most distributors lost money on them and were glad to see the end of Collins. Yet now, like the "Emperor's New Clothes," there are people willing to pay silly prices for KWM-380's, including more money than they cost new in 1982, and at that time we were lucky to sell two a year. MFJ- it's been said already.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K5VYT on May 12, 2004
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I'm new to eham.net, and just ran across this thread. I thought I might add my 2 cents.
When I first started out (1959), I had a Hallicrafters S-85 and a homebrew single 6146 transmitter built from the handbook. I made a lot of cw contacts as a Novice, but when operating I had to be quiet. One good sneeze or bump of the table and the S-85 would be hearing some other frequency. It was a great radio for SWL though.
During the years that followed, there was a lot of good and a lot of bad. The good included the Heathkit SB-303 and SB-401, Collins 75-A1. The bad included the Heath hot water gear, and especially the Swan 350, with patented auto-drift technology. I actually used this thing in the car, complete with the 800 volt power supply under the hood.
My most recent disasters all started with the letter "Y". I bought an FT-747GX from a local dealer so I could go mobile. Put it in the car, tuned to 20 meters and started down the road. Crapped out after the first pothole. The local dealer was not equipped to fix it, so it had to go back to Yaesu, a 6 week process. When I got it back, the transmit power was down by 50%, so back it went again. About 6 months later, a repeat of the same thing. Gave it away.
I also had a bigger Yaesu for the main shack, an FT-1000D. This was an outstanding radio when it worked, but it had to go back to the factory twice for receiver problems in the first year. After that, every time I turned the beast on, I wondered if I would be able to hear anything, a sad feeling for such an expensive rig.
After experiencing Yaesu, I bought an Icom 706 for the car. This thing is outstanding... it just works. Never a hitch in several years of ownership. It sits under the passenger seat, covered by years of dog hair and seat cover fuzz, yet it performs perfectly every time. I also got an Icom IC-756Pro for the main shack, and it has been a dream machine as well, with outstanding performance.
Needless to say, my shack and car are now totally Yaesu free.
Oh, yes... my other major disappointment has been an Astron power supply. I bought an RS-50M new for the shack. It looked like it was built like a concrete block, but it wasn't long before the rocker power switch failed, fortunately in the on position. I could have fixed that, but it seemed easier just to plug it into a power strip and turn it on and off that way. But not long after that, the voltage started getting flaky. Whenever the ambient temperature in the shack would go up, so would the voltage. After it got high enough, it would crowbar, and eventually I needed an external fan to keep it working. A few months after that it died completely. I now use a deep cycle battery to power the shack.
Never owned anything by MFJ, and from reading this thread I think that may be a good thing!
73 to all,
Dick K5VYT
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KA4ETR on May 13, 2004
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I third the comment on the R6000!! Could not get it to load up on but 1-band!,(with an antenna tuner!!).
It works really great today though. I chopped it up and used the pieces to make a homemade yagi! Works great now!LOL Hi! Hi!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N4UE on May 27, 2004
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This is a wonderful topic! As usual, even after 40+ years of hamming, I learn something new almost daily here on eHam.
Back in grade school, my buddy and I built our first 'reciever'. Just a tuned circuit, a diode and a Lafayette audio amp. But, it worked! We heard Radio Moscow, etc. That's what started my life long interest in RF.
I next stepped up (??) to a Halli S-120. I 'thought' it was great, after all, look what I had to compare it to. I added a Heath Q-Multiplier and had a few Novice contacts with it. I saved my money and my folks let me buy a spankin' new Lafayette HE-80.
I was in hog heaven!!! I have restored a few HE-80s and still like them. I have a nice one in the shack. However, I was recently offered an S-120 for free. No thanks.
I am surprised about the kit builders who dislike their creations. I built MANY Heathkits and liked them with just a couple of exceptions....
I had ordered one of their HW-2036(?) 2M FM radios, but they were discontinued. I did buy a HW-17A.
WA2MER said it best: "a bomb"...... I built it carefully, but the tangental 'friction' drive made me ill.
Next, I tried one of their 2M handhelds. Remember that jewel? HUGE. Worse radio I ever owned. When building it (I was an IBM Field Engineer at the time), I remember testing each of the tiny ceramic caps with an VOM. About 1/2 were shorted! The repeater in my town had an oddball split and either the recieve would work or the transmit, but not both. I think I gave it away.
I bought an IC-22A (which I still have) and it SO impressed me, I own 13 Icoms today, and love them.
A couple of years ago, I picked up a couple of Heath SB-110As on E-Pay, er, E-Bay. I always wanted one, 'back in the day'. I was able to get both working, but I was underwhelmed! Just a cheap, crummy feel! I also have a Drake TR-6 and it's orders of magnitude better. The construction of both of the SB-110As was a discrace. No real slam to the design, just poor construction. Some of the solder joints looked like they were made with a propane torch!
As far as MFJ, I guess I'm another 'lucky' one. EVERY piece of mine works 100%, and I have 7, including 2 tuners. Just last night, I was using the tiny CW decoder while listening to the beacons on 6 Meters. It works fine IF you know how to use it......
gud luk
ron
N4UE
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8DXR on September 16, 2004
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Man, I am SORRY I missed this thread until now; maybe we need an ongoing section on this site just for this subject!
The best line I ever heard on my offering came from the days of the BBSes...someone (and I have this note saved on one of my hard drives in my inactive computer) said it best:
"The fact that their stuff is made in Starkville, Mississippi is all the proof you need."
I have two goals: Own one rig with all of the manufacturer's accessories (almost there) AND own a well fitted shack with NO piece of MFJ trash within it - not even a *clock*!
And just HOW bad are even the clocks? Try this:
Out of respect, I wouldn't use them in a *bomb*!
(No, no, NOT out of respect to MFJ...)
My own personal experience: During a CQ WW WPX SSB contest at a friend's QTH, I started smelling a hot maple syrup odor coming from underneath me -- I looked down and saw the transformer in the MFJ antenna switching box was glowing and GETTING READY TO CATCH FIRE RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!!! Thank God my friend had taken the lid off of the switch box...and no, he did NOT fix/modify it in any way; he just wanted to see the quality of the work...insert your own observation here.
Every time I go to the Fort Wayne (IN) hamfest in November I make a point of going to the MFJ booth to pick up all of their product catalogues (while treating openly their flacks with the same respect I offer telemarketers, political candidates and...well, nevermind, I can't stand EITHER of the November offerings, so don't go there...).
WHY, you say? Because there is *method* to my anger:
I have their latest catalogue, noted with eight items in it that I *like* but only in terms of what they can or are able to do - and I am looking for *other* manufacturers with the same gear, or close to it, so I don't have to worry about it going to hell on me! If you want, I'll post the list and ask all of you out there to recommend quality substitutes (I would consider that an act of mercy and compassion).
Makes me sad I never had the chance to buy Heathkit and operate that company...Martin could come up to me right now and I'd treat him the way Deion Sanders did Tim McCarver in the locker room after that World Series game...only I'd use *cement* instead of water!
I ask: Where is the F*T*C when you need them??
Thom N8DXR
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N8XTZ on September 20, 2004
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Hello all,
Just thought I'd drop my 2 cents in. Only been in the hobby for 13 years so I've never really had a chance to enjoy all the Heathkits that are out there. On the other hand, I have had the dubious honor of being had by a P.O.S. made by MFJ. Yes, yes, I know, but I was young, new, and very stupid at the time, so I have that on my side. It was a older model tuner (number purged from my mind) and worked great for 2 weeks. After that went haywire. Found out that it had bad soldering on the connections and had went to ground on me. Like I saw in another post, the MFJ catalog is great to use as a shopping guide, then accually buy quality frome somewhere else. I'm happy to say that I'm MFJ free.
The 2nd POS I have is the Yaesu Ft-1500. Why they stoped putting fans on radios I'll never know. This sucker got so hot I burned myself on the chassie. The final finally gave out in it and found out that a replacement is more then the radio. Live and learn.
Best rig was a FT-900AT, still bang my head agenst the bench for getting rid of it. Best antenna is my Mosely 34-XL-WARC, and I love my AL-84 with the IC-746. I run a 706 (first model) mobile and have had NP for 10 years. Everythings toped off with a Heathkit SA-2060 tuner and Astron RM-35M. Learned my lesson about power supplys that way too. First one was a Diawa, after having to epoxy the supply connectors back into place...twice...it works, well, it works anyway. If you get a ps get a Astron.
Thanks for letting me rant. de N8XTZ
Mark
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by VK4TUX on September 29, 2004
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I agree re rascal. I gave up after 6 hrs and placed back in the box. Opto replacement was a good deal straight off.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KI6LO on October 7, 2004
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Only piece of gear that I ever bought that seemed to be totally out of line with my expectations was a MFJ-989C Legal Limit tuner. Bought it used so figured that it had seen some activity. Had to totally rebuild it one I got it as the plates on the TX cap were slanted in the frame. Had I fired it off with full power, there would have been toast all around the shack. Now it is a decent but still not great tuner.
I have owned other MFJ gear and most of it worked as I had expected it to. Not that I am a MFJ fan but I think alot of hams expect too much from MFJ gear and really complain when it isn't up to their expectations. If it comes from the factory broke, there is no excuse for that. Ya listening Martin!!!! But to get gear that is made inexpensive (ie cheaply) and expect it to work like top quality stuff is a bit of a stretch.
On the other hand, I have owned a ton of Heath gear and yes it does require a extra dose of TLC (tweaking, lubricating and cussing) but for the most part it was good stuff. And besides I learned alot about repair and servicing with Heath gear.
Gene KI6LO
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N6AYJ on October 8, 2004
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I am surprised to see so many name the Knight R-100 receiver, but I guess it just proves that everything is relative. Back in 1961, when my best friend and I both had our Novices, I had a Hallicrafters SX-25 receiver and he had an R-100. I thought his R-100 was fantastic, if only because it did have some sensitivity on 15 meters, because my SX-25 was deaf above about 12 mhz. Plus, the R-100 had the built-in Q-multiplier, which worked well.
My elmer used a Hallicrafters S-85 with a converter ahead of it. The S-85 tuned on 80 meters, backward, but this made for a very sensitive RX.
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA2JJH on October 11, 2004
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I kinda liked my EICO 753-pos. I got it for free.I worked about 30 states. Learned a little about repair.
The TEMPO S-1 is a VHF POS.
The National NC-173 was a big POS.
Gotham Verticals.....A shocking POS
SBE-33 a late 1960's POS
VHF engineering repeater..A POS you could share!
MFJ POS for all!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KU4QW on October 30, 2004
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Ten-Tec Scout, what a junker, I thought the radio has a mind of it's own the way it tunned (drifted) all on it's on.
I've had a bunch of Ten-Tec Radios, only one I liked was the Century 22...
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KG0PP on November 15, 2004
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It brings me great pain to say this as I am a long time Ten Tec fan. The Ten Tec Argo 556 (the QRP version of the Scout)....what were they thinking? Not enough power for a mobile radio, and yet missing the features that would make it a good portable or base QRP rig. The band modules were cute but the novelty of changing them out waned quickly. Buying all the modules ran the cost higher than much better QRP rigs. When I worked the bands, I would often work a fellow ham and listen to their signal hop up and down by 100hz. PLL was unlocking, I guess. I would always say "oh, I see you are using a Ten Tec Scout (Argo)". They were always surprised that I could guess what their rig was before they responded. I was 100% when guessing their rig.
Bought directly from Ten Tec, the rig's "Jones" filter did not appear to work correctly. Tremendous insertion loss when the bandwidth was reduced. Sent back for TT to align. Appearently the radio was shipped un-aligned. When I received the rig back, it was DOA. Pulling the covers, I found none of the connected cables had been reconnected. A phone call to TT, they talked me through getting the connectors in the right place.
In defense, the Jones filter really did work great once aligned.
Oh and TT service tech was really helpful.
Oh....I guess the rig does have very low power consumption compared to others. Much lower than the vaunted IC703 (which I also own).
And the QSK is typical TT...flawless.
Hot receiver.
Ah crap....I guess I actually like the rig
Jim
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K2YWE on May 27, 2005
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Now this is really weird. My call has been K2YWE since 1956 (KN2YWE then). This is in response the K2WE's comments about his chirpy Globe Scout.
In 1957 I bought a Globe Scout 680. Its CW note was clean as a whistle - and still is today! It is T9 both on crystals and with the 755A VFO. You must have had one that was "broken" and needed some repair.
I have a more recently acquired Globe Chief 90 and it's clean as well.
73,
Dan
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by N5RO on July 15, 2005
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Has to be a HAM KEYER. This thing decides to send dahs on its own continuously every now and then and recently this became a permanent feature.
I finally went back to an old Heathkit keyer - the later model with built in paddles - has self-completing character feature and very useful for mobile operation - just strap it on the console.
Another POS is the ADI HT - we used these for search and rescue in the local SAR units, and many of them failed on transmit or quit working altogether.
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K5WLM on July 17, 2005
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I have just walked into this discussion..Like most of the comments I have seen..I too have had problem/problems with some rig at sometime.. I remember my first attempt at 20mtrs after getting my general ticket and obtaining a 753 Eico...after calling CQ a few times....A voice comes on and says" you are operating out of the american phone band"...head down dejected,,shut her down...
BUT About MFJ...Just remember if they weren't around with all their advertising...A lot of HAM publications would be in trouble....
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KD4HLV on July 26, 2005
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Does anyone have a IC-2700H for sale that has a good Control Unit? Please email me at kd4hlv@radio.org
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KB0VCC on January 31, 2006
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Wow, all this gear bashing and Ramsey not mentioned once! Everything I've seen from Ramsey must be totally redesigned before being assembled, or it will not work well, or in some cases, not work at all. I'll take MFJ over Ramsey any day.
YMMV,
Dale
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by WA9CWX on February 23, 2006
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Just read all these comments. Agree with SOME...
Had the Gotham vertical, yuck, had the 20 meter beam, modified times three for stability.... Loved the Polycomms, hated the Eico, never got the Knight T150 to work on six, never got the T-60 to work....
BUT...My MFJ 989 tuner works GREAT..Not as slick as my Dentron, but no problems....The smaller MFJ stuff has always seemed cheap, but worked ok.
The FT-ONE.......My favorite rig for years, (now have 2 of them) TS-930 same vintage, but nicer rig (have 2).
FT1000D, have 3 of them, love em all.
Have NEVER had a problem with ANY HT, have over 60, about 35 are Icoms. OK, I guess the P2IA Icom was a bummer, but thats IT.
FT-90, great rig, but didn't like the fan noise.
FT8000, works, works and still works, DAILY for about 6 or so years.
In 43 years of hamming, and hundreds of radios, got to say been overwhelmingly happy !!
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What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by K6MTT on April 27, 2006
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I'm surprised there is not more mention of the Yaesu FT-7100M. I got mine from an SK friend and figured I'd keep it as a reminder of my now-departed friend. He had returned to Yaesu at least once, maybe twice, for one of the usual '7100 problems (see reviews here on eHam). But for me, the thing was just too loaded with intermod. Not on the extended receive portions, but even in the ham bands and even with being just on a dipole and even though I live in a rural area. Nasty radio. I think my friend would have parted with it as well, given time, so I did also.
My honorable mention: the IC-2720H. Dreadful with intermod. I almost got one of these except for the lousy reviews (I love my IC-208H tho - how can Icom be so good and so bad on things?). Instead, I get to use one as part of my company's emergency comm room, so I've experienced most of the complaints people have - the oddest being the extreme viewability of the display from the right, whereas the view from the left is pretty bad (not being in a vehicle, I could mount it where it was readable. I wish there was a way I could dump it!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W4RXN on August 11, 2006
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Hey Guys, Lighten up on the Knight T-60 ! I used one as a novice in 1970, was given to me, and made thousands of QSO's all over the world. Once a small shielded cable going to the final shorted, but cut it back, resoldered it and was back on the air in no time, with the help of a great Elmer (AF4J) giving help over the phone. Unfortunately my HR-10B drifted and the front end overload was awful but I could at least copy the weak DX when condx were good. After wearing out a pair of SB101's, a Swan 300D (digital readout) also given to me, went completely crazy. The readout died and it stopped working at all after each band crapped out one by one. My biggest disappointment...my Kenwood TS-930SAT with the stupid design overheated burned out power supply, makes me sick. I loved that radio.
My biggest surprise...picked up a Realistic DX-302 on Ebay for $40...solid as a rock. Who would have believed that?
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W4RXN on August 11, 2006
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Dittos re: MFJ. The worst soldering and PCB crap I've ever seen !!!
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W0EAJ on February 16, 2007
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Ahhh, the mind trembles at the choices. The MFJ-249 that I sent back 3 times for a flakey bandswitch - finally got 'em to send ME one - did it myself - better, but still flakey.
Kenwood TM-V7 dualbander - damned blue screen; couldn't see it in the daylight, couldn't see it at night, then it got vertical lines all over it (which Kenwood admitted), but solly chalrie - no free fixie.
Halliscratcher SX-99 & S40B... jump on the floor, and they took off - S-40B was a true POS; then again, it was designed that way, I guess.
ALL ALINCO PRODUCTS - piss poor customer service (they think that's a department), no support, no parts, no books - downright rude on the phone. Of the 3 radios I had from them, they would NOT work on any of them. Never again.
Polycomm 6&2 - it became amusing after a while. I'd turn it on, to watch it smoke - always from a different place - it became a party entertainment piece called the "Poly Smoke"
Standard HT's - I worked on the commercial ones, and they were crap - ham one was only slightly better.
Oh, and last but not least - the subscription I "won" to World Radio - totally worthless rag, ostensibly aimed at CB'ers cum no-code techs. Took me 4 damned years and countless threatening phone calls to get 'em to quit sending me renewal notices. Arghhhh!
Tom - US Navy Radioman - licensed in '62
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Worst of the worst
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by W0EAJ on February 16, 2007
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MFJ-249 sent it back to them for a bandswitch; returned with NO work done - finally had 'em send the switch to ME for install - horrid job, but at least it's not QUITE as flakey as before.
Kenwood TM-V7U damned blue screen garbage - can't read in the daylight; can't read it at night- then the display got lots of vertical lines like a comb, and although Kenwood KNOWS about it - solly chalrie, no free fixie!
Halliscratcher SX-99 and especially S-40B. Both would go waah-wahhh if you bumped the wall and the S-40B was almost unusable, in spite of attempts to tame it.
ALL ALINCO PRODUCTS... ALL! Had 3 pieces of their junque' and they would not supply SERVICE, PARTS, MANUALS, or SUPPORT for any of them (all under 2 years old). They can kiss my rosy red you-know-what.
PolyComm 6&2 - living proof that spontaneous combustion IS a reality. After a while, I gave up trying to fix it, as each time I turned it on (usually at parties), it would smoke from a different place. A real laugh generator - we called her "Polly Smoke"
Standard HT's - I worked on the commercial version, and they were awful. "Layered" PC boards meant that there was lots of stuff piled on top of the circuitry to make 'em work - ham versions only slightly better.
And the PRIZE! The subscription to "World Radio" that I won at a hamfest - took me 4 years and multiple threatening calls to get them to quit sending me renewal notices. A rag designed for CB'ers cum No Coders - totally useless publication - not even suitable for the outhouse.
Tom - US Navy Radioman - licensed in '62
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by W7ITC on February 16, 2007
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Ditto MFJ....
Hmmm what to pick....it would have to be the Lysco 600 transmitter, and the Yaesu "twins" FR-101 and FL-101.
First the Lysco 600: This is a CW transmitter from the 1950's using a single 807 for the PA. The engineering on this rig must have been done by electronics engineers who got their degrees out of a Cracker Jack box. The built in power supply is not regulated very well. As you key it the voltage starts to drop causing the VFO to drift up in frequency. I could only do about 6 words a minute if I went any faster the resulting voltage drop would cause the 600 to move right out of the receiving OP's bandpass. Good thing I only paid 10 dollars for this Dog's lawn God offering.
The Yaesu Twins: What an impressive looking set of radios. they look fantastic on the bench. The designers at Yaesu must have thought "it is better to look good then to work good". drifty VFO's, two of them, and receiver with the dynamic range of a 10 day old road kill. A manual that only somebody who is blind can love. Using the instructions in the "manual" I never could get the two radios to sync properly, Thank the moon and stars there was a Elmer on what I call the Green Pig round table, mostly 5 landers, on or about 3.940, who call Heathkit Amp's Green Pigs, "They are green and they keep on squealing". This elmer rather then chewing on me for being off frequency showed me the Drake Canary method of synchronizing twin setups. Did I mention the drifty VFO's; well once you synced them they didn't stay that way very long and one the the 5 landers would tell me I was off again so I would move off frequency and retune.
The FL-101: was a powerful transmitter but it is one of the host of transmitters of the time that used those crappy sweep tubes for Pa's, It was difficult to neutralize the PA's because of this there where parasitics which caused all kinds of problems with my Heathkit SB-200 on tune up. Don't even try to use American 6JS6C's with out modifications to the biasing circuit. Don't me started on the gang switches in this thing.
The FR-101; This is supposed to be the best receiver in the true Fox Tango line up. the last 101 the FT-101ZD is not really an FT-101 it is a defrocked version of the FT-901. I am here to tell you I have a Gonset G63 that will blow the doors off of it. It over loads, hard to tune SSB, drifty, bad AGC timing, audio quality that puts a whole new name to the term pain, Add this audio to bad AGC timing and you have a radio that you do not want to wear headsets with.
Engineering....well it is at least better then Swine, oops I mean Swan.8^)
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RE: What Was Your Worst Piece of Ham Gear?
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by KG4DHR on May 7, 2007
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My Kenwood TM-V7A.
Like so many others, I have had the display go bad with vertical lines at power on, then slowly fades out completely in 10 minutes or so, rendering the radio completely useless. However, unlike many others, Kenwood REFUSES to fix this piece of junk, despite me being the original owner!
Their reasoning? They did the complementary repair for about 3 years and since this is a discontinued product (hmm...I wonder why?) they made the decision to stop fixing them. So if you're like me and the radio just broke about two months ago, too bad, so sad! Here's a diagram and a couple of links to where you can buy the part that costs more than half the value of the radio!
I called Kenwood up to get an explanation and one of the guys there told me to send him an e-mail about my situation and he said he'd look into it. Long story short, I've sent two e-mails and haven't heard a thing back in over a month. In other words, this is just how they make you go away.
Kenwood openly admits there IS a problem with the TM-V7A display, but refuses to make good on a known factory defect. If this is an example of their customer service, Kenwood has lost me as a customer for life. They can FORGET about me purchasing anything with a Kenwood label on it from now on.
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