buy one on the east side of the 28th floor on the beach at St. Augustine and use a 20M mobile whip dipole.

For low cost and ease and fairly not too obtrusive you can't beat a mobile whip dipole on 20 and above. There are commercial center brackets that have SO-239 for easy coax attachmnent abnd the standard 3/8-24 threads for the whips. Only takes a few minutes with  an analizer to get it resonant in the middle of the phone or CW band -- you'l have to choose since it's a hi-Q antenna of limited bandwidth. But it will be about the length you're seeking and work well. Also they have minimal weight and wind resistance and can be supported easily.

I had the fancy "studio style" Heil with my call letters above it. It was great to look at and OK but not really special to use. On the air comparisons said no difference with the OEM hand held mic that comes with the 746 many times. I wanted a desk mic; so I sold the Heil and paid about half what I got for it for the Icom SM-20. Took a few minutes and did the audio set up menus for it (which I had done for the Heil) and it is great. I have as much mic and a desk mic for half the cost. On FM you may find a few who may say they can tell a difference. On HF with QRM and QRN and QSB on SSB you will not be able to talk about "great audio" whatever you're using. Even on AM let's be realistic -- 90% of the guys you talk to are listening to you on a 2 or 3 inch speaker and the major demographic in hams these days is a lot of us are older -- i.e. not hearing as well as we once did -- or younger i.e. ears burned out already from MP3 players in their ears 24-7.

So if you want a neat pix the Heil is good. But for on the air save some money. Or, if you need to talk about big bucks, get an Icom SM-20 and tape a $100 bill on the back.

Personally, when I want a nice voice QSO, I enjoy a D-104 on my S-line. That mic's characteristics and the rig's audio circuits and my voice seem really match each other well.

They could be of some help .................... if you aren't paying attention to what you're doing as you drive and they rub the curb the noise may alert pedestrians and give them a couple seconds to jump out of your way.

Electrically it's simple. The mass -- the size and area -- of the vehicle acts as one plate of a capacitor. The tires are the dielectric. That's how you get capacitive coupling to the earth. Small diameter short pieces of wire are a VERY small percentage of the vehicle's size/area and will have no measurable effect. That's why the passengers on the Titanic didn't bother to use tea cups to bail the ship out ............... no reason to think it would have any results.

You do pay for quality and for name. But the cliche "you get what you pay for" and "no such thing as a free lunch" have been around for a long time because they are true.

If you need a part a few years from now will the big box store Chinese unit be fixable? Better odds with a name brand.

If you have a major thing -- say a hurricane -- and run it for a few days will the less expensive one still be running? The difference in original cost will seem small if it dies and you loose food in your freezer or have to drive 150 miles to an expensive motel because your emergency planning depended on a cheap generator that died. Better odds with a name brand.

How clean is the power? Your circular saw or lights don't care much -- but your freezer and especially your electronic stuff will be killed by spikes and dirty power. Electronics know if it's a square or sawtooth or sine wave coming at them. Voltage variation with speed with changes in load are problems with less regulated (less expensive) units. As you turn lights or fans or heaters or your frig or AC cycles the load changes -- especially anything with a motor with a high start current -- and your other stuff may not like variations as it tries to run along. Better odds with a name brand.

There is a digital mode selection from the 746 menu. When I do PSK it can't be in LSB it has to be in LSBD. Not real obvious -- but dig a little in the rig's manual in the menu area as it's a front panel push button selection not.

Alpha-Delta make very good antennas ............. and everything else they make. First class quality in my opinion. I have their 80/40 as a dipole at 20 feet and their 40 - 10 fan as an inverted vee at 33 feet. Both are lost in huge trees 2 or 3 times their height. Both perform way better than I expected them to. I also have their antenna switches and rely on them to keep my rigs separated and antennas selected.

Par (now someone else I think) make very good antennas too. I have an end fed 40-20-10 I use from the travel trailer.

For ham transmitting use I need a resonant antenna on the bands I work and it needs to handle 100 watts of RF safely. That's why I have the A-D and Par. But both are WAY over kill for SWL use where there is no power and resonant is less important. True -- you do gain a little receiving with an antenna resonant at the freq you're listening to -- but resonance is critical for transmitter component salvation -- it's not critical for receiver front end preservation.

Unless your SWL thing is to listen to a specific band -- most SWLs I know listen to hams, the BBC, Radio Moscow, and DX broadcast, music. religious programming, etc on a variety of bands -- all you need is an inexpensive roll of hook up wire. Do whatever you can to keep the wire away from metal/grounded things as it leaves the radio and exits the building. Get the far end as far and as high as your location's physical restraints allow.

Hustler has made a LOT of antennas for MANY years ............. so obviously they are doing stuff right. However the comments already here are valid. With 3 resonators on that triangular angle plate and one straight up you have a LOT of wind resistance and momentum as the vehicles starts, stops, and gets hit with turbulence passing a truck. All of which lead to mechanical failure. A "guy" is usually used but it has issues too like attaching it and if it is too tight or too loose and not effective. And the coils in the resonators are more "dense" than the ones in say a ham stick so they are less efficient. All in all a lot of stuff to contend with at a fairly high cost.

The idea of a single band on a quick disconnect is a good one. Much easier to use and that solves most of the multi-band issues ................... at a trade off on needing to make a physical change while stopped to change bands Vs the band switch on your rig while moving. But if that's your strategy why not use ham-sticks (generic -- several makers) at a lot lower cost and the same radiation efficiency? I have used a set of them for years. Have 40 - 20 - 15 - 10 for SSB mobile and 40 - 30 CW for when we're parked and I'm in the travel trailer. The 6 of them are about half or a third the cost of a comparable Hustler set up.

Which ever you do plan on spending a while with an analyzer and doing some pruning/tuning to get them resonant in a frequency in the middle of where you will usually operate. Expect fairly narrow bandwidth since they are shortened/loaded antennas. A tuner will keep the rig happy -- but resonant is efficient and non resonant is non efficient and with any compromise antenna you need all the efficiency you can get.

This is great. Common sense ............ but how often do we lack that and over look the obvious or easy stuff? I can hear a host of scammers collectively saying "Oh poop ......... they broke the code"

Best odds are a wire hanging in a window for receiving. Use a suction cup mount and let it hang as in the clear as possible. Choose a small wire of a non obtrusive color -- something that matches the curtains or is similar in color to the window trim and snake the lead back to the radio. Or lift a ceiling tile and throw as long a piece of wire as you can up above the suspended ceiling and snake it down a corner to the receiver. Any wire will pick up something. Transmitting though -- probably forget it. You'll not get anything long enough to radiate effectively at 40M and the RFI will be horrendous and could even hard medical instruments or devices.

Let's not get SWR and radiation mixed up. The ultimate in low SWR is a dummy load ............ but as we all know (at least I hope we all know) it's a very poor radiator.

Yes -- SWR matters -- a lot. Too high and it means some of your RF is converted to heat in the feedline and less arrives at the antenna to be radiated. Too high and the finals of your solid state rig are at risk. Too high and most rigs have a "foldback" protection that automatically reduces the RF power to help protect the finals.

But the basic thing is a vertical needs an RF ground to radiate effectively ........... and a decent SWR reading does not automatically mean you have a decent RF ground.

Here in FL our soil is highly sand oriented. 30 minutes after a rain my yard is a ground up glass bottle. So a large pipe down a ways still isn't much of an RF ground. Decent antenna base mechanical mount -- but a poor ground. A few radials still aren't much of a ground. Depending on your soil you need as many radials as you can as long as you can and each one terminated with a ground rod doesn't hurt either. In the IL "farm country soil" of my former life I had a simple 4BTV and it did great. But I had 3 each 1/4 wave long bare copper wire 40, 20, 10 meter radials burried about 6" deep and terminated with an 8 ft copper ground rod.


Remember -- if above ground the radials will be "hot" so consider if they could be touched or electrify something or start a fire with anything combustable.

I lived in the Great Lakes area for 58 years and went to Dayton about 25 times. It is the biggest. Most commercial vendors and manufacturers by far. However it is also the most expensive and in a very tired run down poor facility. The entire town has been on hard economic times a long time and it shows. The area is dirty and you MUST know about the hotel you book. Many are nice. We stay at the same one for the past 6 or 8 years and they treat us royaly. But it's 20 miles away and we know them and they know us. Some are down right crummy. I wouldn't leave my car in some parking lots or eat in some resturants in town. At Hara the restrooms are dirty and the floors are usually wet. The food is poor. You should plan to wait in a long line for either and not be sure which you just did after you're done. They do not seem to care about handicapped accomodations. ALL the handicapped marked spots in the paved lot are fenced off and used by the organizers while handicapped -- if they can get a pass at all -- are on a grass (often mud) field a ways away. How you get a scooter to the paved drive is not easy. How you get a wheelchair or walker there is beyond difficult. Don't be surprised if an organizer's golf cart is blocking the entry ramp and handicapped cannot even get in ......... they zip around doing their thing and have no clue or concern if they block a ramp insteaad of park it 6 feet away and let the ramp be usable. None of the door monitors will have a clue where anything is so don't even bother to ask them.  They are there to see that you have a badge and paid -- not to protect you or be of any assistance for anything you may need. This May the sewer blew up and for several hours there were no bathrooms. Not a single door monitor could even point you to the direction of the nearest porta-potty. Even able bodied have a hard time getting something they bought to their car; walking thru fields and paying a good amout for parking half a mile away. But you do see ALL the manufacturers and new stuff.

I have been to HamCation about 8 times since it's a couple hours away from where I live now. It is about half the size. Has all the BIG time manufacturers and vendors but not as many of the newer/smaller ones. Flea market may be a little smaller.  Facility is not fancy but it is much more user friendly and in much better shape. Area is in a part of town you want to know where you're going -- plan on a rental car and map -- but hotel and meal costs are lower than Dayton and better closer. While Dayton semi has XYL/family stuff and pretends to Orlando actually does ........ so if it's a family thing there is no comparison.

Past 5 years I have been to both. Drive 925 miles each way and spend 4 days at Dayton. Drive 75 miles each way and spend 2 or 3 days in Orlando. Hamcation is growing and thriving while Dayton isn't (many unused tables in the expensive commercial areas the past 2 or 3 years and lots of empty stalls in the flea market). Complaints are mounting and do not seem to be getting recognized let alone addressed by DARA -- while Hamcation gang seems more responsive to inputs.

First accept that propagation -- not the antenna -- will be the primary determining factor. Some days great propagation allows nice QSOs with a poor antenna. Some days with poor propagation a great antenna is still not effective. That's beyond your control -- so set your expectatins realistically and enjoy who you work when you work them.

I believe the single most important thing you can do is a great "ground". Mechanical mount to as much as good as you can to the car's metal. Straps between as many "sections" of the car as possible. A car has sections that have rubber shock mounts between them for noise and vibration reduction -- but that means electrically your car is a bunch of smaller metal parts and you want as much mass/area as you can. The metal in your car is a capacitor plate that couples to the earth for your RF ground. Bigger plate closer to the pavement is a beter capacitor -- hense everyone's advice to have the car's chassis or floor pan well connected to the "ground" side of the antenna mount. A mag mount is not in the same league.

I had a screwdriver and it was fine. But it still has most of the length and the high current part of the radiator in a coil at the base. So do "hamsticks" (various manufacturers with their own names). So the effectiveness is about the same. But a few hamsticks on quick disconnects is WAY less cost and less mechanical stress due to less weight and diameter. Also you could debate the safety of adjusting the screwdrivew while driving. That's why I said I had one -- but don't now. Scared myself a few times. And if you tune it while stopped why not just swap sticks? I pick a band I think I'll enjoy when I leave based on expected band conditions and nets I like etc. After a while I stop to pee or get a coffee or gas and maybe swap bands. Works well. I have sticks for 40 -20 -15 -10 which cover the entire general class portions of the SSB sections at under 2:1 SWR at about 20% of the cost of a screwdriver. Also CHECK IT OUT -- the mount for some screwdrivers is NOT a 3/8-24 like most ball mounts are (you mentioned a ball) so check first and buy second.

Many xmtrs of that era had a normally closed key jack .............. so no plug in the key socket means key line is shorted (like key down if one was plugged in). Try an unconnected plain vanilla plug and see.

Most (if not all) xmtrs of that era used a 1/4 mono phone plug for the key jack .......... unlike today where 1/4 stero is common. If the key you tried has a stero not a mono plug (many have keys that way to be compatable with their modern rig) it's possible -- even likely -- the ring and tip and shell are touching inside the mono jack on the rig -- thus shorting it.

Less likely but worth checking if above don't solve it ............ I had a similar issue and found a carbon track across the insulator portion of the rig's key jack. Aparently at some time the previous owner did whatever and it arched over. The track didn't show up with an ohm meter since it was carbon and high resistance -- but with the voltage and Rf and actual operating conditions it was a short. Only discovered after physical dissassembly of the key jack and visual inspection. A pain in the butt and several days of frustration to find it but not hard to fix once I discovered it.

Enjoy the rig -- it's a good and a fun one.

73.   John   W4FID

Yes ............. but.

The Icom rig has selections for its autotune. To do what you're thinking about turn the auto tune feature off. Then +/- the ACTUAL output charestics of each rig and connecting coaxs between the rigs and switch it will do as you expect. I have an IC-746PRO and a KWM-2A and use an Alpha-Delta 2 position switch to select between them and it's great.

CAUTION. Many switches have the unused position grounded. Some have a center position so both positions are grounded. Mine does and I like that feature so the rigs are grounded when not in use. An extra layer of protection (beyond the lightning arrestors). However if you don't switch the thing to the rig before transmitting you'll either be transmitting into a grounded antenna or into an open line (if the switch you select only leaves the unused position open not grounded). THAT CAN HURT YOUR RIG BADLY. Also that arrangement precludes listening on one rig while actually working with the other. Maybe not a factor in your decision -- just food for thought.

73
John