Rich, if I were in your situation I would have done the exact same thing.  Quality of life and shorter commute trumps everything else.  No point in having a great ham shack if you are never there (or too tired) to use it.

Nice video.  Agreed, I was able to work 230 countries with just wires (then got the hex beam, and it REALLY got interesting!)

Happy New Year

Best thing to do is get into the store and put hands on.  (Can't do that with Elecraft or TenTec).  And get into a shack of a ham who has one.  It's a lot of money to put down and then be unhappy with the choice.

I have been to AES in Orlando, HRO in Deleware, Woodbridge, Phoenix and Atlanta.  I have ALWAYS played with the rigs on display.  ALL of the sales staff at these stores have consistently treated me with kindess and welcomed my interest in getting hands-on with the rigs. 

More importantly, I got to hang with some true DXers in local clubs who taught me a lot and helped me to make an informed, unbiased decision (thanks N1LN and KZ1X).  In the end, I bought a Flex Radio Flex 3000 and have never looked back...which is odd because I have always been a Kenwood man since 1978 as a teenager.  But the DX excitement has really taken off for me with Flex.

Now, there are many who HATE it.  So I don't want to get into a back-and-forth on this board (there's plenty of that under the SDR section).  My point is...ask some local hams to let you into their shacks.  You will be better able to pick the right rig for you.

Good luck, keep us posted!

A nice late holiday gift, confirming #303 and #304.  Time for the DX dance in the ham shack, and a gift to the DX gods...put down some more radials on the 160 meter antenna.

Jim, please email me offline and we can chat.  wd4elg@arrl.net

In the meantime, please take immediate steps including making a backup of the key files before you do anything else.

Here is some good info on backing up key files. http://dx4win.ad1c.us/appnotes/backup.html  Please do that ASAP.

Then save your settings by writing your INI file to the desktop FILE->PREFERENCES->FILE->WRITE INI FILE (and save it to your desktop).  http://www.dx4win.com/HelpVer804/index.html?mwfpwriteini.htm

I think the recommendation to reinstall was to install on top of the existing installation, not to uninstall then reinstall.  But backing up the files first is always a good idea.

As an owner of several of the Traffie hex beam products, I will say that they are quite rugged and truly plug-and-play.  I have been VERY happy with my 20 meter light weight model and then the 5 bander.  It got me to 307 worked currently.  VERY stealthy (strung between 2 trees).  Mike Traffie is a real gentleman and a pleasure to do business with.  He and his wife and son run the company.  Not the cheapest version on the market, but I believe it is the best.  I am 100% satisfied with mine.

Thanks, Steven.  So for lossy antennas (like receive only antennas, there is some benefit).

Thanks for the guidance.  This helps a lot.  My objective is to bring the weak signals out of the noise on 160, but the preamp is clearly not the "silver bullet" solution for this issue.  Unless I was using beverage antennas (I am not), then a pre-amp for 40/80/160 does not seem to make much sense.

WB6BYU/Dale, thanks.

KZ1M/Steve, thanks very much for that analysis.  Helps put clarity to it all!

 It is late and my brain is not working, but I will take a stab at the additional discussion point about raising the noise floor...if I remember correctly from analog circuits about 20 years ago, the nature of the noise is (normally) more broadband than the signal in question (unless the noise is a point source).  So the preamp *should* be increasing the signal to noise ratio...because the noise is spread out over the spectrum.  Something in the cobwebs of my mind is recalling some formula to the power of 2, and it involves the passband bandwidth in that formula.  (I really need to dust off those books from 20 years ago!)

OK, Steve...I probably just blew that question away and got it wrong.  And embarassed myself in the process.  Such is life and hamming at 2AM local!  But 160 is wide open to EU, so it's not all bad!   

OK, back to basics.

Preamplifier purpose - A preamplifier is required to boost the desired signal power while adding as little noise and distortion as possible so that the retrieval of this signal is possible in the later stages in the system.  http://www.rfglobalnet.com/doc.mvc/Preamplifiers-And-System-Noise-Figure-0001

So for a pre-amp, one would look for a low noise figure (lower is better), and a good Third Order Intercept value (higher is better). http://www.w8ji.com/pre-amplifiers.htm

Question: what is the limitation of pre-amp use?  For example, why not use 2 pre-amps in sequence to really bring up the weak signals...say on a beverage antenna?  At what point do I start raising the noise floor and decrease the effectiveness of the preamp?  Or is this on a case-by-case basis that must be measured for each antenna installation and for each rig?

Also could get fixed by reinstall

http://www.mail-archive.com/dx4win@mailman.qth.net/msg12299.html

Try contacting Jim Reisert to get another filter file.  This thread discusses the problem

http://www.mail-archive.com/dx4win@mailman.qth.net/msg15275.html

WB2WIK - are you saying that you could not get in...because license plates are also hammered out in this location?     (kidding)

What an awesome DX Christmas present, Randy!  I have never ever even heard any stations from Iran in my 35 years of hamming.  NICE CATCH!

Agreed.  Just because a certain affect is present from a foreign operator...this does not make sense for native speakers to talk that way.

On another note, I was able to break through the pileups for 3C6 and 3C0 by calling them phonetically in Spanish.  Now, my accent is pretty thick and Americanized (someone from El Salvador once said I had an Italian accent to my Spanish!).  But Elmo the op this year was from Spain.  He was probably laughing so hard at my attempts, that he decided to return my call.  DX IS!

Speaking of, there's a guy on the honor roll who has done it QRP.  I think he is in Texas and has a 5 element quad or some impressive antenna.

I am not THAT patient, but I do want to see if I can grab occasional distant DX with QRP just for the fun of it.

Having said that, I defer back to my DX mentor K1LN, Bruce, who always said "Life is too short for QRP."  Kudos to Larry, K2LS, who also reminded me of this fundamental fact of DX life!