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| Reviews Summary for West Mountain Radio Rigblaster NOMIC |
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Reviews: 30
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Average rating: 4.0/5
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MSRP: $59.99
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Description: Small and inexpensive, perfect for portable or temporary setups. Switch radios by ordering an extra matching mic. cable. Use PTT keying circuit as a fully isolated CW/FSK keying output for direct keying of your rig's CW or FSK instead of using it for a sound card interface. No external power supply needed, great for portable or QRP installations.
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More info: http://www.westmountainradio.com/RIGblaster.htm
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write your own review of the West Mountain Radio Rigblaster NOMIC.
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KE7JFA
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Rating: 0/5
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Apr 26, 2007 13:19
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Garbage
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Piece of junk. Hooked up to my FT-2800 (after I found out that I had to purchase a 25.00 Yaesu cable, all cables included, yeah right!)
After I hooked up to my radio, It would not unkey after booting computer up! Then I had to actually unplug the serial cable to get it to unkey and plug in again.
I fiddled with this complete garbage interface board for a day and then I sold it to someone else. Echolink is a joke to begin with. Never again and went to IRLP.
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KG4IVT
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Rating: 1/5
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Mar 25, 2007 16:28
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Throwing this thing out
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I bought the nomic against the advice of a friend that had one randomly die on him. I should have paid attention to this. It was going to be pressed into service with unused equipment so I figured the lack of a secondary mic connector wouldn't be so bad.
Mine hasn't died, yet, but it's been a major pain to get working. It took everything I knew about microphone wiring (which I found out was a lot) to get it working with a mobile radio that needed to see a decent amount of ground when it keyed up. I had to remove and then jumper across the 680ohm resistor in the unit to get it to work and it still would have problems keying up every once in a while. Yeah, get an interface with a relay in the keying circuit, I understand that part. I wish they would have said something about this on the packaging...or on the website...or anywhere other than asking through tech support (which is actually very good). What is interesting (to me, at least) was that this same radio has worked perfect with a Tigertronics Baypac modem in the past and had no keying problems. Apples and Oranges maybe (I'm not sure how the keying in the Baypac works) but still worth noting.
Then came the HT. I tried it with a Radio Shack HTX-245 that would work perfectly fine with Radio Shack mics and other homebrew spkr/mic combinations that I had developed in the past. I could only find one instruction site on how to build a cable for an HT and ended up building and rebuilding the cable described 3 times with no luck. I even drew up my own idea for an interface cable with still no results. The problem here was not a lack of keying (it would key perfectly fine) but that no audio would be passed. I reinstalled the 680ohm resistor for this (I also used and then shorted the 2.2kohm resistor in the cable) thinking it might help somehow but still could not get any audio to pass.
So I've tried a lot of stuff here. Granted, this application might be very specific but there's something strange to me about trying everything you can put together in your head about how a radio keys and sends audio through the mic connetor and still come up holding nothing but a POS. I also figured that going with a well known brand of interface would be a good thing. Oh well. At least I have a nice case to build my own interface in now.
While this is entirely unrelated, I did purchase and use (for about 5 minutes) a device called Dingotel which uses a crappy VoIP client similar to AOL Instant Messenger. The package comes with a USB dongle that you hook to (per the instructions) and FRS radio with a stereo 3/32in plug. Within a few minutes, I had the device keying up 2 handhelds with a 3/32in stereo plug for a speaker mic and even built an adapter that could take the stereo 3/32in plug and split it off to a mono 1/8in and a mono 3/32in for your average HT.....and this thing wasn't even made for ham radio.
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WD9CVP
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 21, 2006 09:58
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Good Unit
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Easy to set up and use.No problem with stray RF.When I called with a question I found the product support to be outstanding.If you are looking for a simple soundcard interface and do not plan to switch from one radio to another very often it should work fine.
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KX1C
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 8, 2006 03:02
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Outstanding !
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Does what it is supposed to. My NOMIC is hooked up with an FT-897d and PSK31. Setting the jumpers was easy and well described in the manual. I like the all metal enclosure for minimizing RF and protection of the unit. Changing over to microphone use with the "NOMIC" takes less than a minute. Great job West Mountain Radio !
David, KX1C
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N5RNY
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 15, 2005 15:37
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little black box
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Great little product. Running it on echolink, performs great. One caveat: When you are plugging in the jumpers it is VERY easy to accidently lose your place on the jumper configuration page. I did that and set mine up incorrectly. It took me an hour to figure out why the rig would not key!
I recommend either marking your place on the page, or, copying it over to another piece of paper. You may save yourself some aggravation by doing that.
Otherwise, it works just fine.
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YI9VCQ
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Rating: 5/5
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Sep 29, 2005 22:45
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Easy to use.
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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After homebrewing my own interfaces many times, I decided to try a Rigblaster Pro interface since I had extra money avaiable. I used the Pro and was so happy with it that I decided to use the Nomic for my Echolink station.
I took the Nomic out of the box, set up the jumpers, plugged it into my IC-V8000, and adjusted the audio level with the convenient pot. It was easy to adjust and I'm pleased with the quality of the device. It ran my Echolink node in Taji, Iraq for nearly 3 months with no problems.
I'm a very satisfied customer.
Korey
YI9VCQ/KA5VCQ
Baghdad, Iraq
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AB2M
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Rating: 3/5
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Sep 29, 2005 21:48
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Great as long as you don't change rigs...
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought the Nomic after trying the RASCAL. It works very well, and about the only thing that I don't like about it is that to change rigs, you not only have to plug in the proper cable, but change jumpers inside the unit, which means unscrewing the cover to remove it. This is OK if you replace a rig, I suppose, but I intended it for emergency operations, where I might need to use the mobile rig, or the HT, etc. This would be less than ideal. If they would take a page from the RASCAL playbook and have all the cabling changes IN the cable, it would be a 5+. I've since dedicated the RASCAL to the mobile rig and the Nomic to the HT.
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KG6POG
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Rating: 5/5
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Aug 19, 2005 22:31
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best buy for digital modes
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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I've had my nomic for about three mopnths and it's been great until the RJ-45 cord broke. but I had the cord loose on the floor and ran over it with my chair a couple too many times. But following the instructions was really easy and it's work very well for me. Normally I only play with PSK-31, but have tried RTTY with it and it works great.
I found it for $49.99, and I haven't found another interface that works for anywhere near the same price.
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EXPRO
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 25, 2004 03:29
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great value
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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excellant value for the money. Very easy to connect to a radio and does what is expected. follow directions and you can't go wrong. get one you won't be sorry
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KF4VGX
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 24, 2004 15:37
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NOMIC
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Great product ! Use it with Echostation as a Repeater controller. Two years without a glitch.
KF4VGX
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