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Reviews For: KN2C Radio Direction Finder DF2020T

Category: Direction Finding equipment

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Review Summary For : KN2C Radio Direction Finder DF2020T
Reviews: 4MSRP: 399
Description:
DF2020T Radio Direction Finder kit requires minimum assembly for 10~15 Minutes
The Stealth DDF2020T/GPS is an economical but very sophisticated Doppler Direction Finder with GPS and can connect a PC or Laptop, to position and draw plots on GoogleEarthTM display window accompanied with “Navi 2020” plotting program.

Product is in production
More Info: http://kn2c.us/
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0044.5
K2GW Rating: 2022-11-02
Pricey but works well Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I bought and assembled the KN2C RDF in June 2022.

Assembly is pretty easy but the instructions need to be updated for the current kit configuration. For example, the ends of the display circuit board need to be carefully clipped off and then used as spacers to keep the board from shorting against the case. But it goes together quickly.

As others noted, it’s not the thing you want to permanently mount on the roof of your car as the antenna controller and four antenna mounts are not super waterproof and will leave slight rust marks. But I find that by simply using the span of my hand as a spacer for each antenna base from the central controller unit, I can consistently remount the antennas in about five minutes with good results for two meters that doesn’t need recalibration.

Also, SIgTrax makes a neat Bluetooth dongle that plugs into the RDF’s RS-232 port and sends LOP’s to the SIgTrax software on my iPhone. That said, you need to be moving for the unit to know your vehicle heading to convert your relative bearings to true LOP’s.

I use an old Bearcat scanner to which the RDF display is now permanently mounted above. This avoids any possible transmission into it. I just sit it on the passenger seat and power it all with a single cable harness including a USB power source that I fashioned ending in an Anderson powerpole. I could power it from the cigarette lighter outlet, but a small gel cell allows it to operate with the ignition off.

In actual use, I just drive keeping the relative bearing as close to 0 as feasible. As the bearings are continuous, multipath and reflections are obvious by their short duration and easily ignored.

Bottom line is there is no faster way to find the immediate vicinity of a transmitter.
K6RBS Rating: 2018-04-19
Update Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have now owned mine for over 5 years and decided to write a quick follow-up.
I am still very satisfied with the unit and it has helped me with many hunts. There are however some weaknesses that the buyer needs to be aware of.
1) It kind of works on 440 but the bearings are pretty erratic due to reflections.
2) The coax connecting the antenna units can get frayed as it rubs against the metal casing. Mine had got the point where the braid was cut all the way through on one base and others were down to a couple of strands. Replacing the coax is tricky.
3) There are short/fragile wires inside the antenna units connecting the BNC socket to the case. These break easily and should be checked and re-soldered if necessary.

De K6RBS
WA6ED Rating: 2016-12-05
Worked well first try! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
First read K6RBS's review. I used the Yaesu FT-60 and unfortunately ran into the transmit issue he described. I didn't think I was transmitting but the radio was glitching. Needless to say, K6RBS and others were not happy with me. I should have read his review prior to my first use / hunt. The documentation was no help in this area hence the low rating. I consider this a major flaw in the design / documentation. Running the risk of accidentally blowing out a $400+ investment is serious.

I think I may be lucky since I had minimum power programmed to the HT. Still, transmitting is very bad through this Doppler unit and can mess up the hunt for others and blow our your pin diodes. TURN OFF TRANSMIT is strongly advised. This is documented.

I also plan to use a different radio in the future that doesn't combine speaker and mic onto the same connector.

Be sure to give yourself plenty of time to setup and calibrate your device. The direction LED's worked well. I don't have Google Earth setup properly yet. The Navi software crashed / exited several times on Win10. I don't know why.

I used Tera-term to verify the RS-232 serial interface. That seemed to work fine.
WK4U Rating: 2016-03-10
Very happy to own and use! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I purchased this Doppler system a few weeks ago at the Orlando hamfest.

This past weekend, I joined a group of hams and we enjoyed four different VHF hunts. I was the fox for one of these hunts, and used this Doppler system on the other three. I did have my cell phone running Google Maps so I could see what roads were around me at all times. In each of the three hunts, I found the fox quickly. For our last hunt, we couldn't hear the signal at start, and I drove in every wrong direction possible, but in the end acquired the signal and found it pretty fast. This is a very satisfying feeling!

A local friend also just purchased this Doppler system. He played with Google Earth on a laptop getting his system to draw vectors towards the signal. As of now, it appears the latest version of Google Earth will not work, but one earlier version will. I didn't want to be a one-armed paper hanger last weekend, so I haven't tried the Google Earth sofware - yet.

It is important to calibrate your system carefully before hunting. I parked in the middle of our culdesac and had a friend walk around along the curb with an HT on low power. Take your time to calibrate it (easy to do), then confirm with a full 360 degree walkaround. Once you see it working correctly, you can trust it and use it to win every hunt that day. Mark your antenna locations with a grease pen so they return the next time to their exact same location. It wouldn't hurt to do a quick calibration check anyway before hunting. Others were riding with me on two hunts and were amazed how quickly we found the fox. No need to get out and take a bearing, then drive some more. Of course if the fox is in the woods, you need to finish the hunt on foot. This Doppler system gets you to the fox, or where you need to start hunting on foot quickly.

Ohhhh, when you park next to the fox, you'll likely be the first one there. Be polite and move your vehicle out of sight so others can still hunt it on their own. If they see your vehicle sitting next to the fox, it ruins it for them :)

I am very happy to own and use this Doppler DF system!