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Reviews For: Ramsey Doppler DF-1 kit

Category: Direction Finding equipment

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Review Summary For : Ramsey Doppler DF-1 kit
Reviews: 8MSRP: 150
Description:
Uses Doppler effect to give direction of signal. 4 Mag-mounted antennas, an antenna switching
board, plus a main board to go inside a plastic enclosure which is provided. Everything is
provided except for coax to connect the switcher board to the main board, control cable, and
an audio cable to connect the radio to the unit.
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.ramseyelectronics.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0083.9
N8TJC Rating: 2010-04-23
Nice Unit Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Four of our club members purchased DF-1 kits. All four kits had the correct parts. Assembly was done with no real problems. The directions for the antenna unit were not real clear but with some "elmering" from one of the members every kit was completed and functioning. We have used them for weekend fox hunts and have had great success with them. We overcame the antenna magnet problem by mounting the mounts on a thin sheet of metal that can be place on top of the vehicle and held in place with clamps or tape. We are going to purchase another DF-1 for guests to use if they want to try out fox hunting with our club.
KI6KQJ Rating: 2009-09-02
what a neet toy Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
just got it.
easy assembly.
finding rf every where.
it takes me right to the source.
& yes the mags are week.
but what fun....
KI2U Rating: 2008-01-21
Ramsey DDF-1 is Great Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
OK..I read all the reviews and called Ramsey. They told me they had fixed the documentation. I ordered the kit and they are right. This direction finder was a great kit to build and even better was it worked flawlessly. There was one disc capacitor missing which the junkbox supplied. Last night was net check-in. The rdf antennas were calibrated by the repeater tower lights on the mountain in the distance. Drove up on the hill above town and put the rdf/scanner on the repeater input and it gave directional indication on every signal. This is too awesome. Another ham drove up there to see what I was doing...now he wants one also. Well, maybe this is not the perfect RDF unit, but it didn't cost $1000 either and appears to do a very good job. Yes, it does need stronger magnets for the antennas-so get some longer 4-40 screws and mount them on it. Hey, this is fun!! 73
HB9DWS Rating: 2007-10-04
More or less useful Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Same problem with the antenna-switch with an assembled unit... they know this since several years and they do nothing against! No HAM-spirit at Ramsey, only money counts!

DDF1 works well on VHF after solving the switch-problem, but can't be used on UHF... no support from Ramsey at all to solve this issue... thank you again.

Summary: Okay for VHF. If you would like to have an DF-System for UHF - forget the DDF1!
K2GK Rating: 2007-09-16
Good "Bang for the buck" Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Taking off 2 points to just an "OK" rating because of Ramsey's lack of interest in fixing the docs.

I received mine assembled by the factory. Even they made the 2-4 antenna error. It drove me crazy untill I realized I could just turn the center feed upside down and that was the non-technical fix.

Yes they should be ashamed of the refridgerator magnets. As other people have stated, pull apart a couple of old hard drives and salvage the head magnets. Be carefull, these neochoromium mags could give you such a pinch your eyeballs will cross!
I hot glued mine and rarely have to heat the glue to reset.

The LITHARC (Yahoo group) hams go out "Bunny Hunting" every two or three weeks. I have been with them for 3 years or so. Out of an average of five cars searching the Long Island area, those of us with the Ramsey box ALWAYS find the hidden transmitter.

By the way, if you find yourself in the NY, Long Island area on a Friday evening.... Look us up.

73 de K2GK
K0MCI Rating: 2004-09-27
1st hands on. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Greetings,

This is not necessarily for the kit. For this I apologize. I will grant the previous reviews are accurate.
What I wanted to say is tonight I had my 1st experience operating the finished product and am sold on it.
In fact I will be pushing for a unit to be owned by the local club.
A known jammer interfered with emergency H&W traffic which had intercepted a net late at night. This jammer was regular on this net but largely ignored before. You get my jist.
The unit was applied to the hunt vehicle. A high point with as much line of sight over our valley was our start.
Sadly the jammer did not transmit much.
We had a GPS on hand and given only a few seconds of his transmission we had our first position and bearing. Note the unit was calibrated by use of a signal at 50mw approx 100 yds away first.
Decided to travel on the heading and wait, about an hour later we received a second signal for maybe fifteen seconds. Noted and off we went.
Same thing a third time, but with luck the culprit gave us several more shots rapidly and we ended up at a public facility. I wont say what or where for legal purpose, but with the unit approx 100 yards from me, and my body shielding we obtained a fifteen degree seperation which put up upon a residential structure behind a buisiness.
Lo and behold, a J-Pole.
I know I probably am messing things up for the actual rating here but I want to say this gizmo works. We nailed with fair certainty a jammer within a 2.5 hour time frame.
The O/O here will be pleased, and we will chalk this up to experience.
What I have to say is: If you need it, get it. If you can do it the old fashioned way, maybe not.
This may work better here because we are well spread out, but it worked.
Thanks Ramsey...
Tanks for reading... Good luck es 73..
KB6P
WX2NJ Rating: 2004-04-29
Good project, but manual needs to be corrected by Ramsey Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Built in 1999 and I've had no problems other than errors in the manual, which Ramsey has not corrected as of April of 2004.
The antenna switcher board is labeled wrong and should reflect 1, 2, 3, 4 in a clockwise direction. If you wire the unit per the manual, antennas 2 and 4 will be reversed. I pointed this error out to Ramsey Tech Support on 7/7/1999 (Roger) and the manual still has not been corrected.
Additionally, the antenna length chart in the manual is wrong and will result in a 2 meter antenna being short by nearly 2 inches. For the correct whip lengths and antenna spacing for 3 bands, see QST June 1999, Page 39.
Ramsey should be embarassed to allow these errors to go uncorrected for over 4 years without a manual correction, which is available on-line as a pdf and could be easily fixed.
WB4ZNH Rating: 2001-04-16
Good tool for the Fox hunter Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This kit is easy to assemble and appears to be a good product. It should be a good tool for the foxhunter. Though it is certainly not the only thing a person would need.

Limitations are the 22.5 degree resolution and occasional multi-path reception.

Only 1 part was missing from the kit, but it was an electrolitic capacitor. Ramsey responded quickly, but sent the wrong part. There was some confusion in the assembly manual, but only a little. The most significant problem was in the assembly of the antenna switcher board. Nothing tells you the proper orientation of the board. I built it so it could be mag-mounted also, but the DDF-1 rotated backward. The solution was to reverse the wiring on the connector. There was also a reference to jumpers in the instructions that have been removed by a newer version of the circuit board. But it was annoying to search for something that did not exist. I gave it a 4 rating because it works well, but only a 4 because of the minor problems with the kit.