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Reviews For: S & S Engineering TAC-1

Category: QRP Radios (5 watts or less)

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Review Summary For : S & S Engineering TAC-1
Reviews: 3MSRP: 199.95
Description:
Monoband QRP txcvr with digital display
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.sseng.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0034.7
K5SOP Rating: 2014-08-09
Great Rig Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I purchased this rig shortly after it was introduced to the market. I found the manual complete, well illustrated and construction very easy with thru-hole construction. The radio is a pleasure to operate, very sensitive and the filter, keyer and display spot on. I use a 40 meter extended double zepp up 65 feet fed with balanced line and a Johnson Matchbox tuner. The receiver is very quite with no noise fatigue. I found a matching cabinet at a surplus store and built a small power supply/charger that will charge a 7ah gell cell and power the rig at the same time so the rig is always ready for fixed or portable use. I seldom see these on the used market and from the time I have owned and used this rig it is obvious I have no intention to sell it. I have owned several Ft-817's which are smaller and more versatile and IC-703+ which are great rigs also, but this is my favorite rig for forty meter qrp/cw. If you can find a clean one buy it, you will not be sorry.
DH5AK Rating: 2014-04-11
Very nice radio! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I have owned several radios S&S-Engineering offered, ARK-20, ARK-30 and ARK-40 but this is my first TAC-1. It's an 80m version. Tuning with the incremental resolver is flawless and a lot more comfortable than using the BCD-switches of the ARK-series. There is an RIT but I hardly use it as 100Hz steps are OK for my ears. The Receiver is a little bit better than in the ARK-series (which is very close to excellent). Sensivity and selectivity are about the same but the audio stage has less noise and this special squealing sound (with very low volume only) of the ARK-series is gone. The keying of the transceiver is excellent and even solid state now, so no relay noise can be heard, and the shaping of the keying makes a nice sound on the band too. One disadvantage is the current during receive operation: some 200mA. This needs a larger accumulator if you go for portable operation like I do. This does no harm if you use a mains supply at home. The second thing to moan about is that this radio is still very sturdy built but its case is (by far!) not compareable with the case of the ARK-series. You know what I am writing about when you have had one ARK-radio in your hands (feels like full metal jacket). However, all in all I like this radio very much! This radio is sold cheap these days and does an excellent job. I really can recommend it, even though it has no DDS, no PBT, no SDR or other modern gadgets... This radio has all you REALLY need.

73 de Andy DH5AK
K8CV Rating: 2000-11-19
The radio is INTERESTING! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
The only quirky thing is the tuning. Once you are used to it all is fine. It puts out over 5 watts. It is sensitive and selective enought for 40 meter conditions. The radio is a bear to build but they have great instructions. It is not for a rank beginner. It covers a full 150 Hz of the 40 meter band. The qsk is nice and so is the side tone. The knob tunes in 1 kh stepps and when you push it in it now tunes in 100 hz stepps. You use the rit if people are not right on in the tuning process. The case is a BRUTE and you could run over it with a car and not damadge it. I like it! It is on the expensive side but all quality inside. No drift or parasitics.