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Reviews For: NCG Company 15SB

Category: QRP Radios (5 watts or less)

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Review Summary For : NCG Company 15SB
Reviews: 2MSRP:
Description:
15 meter monoband SSB/CW mobile transceiver
Product is in production
More Info:
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0022
W3ATV Rating: 2015-01-03
A blast from the past Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Cool, clunky, 1970's technology. Receiver is very sensitive, ok on SSB, and a bit wide for CW. Tuning is clunky, more like channelized, but it is still usable. Interesting, unique, old QRP transceiver. Here is a video of it operating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IcSng5TO9k

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Earlier 4-star review posted by W3ATV on 2015-01-03

If you can find one for a fair price it is a fun little rig to play with. Tuning is a little "clunky", more like channelized, but it works. When 15M is open it is a blast to work the world with just a few watts. Receiver is very sensitive and filtering is ok for SSB, wide for CW. When asked what I am running, no one ever knows what it is and is intrigued when I tell them. Makes for a great conversation piece. Here is a short video of it running: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IcSng5TO9k
KU4QD Rating: 2000-04-13
Clunky and awkward. Get the later version instead Time Owned: unknown months.
The NCG Company, best known for importing Comet antennas, also sold this rig in the early 1980's. Unlike the later NCG-15M, which was quite good in it's time, the NCG-15SB was clunky and awkward. You can't tune across the band easily with this rig. Instead, you have a separate knob for 100khz, a separate one for 10Khz, and a third that goes up 5khz or back to Zero. Try to think of the thumbwheels on an IC-2AT handheld, and imagine using that kind of tuning system on HF! There is a VXO control to fine tune between the 5khz steps, so you can get on frequency for a QSO, but casual tuning around the band is somewhere between a pain and impossible. CW is worse than sideband, as you have to manually switch between transmit and receive in CW. Argh! Oh, and a CW filter? Forget it, there isn't one. This rig was made for SSB, and CW is a poorly executed afterthought. The receiver sensitivity and selectivity are OK for SSB operation, so the rig is usable. The red LED display washes out in bright sunlight, but is otherwise OK. The rig has two power settings: 10 watts and 2 watts, as I remember. The rig is also big: about the size of a Kenwood TS-430 sliced in half. You can recognize this rig easily: gray in color and bright chrome knobs. Considering that the later model, the NCG-15M, which is black in color, often goes cheaply at hamfests, this older rig is one to avoid.