I’ve picked up a Kenwood TS-2000 which is a bit expensive but so feature packed that I considered it very much worthwhile. After selling my old pal the IC-735 and my FT-7800 it will only be half price anyway. At least that was my justification.

It doesn’t have the nice wide band receive of the FT-7800R which I used to monitor local public service channels and various other interesting frequencies. I will instead use my handheld VX-6 for this in the future when I get a discone antenna built and put up for that purpose.

It also doesn’t transmit on the 222mhz band but the VX-6 does albeit on very low power, but I can probably rig up an amp for that if I should ever need that. Otherwise I now have receive and transmit abilities on every ham band from 1.8mhz to 440mhz, and 100 watts of power on everything below 222.

After spending only a few hours with the manual I have the rig almost fully mastered, it really is a wonderful work of user interface design. I’ll post a full review after I get some more airtime with this new rig. Meantime, happy hamming.

Getting your first HF rig and have no idea what most of the buttons are for? I had a hard time figuring that out at first too, the manual seemed to assume I would know and the descriptions I found online were too cryptic to decipher.

Since this blog does very well in search engines I guess it may help a few folks out like some of my other articles, and I may keep adding to it as I discover new things.

So here are a few controls I figured out on my IC-735 that have made me able to really pick up those weak signals from overseas, your rig probably has the same type of controls since this is a fairly simple rig.

PBT knob: This extremely useful thing acts like a sort of audio window shade. If you turn it to the right (or left on LSB ) it will cut out all the high frequencies coming through, narrowing down the frequency range you receive. This is VERY useful on digital modes as you can completely block off one side of the waterfall and reject strong incoming signals leaving your receiver still sensitive enough to pick up the weakest signals. Turning your PBT knob the other way will of course cut out the lower frequencies. Very nice for quieting adjacent signals that are interfering with you.

This feature is not found on some other radios but instead they will have other filters (such as a DSP) that let you “squeeze” the signal reception window into a very narrow passband in a similar way.

Notch Filter This is a bit easier to understand. Combined with the PBT and RIT controls you can really narrow down your receiving frequency range and reject nearly everything outside of a 100hz window. What this means is more sensitivity and a lot less interference. The notch filter is the opposite of a bandpass filter, it only blocks about a 500hz wide section of frequency. The control will decide where in the receiving window you are blocking. I tune the notch filter by ear to block anyone transmitting with excessive power (and desensitizing the receiver) and I also use it to cover the other side of the signal from the PBT. This has a little more reach than the PBT on my rig.

RIT knob This knob is sort of a tuner within a tuner. It shifts the frequency in smaller amounts than the main tuning knob and does so without changing the receiving frequency. It appears that it just changes the audio pitch which may be useful for a number of things, but probably most often used to tune down a CW signal to a pitch that is more comfortable. I haven’t used this that much, so maybe some others can comment on how they use it.

Finally if you’re just getting started with PSK or similar you absolutely must watch the following video by K7AGE. He tells you step by step how to tune up correctly for these narrow bandwidth modes. Failing to do this the right way will get you scolded, trust me

I re-read the Declaration of Independence today and couldn’t help but feel very discomfited realizing how many of the objections to George’s rule can easily be matched to the current George’s rule. Just for fun, here are a few passages.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Ever try to transfer a domain off of Network Solutions before it expires? Don’t do it until you read this and avoid my mistake. Here’s the process.

1) Immediately on login you are required to update your contact info
2) Request the domain auth information
3) Be informed that they’ll be holding the domain and rejecting transfers for 60 days because you updated your contact information. Naturally this usually means paying Network Solutions for another year’s worth of registration because we don’t generally transfer until its near expiration time.

Easy to see why they do it, and the real reason is obviously not security at $35/yr for registration.

There is no way to get to 2 without going through 1. The key it seems is not to update your phone number or any information at all. However you are required to enter a security question on that same form. I don’t know if you can submit it without altering your domain’s registration status and triggering the 60 day hold.

I guess the best strategy is to submit the form completely unchanged and go right through to the transfer page.