Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Never look a gift horse in the mouth
Well today I moved my Yaesu FT-2800M from one car to another and was grouching about it while getting ready to leave for work. My lovely room mate Linda said "Why don't you just buy another radio for this car?". God bless her little heart I knew I married that woman for a reason!
I got side tracked with a project this evening putting indexing tabs in one of my Bibles and did not get the time on line that I thought I would to check out different rigs so I'm still in the evaluation mode. I did however spend a little time on eHam reading product reviews. This is in my opinion a great example of “open source” information and eHam is to be commended for providing the service. Much the same as at Amazon customers can write their own product reviews so you get to hear the good, the bad and the ugly about any number of amateur radio related items from people who are actually using them out in the real world. Oh, I'm sure now and again you get some biased opinions from someone who got a lemon or feels they were treated badly by the manufacturer of the product. Also you will have someone who writes a glowing review because his brother in law owns a shop that sells that brand. For the most part however those are easy to pick out especially when there are a large number of reviews.
I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I have become a fan of Yaesu radios currently owning a VX-7R and an FT-2800M. I spoke with Gene at KJI Electronics earlier in the day out in New Jersey and he has convinced me to also look at Kenwood. I have it narrowed down to the Yaesu FT-7800R, FT-8800R or the equivalent Kenwood models. I own an Icom IC-2350H and like it a lot but I am not as impressed with Icom's current crop of VHF/UHF radios even though Icom has always been my first choice in the past. I won't be ordering until after the Fourth of July holiday so I have some time to ponder my decision and drool over the catalogs and web sites. It will also give me time to consider how far I can push my luck with the “secretary of finance” since she DID suggest that I buy another radio and look at HF through UHF mobiles like the FT-897D. You only live once right?
I got side tracked with a project this evening putting indexing tabs in one of my Bibles and did not get the time on line that I thought I would to check out different rigs so I'm still in the evaluation mode. I did however spend a little time on eHam reading product reviews. This is in my opinion a great example of “open source” information and eHam is to be commended for providing the service. Much the same as at Amazon customers can write their own product reviews so you get to hear the good, the bad and the ugly about any number of amateur radio related items from people who are actually using them out in the real world. Oh, I'm sure now and again you get some biased opinions from someone who got a lemon or feels they were treated badly by the manufacturer of the product. Also you will have someone who writes a glowing review because his brother in law owns a shop that sells that brand. For the most part however those are easy to pick out especially when there are a large number of reviews.
I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I have become a fan of Yaesu radios currently owning a VX-7R and an FT-2800M. I spoke with Gene at KJI Electronics earlier in the day out in New Jersey and he has convinced me to also look at Kenwood. I have it narrowed down to the Yaesu FT-7800R, FT-8800R or the equivalent Kenwood models. I own an Icom IC-2350H and like it a lot but I am not as impressed with Icom's current crop of VHF/UHF radios even though Icom has always been my first choice in the past. I won't be ordering until after the Fourth of July holiday so I have some time to ponder my decision and drool over the catalogs and web sites. It will also give me time to consider how far I can push my luck with the “secretary of finance” since she DID suggest that I buy another radio and look at HF through UHF mobiles like the FT-897D. You only live once right?
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