All posts by alpha

Ham Radio Shopping List

I was always interested in amateur radio and did get my Technician license in 2006 but I never got a radio and now I just successfully finished my General license testing… I’m still planing on getting the Amateur Extra class in the near future.

Anyway now it’s time for some practical Ham Radio things to be done and for that I need some equipment. I start from zero and need everything, I try to make a good starting list (08-25-2011):

  1. Transceiver, maybe a FT-857D (at HRO: $804.95)
  2. external SWR meter (MFJ-864 at HRO: $99.95)
  3. dummy load (MFJ-262B at HRO: $59.95)
  4. multi band antenna for HF
  5. antenna for 2m and 70cm
  6. antenna mount
  7. Coax Cable (LMR-240 and or LMR-400 and or LMR-600)
  8. power supply (Tripp Lite PR25 25-Amp at buy.com: $147.40 or Jetstream JTPS28 at cheapham.com: $83.95)
  9. auto tuner (LDG Z-11PRO-II at HRO: $179.99)
  10. usb cat cable to connect radio to PC ($40)
  11. usb sound card, like microHAM or SignaLink ($100-$200).

Some stuff I don’t need yet but maybe later:

  1. antenna switch
  2. straight key
  3. cable and hookup wire
  4. Linux ham software
  5. antenna analyzer (MFJ-259B $290)

I’m not sure if this is everything, but I hope this should cover most…

MFJ-259B

New Robocut 1.0.7 released.

I just released a new version of Robocut with just some minor changes. A user informed me that his plotter used the USB ID 111C. So I hard coded this ID in the program as well. Please send me an email if there are other IDs that are not in by default. There is a test that can be done to check if the new ID works first. Just convert the ID from hex (111e) to dec (4382) and start robocut like this:

robocut –usb-product-id 4382

If the new hardware works let me know and I will add it to the program.