Ten-Tec Argonaut VI - at $995 FAR too much

Ten-Tec has now got the new low power HF transceiver, the 10W Argonaut VI listed on its website with details about its specification and how to place an order. It looks a neat, clean, simple radio and I believe it is not much bigger than the FT817.

Not having ever used Ten-Tec rigs and knowing that many people very much like Ten-Tec products, I cannot comment on how good this new radio is likely to be. However, I do feel qualified to comment on the price.

$995 for the basic radio (I guess around £995 here in the UK?) sounds far too much. I'm not sure this includes a microphone. The KX3 is a similar price yet covers ALL the HF bands and 6m as standard, with an optional 2m module, auto-ATU, battery charger and internal battery pack.  It has a more comprehensive features set and, probably, a higher dynamic range (i.e. better) RX.

The Argonaut VI does not cover 5MHz, 24MHz or 50MHz, even as options. There is no provision for an internal auto-ATU.

In my view, these omissions are unacceptable in a new HF QRP rig. The 12 year old FT817 covers ALL HF bands, and 6m,2m and 70cms with ALL modes yet is considerably less expensive. OK I expect the Ten-Tec has a better RX than the FT817, but to be honest I am pretty happy with the FT817 which hears most things and manages to hold its own from 136kHz (with a preamp) to 432MHz pretty well on RX.

To say I am disappointed with the Argonaut is an under-statement. Why, oh why, didn't they get this onto the market at a highly competitive $695 instead?

HF conditions

It is December 2012 and we have either have just passed, or are just approaching, the sunspot maximum for cycle 24. Conditions cannot be called fantastic can they?

Some of you with long memories may recall the BIG peaks of the late 40s and 50s and look back at them fondly.  I think we have no choice but to accept that those days have now gone for a generation and we have to make the best use of our bands as they are and will now be.

Even with much lower sunspot numbers the higher bands will still be able to support DX more often than thought. WSPR beaconing through the full solar cycle may reveal some surprises. In many ways the quiet times offer more interest although monitoring 10m for days and days on end and hearing just noise can be disheartening! This is when WSPR will be especially useful.

Anyway we are still near the peak and there is DX to be worked so let's enjoy it!

More WISPYs on 10m

The G4SFS version of WISPY

Yesterday I received a nice email from Peter G4SFS who told me that he and Dave G6WZA had made a couple of WISPY 10m WSPR beacon TX units using the schematic on my website. A few values changes were needed - not unexpected - but that they are now working well and receiving spots from distant monitors. This is a photo of one of them. WISPY is a simple QRP WSPR beacon for 28MHz using a low cost 14.060MHz crystal and inexpensive 2N3904 transistors throughout.

Conditions on 10m have not been too great of late, although I did exchange reports with PY2SDR at 9616km and 4X1RF. Interestingly, there have been a few early evening WSPR reports from DL which I assume are probably a result of wintertime Es propagation.  At this time of year there is a mini-peak in sporadic-E propagation, so it is worth keeping an eye on 50MHz and 70MHz too.

Dell - they listened

A few days ago I mentioned my run-in with Dell support and their refusal to repair my laptop's power connector socket under their 4 year hardware warranty claiming it was "wear and tear". Well one of my readers Mark G0NMY kindly sent Michael Dell's email address michael@dell.com - he is the founder and MD - so last night I wrote a well reasoned letter to him explaining my disappointment with the level of customer service and why I believed they were wrong.

Blow me down, this morning I got a phone call from the corporate office saying they had arranged an engineer to come out next Tuesday to fix the laptop free of charge!  To say I was amazed is an understatement. It took conversations with 4 people and an email to the MD of Dell to get the correct response but, bless them, they've "come good" in the end.

So, thank you for listening Dell. You are in my good books again.

Updated 472-479kHz countries list

Following feedback, Rik Strobbe ON7YD updated his list of countries with (or about to get) access to the new MF band as follows:

Monaco (18/05/2012)
Malta (11/06/2012)
Germany (13/06/2012)
Philippines (30/08/2012)
Slovakia (01/09/2012 ?) - special licence(s)
Czech Republic (01/09/2012 ?) - special licence(s)
Sweden (01/10/2012) - special licence(s)
Norway (30/10/2012)
Greece (01/11/2012)
New Zealand (20/12/2012)

Australia (01/01/2013)
Denmark (01/01/2013)
The Netherlands (01/01/2013)
UK (01/01/2013)  - available to full licence holders by NoV
Switzerland (01/01/2013)
Finland (early 2013)
Spain (early 2013)

Dell - rubbish service

My wife has a Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop which came with a 4 year hardware warranty. It has a year to run before the warranty expires.

For nearly a year now the hexagonal power connector socket has been intermittent. So today I contacted Dell to get the connector replaced under warranty. The socket is on a small daughter board along with a couple of USB and other connectors.  After about 15 minutes on the phone to India I was fobbed off with "this is wear and tear" and I would be charged to get it repaired. A quick look on the net shows pages and pages of people complaining of the same issue.  It is a DESIGN WEAKNESS, as clear as day to me.

The power socket is on the side of the PC and it is all but impossible not to put a slight strain on the socket. Older laptops, ones that do not have built-in obsolescence features that is, have the power connector fixed so that any strain on the plug is not transferred to the socket. One laptop I have is now 12 years old and still going strong.

After being passed up 3 levels at Dell in India, I was passed to the Dell Legal Manager and Customer Relations Manager for UK and Europe who again, despite my reasoning, still stood by the "it's wear and tear" statement. It may be wear and tear, but only because with this poor design it impossible not to have wear and tear!

So, I will attempt the repair myself now, following the instructions on the internet from very many others with the same issue.

Dell will never again be graced with my business. Next time I shall buy from a decent manufacturer who listens carefully to customers and who actually cares, assuming there is one!

In my opinion, this demonstrates a total ignorance of how to manage customers well. In my business life I was taught  to value customers so they came back again and again. At three levels in Dell, not one of them seemed to understand that a dissatisfied customer rarely comes back and shares his bad experience with at least 10 others. By this blog I hope to reach a few thousand.

Dell (or should it be renamed Dull?) - sorry, but your stance is unbelievable in the 21st century.

I now know what DELL stands for: Do Everything to Lose Loyalty.

Digital Audio on HF (1.1kHz bandwidth)

An interesting post on the Southgate ARS blog today about FreeDV, a free to download and use digital modulation system than needs less than half the bandwidth of conventional SSB. It needs audio processing with a PC on both RX and TX. The article includes the quick start guide for set-up and a clip of a QSO using the mode on 14MHz with 25W. Speech quality sounds excellent.

More information at the FreeDV homepage http://freedv.org/tiki-index.php.  An important point to note is that the codec and modem are both open source, patent free so anyone can experiment with them and modify them.

At the moment activity is centred on 14.236 MHz.

Countries with access to 472-479kHz

An interesting post on the LF reflector today from Rik Strobbe ON7YD - OR7T about which countries have, or soon will have, access to the new MF band.

This was Rik's list:

Monaco (18/05/2012)
Malta (11/06/2012)
Germany (13/06/2012)
Philippines (30/08/2012)
Slovakia (1/09/2012)
Czechia (1/09/2012)
Sweden (1/10/2012)
Norway (30/10/2012)
Greece (1/11/2012)
 
Denmark (1/01/2013)
Netherlands (1/01/2013)
United Kingdom (1/01/2013)
Switserland (1/01/2013)

10m conditions

After my break away last week I've been doing some 10m WSPRing these last 24 hours and am disappointed with the results: only a few spots from Germany, Israel and the UK of my own signal and just 4X, ZS and DL copied. Conditions seem to be very poor for a December in the peak sunspot period. Looking at the WSPR screen all I am seeing are a few wispy signals not lasting more than a few seconds. Conditions can change rapidly though, so I'll keep the WSPR beacon running whilst getting on with other stuff.

VHF yagis - amazingly high prices

Just browsing the Waters and Stanton website and I noticed some nice yagis for 2m. Rather larger than I could ever consider as the one I was viewing would stretch over my garden and the next two, HI.

.......and then I saw the price.

The 22-element yagi from InnovAntennas (see 22-LFA2-144 22 element 144MHz LFA2 Yagi 3kW (17.001m long) 18.55dBi gain) is a whopping £605.95 !!!   Probably delivery is not included either. 

Of course, if you want a moonbounce station you may have to buy several of these big yagis, phasing harnesses and booms, plus a large AS-EL rotator, a big tower, low loss cable ....and an expensive rig. This soon looks like a hobby for the seriously rich only.

Now I've no doubt whatsoever this is an excellent antenna that is well designed and optimised, but it is just 20 odd pieces of aluminium, plus a few insulators, nuts and bolts in the last analysis.  OK design costs have to be recovered, but the mark-up is a conservative ten times, if not more, on the raw material prices. Is this justified?

We are all different and I am not judging what others should do with their hard earned cash, but it's just not amateur radio (in my view, others will disagree) when you have to pay silly money for rigs, antennas and accessories.