How many widebanded ...

Just a general thought , how many run widebanded HF rigs on here and what are your thoughts ?

Yes we all know its not meant to be done but my thoughts are for portable / CTX why carry 2 different rigs when it can be done with one . But then relates to preping and preparedness in emergency communication situations when are friends across the pond call it a grab kit . Where 1 radio to use ham , cb and pmr would be a bonus .

73 , Matt

I have a ft-450d that came to me wide-banded.
Normally just listen on it but i have taken it out in the car and used it on 27MHz.
It could be helpful in an emergency i suppose but i hope i never need it for that.

The old "in case of emergency" line is bantered around a lot, usually as a defence against the legalities

I personally think it makes a lot more sense. I have a Ham friend who wide-banded his rig and simply for the fact that he can now take one radio out for working amateur bands, CB and even PMR. The same rig slips from the car and sits on his desk as a homebase setup. Makes perfect sense to me

Often too you can pick up an old "boat anchor" Ham rig, open it for 11m and get a decent setup for much less than some of the 'CB collectors' pay for Ham International homebase rigs(!?!)

Yes, it's technically illegal. Yes, some idiots will abuse it. But most of us know not to stick our hand in a fire without requiring a notice or legal statute that you're going to get burned

We'll probably get all the "little bit of knowledge" brigade now saying radios shouldn't be 'opened' due to some technical nonsense. Usually happens

I have my intermediate ticket and widebanding / mars mod is not that hard , normally removing resistors and soldering pads but on a rig like a yaesu 818 which has a cracking front end the job is microscopic .

But yes agree if sensible no issues at all

73 , Matt

I agree with you completely Matt,

None of the mods are that hard to do and indeed many modern radios are far easier than radios of yesteryear. Makes complete sense to manufacture one type of radio and 'program' it for wherever it may be shipped. The legalities can be debated til the cows come home

In the right hands, done and used sensibly I see no issue.

However I can see where the debate of 'policing' and legality comes to the fore.
They could do well to 'police' the PMR band in my vicinity where retail parks and distribution centres clog the PMR frequencies and judging by distances and signal strengths aren't using little 500mW units(!) (You can guarantee most do not have Ofcom 'business' licences either!)

But it will always be a 'personal' view...the local 70cms repeater blocked with music, any calling channel blocked with 'idiots', interference from the local taxi firm, all of us afflicted with some sort of idiotic interference from our 'legitimate' or 'sensible' use.

Nice topic Matt, gets the grey matter going

73s
Victor

I have been using a wide-banded Yaesu ft450d for around six years and a Kenwood TS50 before that on 11m, mainly for dxing. They are very useful for when staions/activations are running split frequencies.

My HF set (450d) is wide banded but I generally use a C.B. for 11 meters and the 450 for the ham bands.

73's Gary.

In ideal situation yes a cb for 11m , but is allways handy to have that capability Gary.

73 , matt

I have a Yaesu 891 I use portable on 11m. It's a great rig for SSB but FM receive is nowhere near selective enough for 10kHz spacing and my Amstrad 901 knocks it into a cocked hat. The 891 is good enough for Sid's net on a Sunday but if I had a car rather than a backpack I'd take the 901 and an amp for FM.

Agree with you , the RX on a dedicated CB on fm is far better but personally I dont use fm much at all apart from sids net, nor do I use or rarely use AM. Around my area even mobile and on hills FM is pretty quiet anyway.

Alot of mobile HF rigs are pretty good on ssb portable though .

73, Matt

Matt86 wrote:

In ideal situation yes a cb for 11m , but is allways handy to have that capability Gary.  

73 , matt

Absolutely Matt, not knocking it at all. I totally agree with the selectivity on RX as well.

73's Gary.

Situation like me Gary when on hill tops not so bad but then as mentioned before mainly use SSB on 11m

73 , Matt