Comments on SGC's SG-2000 HF Radio?
Kenneth M. Gianino
and cons? I've used one (for a short time) at our local Red Cross
chapter and it seems to be rugged and simple to use. Other than reading
the specs, I don't have a good feel for how it's RF performance "stacks
up" to other similarly priced radios. How about you ARRL insiders -any
technical review planned? E-mail is fine, but I think there are others
on the net that would be interested.
Ken - WB0QNA
Graham Campbell
for a recent trip to Bermuda. However since my license did not
arrive until after I was back (see all the recent comments - I saw
14 weeks from exam to license) my only experience was on the marine
bands.
The antenna was an old mizzen stay (about 23 ft long), insulated
and run up to the main mast from the cabin top. It is far from optimum
and will be the next thing I work on improving. However the tuner
loaded it up fine on all bands that I tried (including 2182 Khz).
The receiver seemed good, stable and reasonably clear. The audio
quality is clearly aimed at understandability not fidelity (in other
words it is understandable, but not high fidelity). The transmitter
audio received similar reports. Construction quality seems high.
My main complaint is in the user interface. In the conversion to
an all push-button system with no knobs there are some pretty awkward
things left. There is an excessive reliance on timeouts to get out
of many modes (eg setting squelch levels) and as a result they have
the timeout set so low that many times you get timed out trying to
do normal things (e.g. enter a frequency that you have to look up
somewhere). They have two keys (up-arrow and down-arrow) that replace
knobs, however these are badly overloaded. It is like having only one
knob on a traditional set and a set of switches to determine what it
does. A minor complaint is that they do not have a calibrated S-meter.
The set that I had died in Bermuda. After some phone calls I sent it back
and they sent me a new set. Unfortunately I had to pay shipping both
ways which, because I was in a hurry, was very expensive. Otherwise
I would rate their customer service pretty highly. (By the way I suspect
the problem in the set was software, there are several microprocessors
in the system and the one in the control head lost communications with
the one in the transmitter)
--
Graham
g...@bnl.gov
KB2QZY
saul yochelson
> --
> Graham
> g...@bnl.gov
> KB2QZY
We have an SG-2000 aboard the SS Lane Victory (a WWI Victory ship that has
been made into a living, operationa museum. It is located in San Pedro, CA
and I am active in its radio group)
I agree with above comments but would add a few more:
1. The radio is obviously designed for commercial operations, where most
of the time one selects pre-programmed stations by entering a channel
number (a lot (400?) commercial SSB station frequencies are built into the
radio's ROM) and it is pretty awkward to tune to an non-programmed freq,
like you might want to do if you were using the rig for ham operations.
The only way to change frequency incrementally is by pressing either the
up or down arrow key. The frequency moves in 0.1, 1, or 5 MHz (I think)
increments; changing the increment is not hard but is a awkward.
2. If you want to use CW, you can either connect the key to terminals in
the back of the radio, in which case no side-tone is generated, or across
the mike switch.
And, when using CW, you must manually calculate the frequencies to set the
xmtr by subtracting 1 KHz for the xmit freq and the freq of the audio tone
you want to hear (like 800 HZ) for receive.
3. Shortly after getting the radio we had to replace the backplane to cure
intermittent problems. Not hard but annoying. Even now, the radio
occaisionally (sp?) locks up and the entry keys stop working. The last
time I was able to restore operation by pressing the 2182 button (power up
and down didn't help!)
Saul WA6VEN syoch...@huey.csun.edu or 70413...@compuserve.com
Art Jeyes
yochelson) wrote:
>Graham Campbell (g...@sirius.ccd.bnl.gov) wrote:
>
>> The set that I had died in Bermuda. After some phone calls I sent it back
>> and they sent me a new set. Unfortunately I had to pay shipping both
>> ways which, because I was in a hurry, was very expensive. Otherwise
>> I would rate their customer service pretty highly. (By the way I suspect
>> the problem in the set was software, there are several microprocessors
>> in the system and the one in the control head lost communications with
>> the one in the transmitter)
>
>intermittent problems. Not hard but annoying. Even now, the radio
>occaisionally (sp?) locks up and the entry keys stop working. The last
>time I was able to restore operation by pressing the 2182 button (power up
>and down didn't help!)
>
>Saul WA6VEN syoch...@huey.csun.edu or 70413...@compuserve.com
>
>
whip antennas and power supplies.... and the reliability record has been
terrible... we have had multiple radio failures and multiple power supply
failures.... one of the power supplies burst into flames when we energized
it. Although it is claimed that the 8 foot whip antenna will load up down to
2 MHZ, one of our assigned frequencies is 2.018 MHZ and we have had many
many problems getting the units to load up at that frequency... We selected
these units because we wanted reliable units with easy operation.... It
seems we were wrong....
However, the smart tuners are great........
Art Jeyes
Art....@jhuapl.edu
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*
* Art Jeyes Internet: art_...@jhuapl.edu
* Packet: N3...@W3ZH.MD.USA.NOAM
*
* Indecision is the key to flexability.
* Bart Zaino, circa 1978
*
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