I Just Bought A New Radio and Comms

[67cj5]

I bought the New Tecsun S-2200x for SW and Ham listening which is the update for the Tecsun S-2000 and I also bought 6x Baofeng AR-152 Mil Type HT's along with multiple Antennas to suit the Range required,

The reson behind buying the AR-152's is the huge 12,000mah battery capacity and I have seen people talking up to 80 to 120 miles on them without using a Repeater or I can limit the range down to 500m or 500yards and I can incript them if needed.

The Tecsun S-2200x Radio can pick up stations from well over 8000 miles just using the inbuilt antennas, I have also added a couple oother Antennas to maximse my options when it comes to picking up stations from around the world.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Looks like a neat receiver. Curious how you utilize it. Home office receiver for passive listening? Have it out at camp or while traveling to scan the waves?

 

[67cj5]

Looks like a neat receiver. Curious how you utilize it. Home office receiver for passive listening? Have it out at camp or while traveling to scan the waves?

I use it around the home and when I go on Road trips and well as use it in my RV Trailer, What makes this one standout apart from it's tuning abilities is that it came with a pair of 18650 batteries and you can also power it from 4x D Cell batteries so in a powerout or off grid you can always stay connected to the outside world.

Another bonus is it has 2 inbuilt Antennas and you can Plug in another 4 Antennas all at once, And it can recieve SW, AM/MW, LW, FM, VHF Air Band and LSB and USB and it can store up to 9150 Frequencies, The AM/MW antenna can be used for direction finding and I also bought a 10" Active Loop Antenna that can be used for direction finding And I also bought the Chelegance JNCRADIO MC-599 Dipole Antenna and Mast/Tripod.

JNCRADIO MC-599 SHORTWAVE DIPOLE ANTENNA - Chelegance

7-50MHZ, 200 WATT PEP, PORTABLE MARKING SYSTEM FOR EASY TUNING BROADBAND OPERATION FOR VERSATILE USE BUILT-IN 1:1 BALUN FOR ENHANCED PERFORMANCE

chelegance.com

The good thing about this Antenna is that it is easily tuned to suit the frequency and it will work with Ham Radios putting out up to 200w pep. So It can be used for Transmitting or Recieving from the back yard to Mountain Tops.

Using just the Pullup Antenna I have picked up Stations from the US, and the EU and russia and china and countless other countries, It is most likely the best Radio/Reciever on the market without spending over $1500.00++.

I was so impressed with it I bought a 2nd one as backup.

 

[Shawn686]

You wont be getting any where near 120 miles of range. You will be lucky to get 5, with any practical setup. I just hope you weren't planning on 120

Shawn

 

[67cj5]

You wont be getting any where near 120 miles of range. You will be lucky to get 5, with any practical setup. I just hope you weren't planning on 120

Shawn

I have tested them out and got 41.6 miles in a straight line at around 1000ft above sea level, My AR-152's came with the full kit which includes the ABBREE 18.89" Antenna as well as the standard Ducky I have also bought 3 other Antennas for each Radio.

Long distance was not my objective, My target was 400yds to 5 miles which is easily doable, And my other objective was the massive battery capacity which can last a week or two in standby mode OR having 6x 12,000mah/12Amp Batteries could give me enough standby time to last 2 or 3 months Plus they came with 3 or 4 Charging options. My plans for regular long distance comms it to buy a 100w ICOM,

 

[DaveInDenver]

41.6 miles is pretty incredible on VHF. That's nearly what I can count on getting when activating peaks here and that's with the advantage of 5000' elevation gain and a 3-element Yagi on the Front Range side looking out into the plains.

If conditions are favorable 50, maybe 60, miles is good. That's right at the limit for received signal strength over the noise floor with a handheld.

I often use a FT-857 for SOTA and I can go to 50W on VHF I'll only do that if I lug a tripod for the antenna with me. No way in heck I'm holding more than 5W to maybe 10W in my hand. If I want to keep it light it's just a 5W HT but that's limiting being FM only. At the fringes SSB is much better but that requires I take the 857.

Even at a 5000' elevation gain 120 miles direct wave is impossible, that's beyond the radio horizon.

I'm glad companies like Tecsun and Sangean are making basic SWL radios. I've never owned one since I have plenty of ham radios but the more listeners the better to keep these stations on the air.

 

[67cj5]

41.6 miles is pretty incredible on VHF. That's nearly what I can count on getting when activating peaks here and that's with the advantage of 5000' elevation gain and a 3-element Yagi on the Front Range side looking out into the plains.

If conditions are favorable 50, maybe 60, miles is good. That's right at the limit for received signal strength over the noise floor with a handheld.

I typically use a FT-857 for SOTA and I can go to 50W on VHF I'll only do that if I lug a tripod for the antenna with me. No way in heck I'm holding more than 5W to maybe 10W in my hand.

Even at a 5000' elevation gain 120 miles direct wave is impossible, that's beyond the radio horizon.

Here's a chart I screen shot of where a guy was using a 4/5w Radio on High and Low Power, mine put out somewhere between 7 and 10w.

Note that 49.2kms is equal to 30.577998 Miles, I saw the same Guy hit about 130Kms using another handheld from the same spot. These Antennas were the Retevis Copies of the ABBREE Antennas. If you are at 5000ft I think you could almost double that distance, wiith a bit of luck.

hope that helps.

 

[DaveInDenver]

50 km is pretty good for VHF at handheld.

To get 130 km would take 1000 meters of elevation gain and that's technically possible if I do a high peak. That's right at the horizon, beyond line of sight. It's not a question of power. With VHF and UHF it's line of sight and radio horizon. To go beyond that you're into sporaric-E bounce and tropospheric ducting, so hard to predict and can't be reliable.

Path loss is very high, 113 dB or so and the noise floor has to be very low. That's usually not a problem for someone out on the plains but having Co Springs/Denver/Ft Collins urban corridor between us wrecked it on FM. SSB in the weak signal band space is better but often it just takes more power.

That means 25W. Going from 5W to 10W is only a 3dB improvement (37 dBm to 40 dBm). Going to 25W is a 7dB bump and if it's really noisy 50W gets me the full 10dB bump. But like I say I will not hand hold anything more than 10W and even that I don't like to do.

Over here on the western slope the interference is a little better but the line of sight is broken up more with the topology. It's better I find to rely on NVIS on HF instead of any band direct wave beyond about 60 miles. I've never really had much luck out beyond 60 miles/100 km and those are pretty unique conditions on VHF/UHF without a tower, high antenna gain and power.

It's all about the experimentation.

 

[67cj5]

50 km is pretty good for VHF at handheld.

To get 130 km would take 1000 meters of elevation gain and that's technically possible if I do a high peak. That's right at the horizon, beyond line of sight. It's not a question of power. With VHF and UHF it's line of sight and radio horizon. To go beyond that you're into sporaric-E bounce and tropospheric ducting, so hard to predict and can't be reliable.

Path loss is very high, 113 dB or so and the noise floor has to be very low. That's usually not a problem for someone out on the plains but having Co Springs/Denver/Ft Collins urban corridor between us wrecked it on FM. SSB in the weak signal band space is better but often it just takes more power.

That means 25W. Going from 5W to 10W is only a 3dB improvement (37 dBm to 40 dBm). Going to 25W is a 7dB bump and if it's really noisy 50W gets me the full 10dB bump. But like I say I will not hand hold anything more than 10W and even that I don't like to do.

Over here on the western slope the interference is a little better but the line of sight is broken up more with the topology. It's better I find to rely on NVIS on HF instead of any band direct wave beyond about 60 miles. I've never really had much luck out beyond 60 miles/100 km and those are pretty unique conditions on VHF/UHF without a tower, high antenna gain and power.

It's all about the experimentation.

Thanks for that, Good info, My CB can be programmed for 10m and it has up to 40w output it can work on AM/FM CB also but I have yet to take it out of the box, I think it holds about 300 channels +/-, these are totally legal here across the pond, I'm not so sure back home,

I aslo bought 6 little 2" Antennas for when I just want to keep things under a mile+/- and If I want to just listen the big Tecsun Radio can tune in to Ham and CB Weather permitting and ofcoarse International Stations when local radio is left wanting.