New Radio Coming and 2 ?'s

[Hookie]

OK I was talking to this guy and he said he had a Kenwood 820 that I am getting from him. But he says it needs a new crystal by the balanced modulator. Would anyone know which kind of crystal or where to get one. OH and how much would it cost for one.

Now I need an antenna. If anyone would please give me a few CHEAP antenna ideas. My understanding is it is a multi-band HF transmitter. I would like to use one antenna but I don't think that is possible without an antenna tuner(I could be wrong). Any help would be appreciated.

[Hookie]

I am looking for a Homemade antenna for the antenna question.

[treetall]

102 inch whip hookie maybe two of them. nah just kidding buddy had to do it. u know i dont know a thing about putting together a ham sandwitch

[Hookie]

102 inch whip hookie maybe two of them. nah just kidding buddy had to do it. u know i dont know a thing about putting together a ham sandwitch

LOL a 102" whip should work for 10m though.

[231]

First question on the crystal for the TS-820; I have no idea on their cost, but I'd think you can pick one up for under $40 or so. The 820 is a terrific rig but some parts might become a little harder to find in time.

As far as the antenna goes, there is tons of info' on the web on how to make a wire antenna. I'm sure you'd find more satisfaction and reasonable performance making your own. The 820 is pretty forgiving to a higher standing wave, too.

I run a simple resonant fan dipole for 20m/40m/and 75/80m bands. I don't need my tuner on the 20m/40m portion...but on part of the band for 75/80m I do...especially down on 3.600 MHz. It's tuned for 3.880MHz, and has a decent standing wave (under 2:1) from 3.770-3.990 Mhz. If all you going to do is 10m, then a simple dipole should easily work. They are cheap to build.

[drdx]

Great info above and before you run that 820, get very familiar with the tune-up procedure on it. It has a transistorized receive, but to transmit, you have to tune it. It has a plate, a load, and a drive adjustment and you have to retune it every time you change bands. Learn the manual, and don't tune it up into anything that does not have good swr, and better yet a dummy load. Failing to tune it properly will cook the tubes.

Also, being a new ham, familiarize yourself with where you're licensed to operate, and more importantly how to read what frequency it is on. They don't have a frequency readout in them from the factory I don't believe, I think it is just an analog knob. Great rigs though, and great to learn on. The transmitter has 2 tubes, 4146's I think and it will do probably 180 watts on sideband. They only have sideband and cw, no am or fm. -drdx

[Hookie]

Thanks for the info. For right now I will be listening so i just nee something to hook my coax to listen to. It will be fun just to listen until I get the bug to transmit, which will probably be soon after I receive that radio lol. I was aware that it only had SSB and CW so I will only operator SSB until I learn CW(which will hopefully be soon, I am working on it). He said he probably won't ship the radio out for a week or so due to funds. So I will have plenty of time to get an antenna at least to listen to up. I have been playing around with cq100 so recognize what I am able to operate on and what I am not. Again thanks for the info.

[Night Crawler]

OK I was talking to this guy and he said he had a Kenwood 820 that I am getting from him. But he says it needs a new crystal by the balanced modulator. Would anyone know which kind of crystal or where to get one. OH and how much would it cost for one.

The only crystals that are used for the balanced modulator are on the carrier oscillator board.
USB 8831.5khz
LSB 8828.5khz
CW FSK 8830.7khz
Try [Please login or register to view this link] [Please login or register to view this link]
Here's a download for the 820 manual
[Please login or register to view this link]

[Hookie]

OK I was talking to this guy and he said he had a Kenwood 820 that I am getting from him. But he says it needs a new crystal by the balanced modulator. Would anyone know which kind of crystal or where to get one. OH and how much would it cost for one.

The only crystals that are used for the balanced modulator are on the carrier oscillator board.
USB 8831.5khz
LSB 8828.5khz
CW FSK 8830.7khz
Try [Please login or register to view this link] [Please login or register to view this link]
Here's a download for the 820 manual
[Please login or register to view this link]

Thanks a lot of the links night crawler, I am printing off the manual right now I am now going to check the other websites.

[Night Crawler]

I am looking for a Homemade antenna for the antenna question.

Here's a simple antenna to make I started out with many years ago. It will work 80-6 meters and cost about $5.00 I used speaker wire. [Please login or register to view this link] Make it about 125 ft long or as long as you can. You"ll need a ground for the tuner I just hooked it to a cold water pipe and it tuned up fine. You'll need a tuner you can make that too. [Please login or register to view this link] Here's some different ways you can configure it. [Please login or register to view this link]