The combo FT5K/FT990 is of course a great enhancement over the former combo FT990/TS50S . Even with the 500Hz filters the TS50S has a poor receiver for contesting, don’t misunderstand, the TS50S is a great transceiver for travelling but filtering in rough contest conditions is pretty poor. Moreover I was persuaded the FT990 had a great receiver but that’s because I never operated anything better… The receiver of the FT5 seems pretty unbeatable to me when compared to the FT990.

With the FT5K, narrow means NARROW! Using the the 500 Hz filter on FT990 you can see a pretty wide band in the MMTTy scope, using the with 600 Hz filter of the FT5k only a fraction of that band is left, when the need arises it can even be made narrower when using the ‘Narrow’ knob and/or when changing the settings of the RX. Sometimes I had the feeling the receiver is even too good because you get into very narrow holes on busy band to try and start a run. But it isn’t because I have a good RX that the other stations have one that is as good!

Being used to operate the FT990 it was not that hard for me to learn the basic functions of the FT5k, operation seems pretty straightforward to me.

Since I have the FT5k I made 2 RS232 interfaces so I can run both transceivers in FSK instead of AFSK, this avoids me the need to retune the level of the AFSK tx audio at every band change.

The only negative point I see in the MP version is the band scope which is pretty slow and with low resolution. The speakers that come with it are great but the scope isn’t. Guess I’ll have to go look for an SDR solution on the IF output of the FT5K.

I was pretty happy with the results in both contests! In both my claimed score beat the belgian record!

• Yaesu FT-2000 €2500
• Icom IC-7600 €3600
• Ten Tec Orion II €4300
• Elecraft K3 €5300
• Yaesu FT-DX5000MP €5700
• Icom IC-7700 €6000

Prices are merely an estimation for comparison, they’re based on information found on the internet a few months ago.  Some may have changed by a few hundreds of euros by the time you read this!

I did’nt have the time (or rather did’nt make time) to write more about this in the last few weeks but in the mean time I ordered (and received) an FT-DX5000MP.

The decision was a little less scientific than it started in my previous post however. Let’s say it has been partly emotional also.

These are the reasons why I bought the FT5k: (not necessarily ordered by importance)

• my FT990 was purchased in 1995 and still works perfectly (well almost, the lightbulb of the S-meter is broken since a few years)
• some say the K3 is better, some say the FT5k is. So no way to really decide by reading the reviews.
• the difference in price of the K3 ordered in the US and ordered through their dealer in Germany is HUGE. The only difference is that the German dealer has to give a 2 year warranty and in the US you only get 1 year. I asked Elecraft for an explanation of this price difference and their excuse was pretty lame. (Sorry guys, I’m a businessman too…)
• a friend who knew I was into purchasing a new transceiver someday told me he’d purchase a FT5k and finally we were 3 to order at the same time which gave us a nice price reduction.
• Why no Icom? I have no real experience with Icom except for the IC7400 we used when we were at EU099
• Why no Orion? Why did all contesters get an Orion when they were ‘hot’ and are now already using something else?
• Why no FT2k? reviews are not that good…
• @Franki: I prefer a japanese paperweight to an american one

I guess I’ll not take this new toy as carry on luggage for our next dxpedition though:

Last weekend I did my first RTTY contest with the new SO2R setup (FT5k + FT990) but that’s for an other writing!

So I guess I’ll have to wait until next week to go and collect it.

For those who are curious, it’s a 200W transceiver

Now to configure all those email adresses again…

Because this provider is getting to big for me (*) I decided to move the site to a new one. But… now I need to find the time to move this whole WordPress thing to the new provider.

But, don’t worry, on5mf.be might be offline for a little while but it will be back and then maybe the mystery about the new transceiver will be solved

First things first, the EPC BPSK63 QSO Party tomorrow! But who decided to have a contest from 0000 utc till 2359 utc? Got to be at the office at 0800 AM on monday (and that’s 0700 utc…)

(*)to big as in bad service, to big as in to expensive, to big as in ‘press 1 for dutch, press 2 for swahili, press…’ etc.

A small summary:

• we did the Region 1 SSB fieldday with the club station ON6CK/p (and came in second behind the OQ8A/p team)
• the belgian guys conquered Rockall, congrats to the team!
• the british guys decided not to go to Rockall. I don’t really understand the reasons, if all those who wanted to climb the Everest would have cancelled their plans because someone was there before them then only a few people would have done it. Moreover the pileups from Rockall will not be less for the second team going there than for the first one. And I still need EU189!
• I finally ordered a new transceiver!
• I modified my RTTY setup to do FSK instead of AFSK (with the FT990)
• I made a portable setup to take on holiday

The last 3 of the list will probably be the subjects of some future posts!

So what makes me write this in the last hours of CQ WW SSB? I’m at the qth of my girlfriend and to tired to set up the portable station. Wedding parties are probably more tiring than 24hrs of contesting Moreover we have to leave for an other party in less than an hour.

My next contest is in 3 weeks from now… still some work to do (the 4 rotary switches problem, remember?)

-Author unknown (graffiti on a bridge in Gent)

And they still seem to be looking for operators! (Sorry, I myself am not adventurous enough for this spot…)
Their website will be online soon: www.rockall.be

This is a movie of some guys climbing Rockall in the past: