On Sun, 28 Feb 2010, allan crites wrote: > What really needs to happen is for someone to design a transistor > or FET RF power doubler for all those 450 Mhz radios that will be > coming or now surplus on the commercial market. Then amateur 900 MHz > would boom. Don't ask me to do it, I don't have any time. WA9ZZU
The problem isn't the radio, the problem is the ham. If it wasn't made for the amateur band and doesn't have buttons to push, most hams won't use it. When you start saying things about "programming software" and "channelized" and "no repeaters in the area", well... the average ham just decides to find something else to play with. Hams don't work on radios any more. They buy them new and push buttons. If it doesn't have push buttons and can't be programmed using a user-friendly interface, most aren't interested -- even if it is the cheapest band to get into because the radio and antenna are surplus! Yaesu, ICOM, and Kenwood don't make rigs on that band, so they aren't interested. "Whaddaya mean ya gotta modify the radio?" "I don't know about this modifying a commercial a radio business." "I ain't never hear'd of a ham radio by Motorola." The doubler idea is nice, except that the vast majority of the radios that are already at 900MHz use 2.5KHz deviation, not 5.0KHz deviation (or 10KHz, which would be the result of doubling a 5KHz radio). -- Kris Kirby, KE4AHR Disinformation Analyst
