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Icom IC-910HI was looking for a new radio for a while. For 2m and 70cm I used my good old Yeasu FT-817. Actually my first radio. A perfect radio for mobile and backpack use, but not for the QTH.

For in the shack I wanted something a little bigger, multiband capabilities and the most important: more output power. Since I only use Yeasu and Kenwood I was curious for Icom. When I went searching for a good 2m/70cm transceiver from Icom I quickly stumbled on the 910H. Very interesting radio, good performance. And also capable of heavy duty ssb traffic. Something I don’t do often right now because I don’t have the right equipment.

So a second hand Icom 910H it wil be. Last week I found one on the internet. I went over for a good look and liked what I saw. So I bought the rig and now it’s humming in my shack! Welcome 910 🙂

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W3JKThis afternoon I’ve had a very short QSO with Ken, W3JK. I immediately noticed that Ken produces a beautiful sound on the bands. At his QRZ.com page I found a link to his own website. When you take a look over there, you understand why his sound jumps out.

By the way, not only the sound is impressive but also his shack! Ken walks you around in a YouTube movie!

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SkywireloopSome time ago I was reading about an full wave loop antenna. I was interested in this antenna right away. Since the preparation for the full radio exam I was told that full size antenna’s always outperform half wave or quarter wave antenna’s. The only problem is the space you need to make such an antenna operational.

Well, over here in the Hautes Alpes there is space enough! So I already bought some fishing rods earlier. A few days back I assembled the fullwave loop antenna for 40 meters. I placed the rods in a square with 10 meters between each rod. Put a wire in between and hooked it up to my TS-50. Immediately I noticed the difference between an open dipole (as setup in earlier article) and this skywire loop. It is much, much more quit on all bands, therefore I can pickup so many more signals. Almost every signal is stronger on the loop then the dipole. Only a few signals are stronger on the dipole. So as I already suspected from all the reading I did on fullwave loops: they perform very well! I will think about a more permanent setup of a skywire loop over here in de Hautes Alpes.