President_HR-2510_review_1988.pdf
on the ham bands Ike Kerschner, N3IK No, we are not talking about the ruckus going on in the political arena! In this case The President is a new ham transceiver from (of all folks) Uniden. In fact, you may have noticed an advertisement for this 10 meter rig called, The President HR2510 . The ad - run by a firm called Commu- nication Electronics, reads: 10 Meter Mobile Transceiver - Digital VFO - Full Band Cov- erage - All Mode Operation - Backlit liquid crystal display - Auto Squelch - RIT - Preprogrammed 10 kHz. Channels - 25 watts output. Extra intriguing was the price of $239.95. It was too much for me to resist. Off went my check and before long I had this dandy little rig delivered to the door (photo 1). After a quick look at the instruction manual, The President was connected to the shack 12 volt supply and 3 element yagi. When the unit was turned on the LCD lit up and noise filled the room - enough audio (4 watts) to satisfy even my old tin ears. I scanned up and down the band using the scan buttons on the mike. Scan steps are in 10 kHz increments which I consider too large, but you can get an idea of band activity. There is a span control that allows you to change the VFO tuning increments from 10 kHz to 1 kHz or 100 Hz; however there is no way to make the unit scan in other than 10 The President kHz steps. When in the scan mode the frequency range is divided into four bands, 28 to 28.49, 28.5 to 28.99, 29 to 29.49 and 29.5 to 29.7. To go from one band to another in the scan mode you must hit the band switch to advance to the next range. When using the VFO the range is 28 to 29.7 continuous. The left side of the liquid crystal display has a portion marked meter. This is a bar graph type of meter. Its functions are con- trolled by a button on the front panel. Push the button and the meter will cycle through power out, modulation, signal strength and SWR modes. Its an excellent feature and its easy to operate and read. Also on the front panel are controls for mode, frequency lock, squelch, RIT (receiver incremental tuning), RF gain, mike gain, noise blanker, dim switch (which reduces the bright- ness of the crystal display), a band switch (4 bands from 28,000 to 29,970, VFO knob, on /off volume, Beep (turns on courtesy beep) and a PA switch that turns rig into public address system. On the rear panel youll find an SO -239 for antenna connection, a power connector and the accessory connector. The key, external speaker and PA speaker are connected at the accessory socket. SSB and CW signals are easy to copy and several QSOs on SSB were made in short order. Within the week, this little rig had pro- duced SSB and FM QSOs throughout North and South America. CW is a blast with this little rig, too, and one afternoon I heard several loud CW sigs and proceeded to work three ZL stations in a row as well as PY, CX, LU and OA. R.D. 1, Box 181 -A Kunkletown, PA 18058 EXCELLENT CONSTRUCTION The next step was to remove the rig from its cabinet and take a close look at the internals (see photo 2 You will see two white arrows, the one on the left indicates the common tie point of pins 34 and 35 (to ground). Use an xacto knife to cut the copper foil at this point and solder a 10k resistor from this point (the side with pins 34 and 35) to the positive side of the five volt regulator (white arrow on right in photo 3). Now the rig covers everything between 26 and 29.999 MHz. Remember though, it is illegal to transmit with this unit on any frequencies out- 44 October 1988 MONITORING TIMES side of the ten meter amateur band! The instruction manual included with this unit is very good, easy to read and under- stand. Even a new novice wont have trouble getting this unit on the air in short order. Also in the package with The Pres- ident is a mobile mount and all the required hardware to put the unit in your car, boat or plane (What, you dont have a plane ?). What a deal! Do I like The President ? You bet! The only features I would like to see on this rig would be a repeater off -set to enable repeater operation on FM. And it would be nice if the CW switch -over speed were faster than one second. One modification I made to mine was to fill the indicator spots on the knobs with white plastic model paint; because I found it difficult to see what position they were at even in normal room light. At $239.95 this little rig is one big bargain! Its available from Communications Electronics at 1- 800 -USA -SCAN. 220 MHz On August 4, 1988 the FCC announced reallocation of the 220 to 222 MHz. portion of the amateur band to the Land Mobile service. In spite of strong opposition by the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), other amateur groups and the U.S. Congress, the FCC deemed the move to be in the public interest. The ARRL continues to oppose the reallocation and will pursue all available means to reverse the action. Too often we amateurs are complacent with our lot and fail to realize the importance of such actions. Even if we do not use 220 we are still affected by this decision. Such moves, when successful, set us up for further cuts on other bands in the future. With the advent of Novice enhancement more and more people are entering the hobby each month. This growth in numbers will place increasing demand on existing frequen- cies. Already many areas of the country have used all the available repeater pairs on 2 meters. How long will it be until we need those reallocated 2 MHz? OSCAR 13 OSCAR 13 went into operation this summer and although some minor problems to exist - notably in mode L - overall things are going well. AMSTAT -DL (Germany) revised uplink power requirements by 3.8 dB (28.8 dBW or 757 W EIRP). However observers in the U.S. report a 10 dB per- formance deficit. Tests made in the U.S. indicate the uplink requirement to be 38 dBW which turns out to be 9.2 dB poorer than even the revised DL Mode specs. In spite of the reported Mode L problem amateurs have been using AO 13 with excellent results on all available modes. Amateur Credit Cards? The ARRL Board of Directors endorsed an affinity credit card program. The card will be made available to interested League members, half of the derived funds will be allocated to a fund for the defense of amateur frequencies (good idea ?). Ex-W3UG1W Lawrence Kaczmarczyk of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, has had his 1986 applica- tion for Advanced Class license designated for hearing. Kaczmarczyk surrendered his ham ticket in 1985 after the FCC started license revocation proceedings against him for intentional jamming, transmission of music, broadcasting and unidentified communica- tions. In a plea bargain arrangement, the FCC agreed to accept an application from him in one year for routine relicensing providing there were no violations in the interim. How- ever, three months later the FCC said he was monitored on three different occasions again intentionally causing harmful interference to radio communications. A hearing has been scheduled to determine whether the applicant is qualified to become an amateur service licensee (via W5YI Report). Theory for the Visually Impaired The Gordon West Radio School has recently introduced a code and Novice voice class theory course specifically for the visually impaired beginner. Two stereo, long -play, audio cassettes train the visually impaired to pass the Novice entry-level code examination. The tapes contain all letters, numbers, punc- tuation marks and procedural signals and a sample CW exam to prepare the applicant. The 302 Novice class test questions are also covered in detail on two additional cas- sette tapes. Every question is discussed with easy -to- remember comments about the questions plus a thorough understanding of the correct answer. Incorrect answers are also reviewed so the applicant better understands what the 30 question exam will be like. The tapes also contain instructions to the volunteer examiners that will administer the test. Cassette theory courses are available for the following upgrades: Technician - Element 3A General - Element 3B Advanced - Element 4A Extra - Element 4B Each course is $19.95. For more MONITORING TIMES IF YOU BUY, SELL OR COLLECT OLD RADIOS, YOU NEED. ANTIQUE RADIO CLASSIFIED Antique Radios Largest- Circulation Monthly Magazine Articles - Classifieds - Ads for Parts -Phone- 3940, 7290, 14290, 21360 and 28350. Packet, RTTY, SSTV and ATV operation is also planned. 73 de N3IK October 1988 45
