Radio active

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I should mention that in addition to getting that Piece O’ Nowhere purchased this year, my only other thing I’ve been putting off is getting a decent radio. I wanted to get the Icom 7200 which seemed to, from reviews I’ve read, checked most of the boxes for what I need. Naturally, it is discontinued and the newer model, the 7300, is available. Although it is a radio that sends as well as receives, my main interest is listening. So, I need to add that, a good antennae, power sources, and a few other bells and whistles to my list.

My go-to for any communications questions has always been the fabulously informative and maddeningly evasive internet personality known as Ticom. Its not that he’s an expert on the subject (he clearly is), but that he’s an expert on the subject and also has the survivalist mindset…which means that when I ask a question he can give me an answer that might be different from the answer he’d give to someone who wasn’t planning for a descent into chaos and anarchy.

Unfortunately, Ticom seems to be a rather frequently moving target in terms of blogs and URLs. This is why, like Batman, the easiest way to contact him is to make your desire known and then he contacts you.

I think I asked him his opinion of the 7200/7300 at some point but I’ll have to see if I have that archived somewhere. I like to think he could look at the specs and just give me a shopping list of “Buy this power supply and this antennae”. Man, I wish it was that simple.

But, information is power and when the lights go out, the sirens are wailing in the distance, and you have no idea WTF is going on…being able to listen in on the outside world can be a pretty valuable resource. So, in a month or two, assuming I’m not dissuaded from it, I’ll start the ball rolling and pick up the radio in question and it’s ancillary equipment. Then I gotta convince myself to climb on the roof and stick an antennae up there. Not a job I relish.

43 thoughts on “Radio active”

  1. I am looking at the chameleon EMCOMM III antenna. I went with a Xiegu G90 because its decent size and modest power consumption. Only 20watts but I am mostly going to use for monitoring not transmitting

  2. The 7300 is an excellent radio. As far as powering it, an MFJ 25 amp supply works great. It also runs on a 12v battery. As for an antenna, if you have the room, a plane copper wire works great, costs very little, and you can trim it to a specific frequency if you wish. Plenty of videos on that. Get licensed if you are not already, and Good luck!

  3. If I was closer I could help you put that antenna up. Years back when I was running CB radios I worked part time for a radio shop putting up antennas. Not as difficult as it seems. But your in Montana so you have a heavy pitch to your roof to shed the snow load. Here in Michigan the further north you go the heavier the pitch. I’m in the southern part if the state but still have a pretty good pitch. My advice is to use a prefab tower. Check where the frequency layers are and put it somewhere close to the middle. My base antenna I put up years back was about 45 feet. But the land around me was flat as a dinner table. The towers are way easier to put up. And easy is always better.

  4. Have you looked into Software Defined Radio (SDR)? It’s a USB dongle that connects to an antenna on one end and your computer or cellphone on the other. Don’t transmit. I have one and am working on getting a laptop programmed to use it.

    • SDR is great for monitoring local, V/UHF (or higher) freqs…

      A great combination to a HF/SSB radio

      The 7300 is fine, I personally went with the Yaesu FT-891 for the low end and have a few V/UHF radios.

  5. If listening is your top priority, you’d be better served with a scanner like the Uniden SDS-100. It will let you listen to any non-encrypted transmissions from local emergency services, it doesn’t require a big antenna, and the learning curve is much shorter than an HF radio (which won’t receive any local comms).

  6. The key question is what are you planning to listen to? Local or long haul? Hams or short wave broadcast (US or foreign)?

    I presume that you already have a scanner and regularly listen to local PD & fire. It takes time to learn the lingo.

  7. Hmmm, CZ I think you should consider a capable scanner for the listening part. I’ve got the Uniden Home Patrol II which is getting a bit long in the tooth, but I don’t think there is anything better for the money. I’ve got it on a discone antenna, mounted to my eves. Not particularly high. I used a heavy duty aluminum flag holder for the mount, and a fiberglas rake handle for the mast. It’s been thru several tropical storms and a hurricane or two. The Home Patrol II is a modern “object oriented” radio. You tell it where you live, it knows all the local and national agencies and freqs for your area, and you just start listening. Or you can do a bit more organizing on the computer and then send that to the radio. It handles digital systems, and is trunk tracking. I leave it running in my office all the time at a low level and turn it up when something catches my ear.

    I’ve learned a ton of stuff about my area, the agencies working it, the techniques and resources they have, and the problems they have with those. They run a lot of surveillance ops against drug and human smugglers in Houston.

    I’ve got an older ham transceiver, Yaesu FT 847 which is all bands, all modes, DC to 33 cm band, and while the more modern radios have better DSPs and noise filtering, it’s pretty straight forward to operate. And I mostly listen anyway. I’m using a multiband vertical antenna which was easy to put up and works reasonably well.

    When I’m out in the country at my BOL, I listen to my shortwave, with a wire to my 16ft aluminum flagpole. I sit on the dock and hear the world… including hams on ssb.

    The location, and lack of background noise are FAR more important than the radio I’m using (an old Realistic DX 440, which has been running for a few hours a week on the same D cells for almost a year.)

    I bought a used tower and intend to set it and a ham shack up at the BOL, but in the mean time, the shortwave and wire work pretty well.

    So, ham radio for listening and talking to hams, scanner for local action, and a shortwave for international and alt-news, as well as some pretty interesting music most nights.

    And get your general class on the same test day as your tech test. Pass the tech and you can immediately test for the general. You need the general class license for HF and digital modes. It’s not hard if you have any exposure to electronics, can memorize a few .gov regs, and learn the questions in the question pool. The best way to become a ham is the traditional path of finding a mentor (an “Elmer”) and learning about the culture as well as the tech. The fastest way is to use a free online test and just keep taking the test over and over until you can pass it easily, then do the same for the next class. Then find a local test and take it.

    Of course there is a lot more to being a ham than just passing the test and getting the license. BUT, do you want to become a ham, or do you want to be able to legally practice communicating on ham bands, while you learn about being a ham? I know there are lots of people will slam me for my approach, but it works, it gets you on the air, and LEARNING, instead of joining a good ol boys club. And you might find you like learning about being a ham and joining in on the HOBBY as well as practicing communicating.

    Good luck with the journey…

    nick

    • I have several scanners and they are quite useful for local information…but I’d like the ability to monitor, or perhaps under the right circumstances communicate, information from more distant sources.

    • X2 what Nick wrote, great reply.
      If I only had $ for one, I’d buy a scanner FIRST – LOTS to learn about your local area with it, and if things are happening locally, that’s the first place you’re going to find out about it. I’m using an old Radio Shack Pro 96 (not a fan, but it works with agencies other than LEO, so I keep using it.), but there are far better options these days.

  8. I have a good receiver several decades older than the one in the 7300 – which is probably the best value (as a transceiver) for the the money today. I have a wood construction house and use a 70′ long seamless (aluminum) gutter as an antenna.I have a long heavy buried ground wire under it about a dozen feet lower than the gutter. I tap in about 10 feet from one end – a thin black wire to the gutter to the center of a thin coaxial feedthrough, the shield connected to another thin black wire to the ground. It’s not as good as my ham antenna but it’s still amazing. And it isn’t visible which might become a factor during bad times. Sometimes stealth counts.

  9. Following. This is a category of kit that I sorely need to gear up with as much as the three b’s inventories. When following all the foreign conflicts events it is even more necessary to have good communication and Intel gathering capabilities for tactical success and strategic planning. Any localized sportiness can quickly be mouse clicked turned into a black hole of information flow by censorship and kill switches. Whether it come from .gov authorities or outside actors. Our cell phones, landlines, and net connections will be easily neutered. No ordering a yummy dinner delivered to your hermitage. Thanks to readers for product and support accessories suggestions. Stay frosty and in communication.

  10. Commander, I live 30 mi south of you, I own a IC-7200 and a IC-705. I have wire antennas commercially made and homemade. You are welcome anytime to check out my gear. Also, winter field day is the last weekend of the this month. Our club will be set up and operating for the entire exercise. Visitors are welcome. There will be three different radios and antennas set up to view and operate if you like.

      • Top of Chief Joseph pass, last week of this month, set up at noon on Friday, exercise starts at noon on Saturday and runs through noon on Sunday.

  11. I have both the 7200 and the 7300

    An off-the-cuff analysis is, that the 7300 has more features, but is somewhat delicate (ie– you wouldn’t want to knock it around)
    The 7200 lacks some of the features, but lends itself to being more robust (get the optional front “handles” to protect the face plate controls)
    Both require a 20–25-amp source of 12v DC — either a 120 v PS or battery.

    As such, the 7300 sits on the desk, as my “primary” ham radio.
    It’s connected to an Astron 35-amp power supply, and there’s a large (group 31) deep discharge battery (on a maintenance charger) on the floor beneath it for when the power goes out, (just unplug from PS and plug into the battery)

    The 7200 is stored inside an EMP protective bag along with a SGC auto tuner (also in a EMP bag) in a box– along with the required power and coax cables, and supplies to make a simple antenna ,etc

    But if all you want to do is “listen”, my belief is you are better off with a small, but high rated, SWL type receiver that you can use on the desktop, or grab it and go quickly
    I have a Small Crane SSB unit that works great, and is about the size of 1/2 of a sandwich
    But YMMV

      • Yeah, thats what Im thinking. And if Im going to spend the money, might as well have the option of transmitting as well just in case I ever want to.

  12. If I was buying right now I would look at the ic-705 if I felt rich otherwise the Xeigus look interesting. But that is just the opinion of some rando on the net.

  13. He runs a couple of facebook groups where his identity is an open secret. He even sent me a couple of missing issues of one of his various newsletters that I had never been able to find. If you’re on facebook and are interested, contact me offline and I can add you to one or both groups.

  15. Hey,CZ. Both the Icom IC-7200 and IC-7300 are good radios, but I would recommend the IC-7200 as it is more rigged and survivalist friendly than the IC-7300. You can find one used for not a lot of money.

    These days I’m running older 1930s-1970s vintage milsurp HF gear, and homebrew designs of the same era. Don’t have adequate SMD repair capability in the lab, but can fix older thru-hole PCB stuff just fine. I wouldn’t recommend it for the average prepper though unless they’ve got a few years experience fixing older electronics at the circuit level.

    -T

  16. I’m way beyond the curve when it comes to radio equipment. Way back when (1980’s), bought a pair of Bearcat scanners, one handheld, the other desk top.

    I used to listen to them, but became bored and stopped. I think having at least two people who take turns and are listening would be extremely helpful.

  17. Ticom is very knowledgeable. Extra class here. Have the 7200 and like it a lot. Also have a ft897d yaesu, drill down menu driven so kinda clunky. Both are digital capable. 7200 has built in sound card, the 897 needs an external. A cheap laptop or pad with USB capability will run all the digital stuff. Scanners are OK but a stand alone all band all mode capable Hf and vhf/uhf rig is best.

  18. Commander,
    I’m using a Yaesu FT897D with two 105 amp hour batteries connected in series and a Battery Tender to keep them topped off. I also use a 50A Astron power supply as a “spare”. I have a couple Battery Tender chargers as backup.
    Antennas are dead simple for listening – if you have room at home, a wire from a high spot to any other point in the yard will likely work very well. Whatever you use, you’ll want to experiment with what works best.
    If you want to talk…that’s a bit harder, but not really difficult. You’ll need to decide what kind of antenna (dipole, end fed, vertical et. al.) and again, try it in different configurations to see what works for the band you’re on. There are gobs of options here – lots of prefab options, although none of them work much better than something you can construct on your own.

    Finally, I’d encourage you to get a Technician, then the General license so you can talk on the air and PRACTICE. Lots of folks of the survivalist bent go out and buy shit, check off the “done” box and stop using the gear. If you’re going to be using it in SHTF, you’ll want to know HOW. I know, that makes the FCC aware that you’re a radio operator…but the gov’t already knows.
    If Ticom doesn’t check in, you can go over to brushbeater and look through his blog – he’s pretty knowledgeable as well.
    Naturally, you can contact me as well and I’m happy to help.

  20. The IC-7300 is an amazing radio, it makes my old Ft-857d seem like garbage in both features and performance….but I still love that old Yaesu.

    One very cool antenna package is the Buddipole, it’s like Legos in how it can quickly and easily make any band specific antenna. It’s sort of halfway between an ultra-portable antenna and a permeant setup.

    https://www.buddipole.com/debupa.html

  21. I am going to go totally against the grain here and recommend that you look into a Yeasu FT-710 over the Icom 7300. I am a new general and went with the FT-710 over the 7300 due to the very positive reviews I have been seeing. Last night I was able to communicate on 40 meters with Virgina Beach from Arizona with nothing but 100 watts and an end fed half wave.

    Now if you want an older style “field” radio the 7200 looks really neat though I have never seen them in the wild. Also a word of caution regarding newer used radios. Apparently there is a trend og guys buying say a 7300 and then running it full blast 24/7 on digital modes for a few months until they fry the finials and then selling it as “lightly used and just a few months old”.

  22. Commander- suggest that you take a look at this article; it may help focus on what you want.
    https://www.americanpartisan.org/2021/05/nvis-techniques-part-3/
    This article is specifically about how to pick an HF rig. I own the Icom 7200 and the Yaesu 857D, both of which I use for portable operation, but my go-to radio for HF is the Kenwood 590SG, in part bc it has an outstanding general coverage receiver. It is the most selective radio I own, but not the most sensitive radio I own- that would be the TenTec Corsair I, which I think was the last analog HF rig Ten Tec built and has a very low noise floor.

    Any way, I hope that helps

  23. Consider an inside-the-attic antenna (I can’t do it, I have a metal roof). Or, look into an end-fed antenna. They can be draped across your backyard fence, and don’t require climbing any ladders.

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