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My
Mobile Amateur Radio Station  My FT-857D "mobile shack" in the family mini-van
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In addition to my fixed-station operations in Canada, I also like to operate from our family's mini-van while traveling throughout the rest of North America. For this mobile/portable installation, I use a Yaesu Model FT-857D and Yaesu ATAS-120 antenna. I've found the Yaesu Model FT-857D to be a surprisingly rugged, innovative, multiband (MF/HF/VHF and UHF), multimode (AM, FM, SSB, CW and digital) mobile/portable transceiver for the Amateur Radio bands. Engineered for high performance, the FT-857D provides 100 watts of power output on the 160 through 6 Metre bands, 50 watts of power on 2 Metres and 20 watts output on 70 centimeters. Among the advanced features of the FT-857D are many that are usually incorporated into large, base station-type transceivers. These include Dual VFOs, Split-Frequency operation, Digital Signal Processing (Bandpass Filtering, Noise Reduction, Auto-Notch, and Mircophone equalizer), IF shift, Clarifier (RIT), AGC Fast/Slow.
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Besides
the Ham Bands, the FT-857D can receive the AM Aircraft Band, FM Public
Service Bands, AM and FM Broadcasts
and the U.S. Weather Service Band. It also sports a built-in keyer for CW
transmission, CTCSS Encoder/Decoder, a Spectrum Scope and 200 memory
channels.
The Vertex Standard ATAS-120 is a unique mobile antenna designed for use with many Yaesu transceivers (like the FT-857D) which are also equipped to use the ATAS system. The ATAS-120 tunes from 40m to 70cm and uses a motorized tuning system. This system automatically resonates the radiating element for lowest SWR via a tuning switch on the radio without the need for manually changing monoband resonating whip assemblies. The ATAS-120 also conveniently mounts directly on a standard SO-239 heavy duty mobile antenna mount. |
