From cbfsb!att!linac!uwm.edu!ogicse!sequent!muncher.sequent.com!dale Fri Mar 13 17:33:07 EST 1992 Article: 15839 of rec.radio.amateur.misc Path: cbfsb!att!linac!uwm.edu!ogicse!sequent!muncher.sequent.com!dale From: dale@sequent.com (Dale Mosby) Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.misc Subject: DJ-580 HT review/info (long) Message-ID: <1992Mar13.164310.19598@sequent.com> Date: 13 Mar 92 16:43:10 GMT Article-I.D.: sequent.1992Mar13.164310.19598 Sender: dale@sequent.com (Dale Mosby) Organization: Sequent Computer Systems Inc Lines: 117 I mailed information on the new Alinco dual band hand-held, the DJ-580T to a couple folks that had enquired about them. These people had some requests for the information, so decided that I'd just post it. This is not intended to be a complete review of the radio, just information I had e-mailed. Note: I posted a couple weeks ago about a stolen DJ-160, the 2 meter Alinco. I had a few e-mail responses to that post. It was stolen by a brother of one of the Girl Scouts in my Daughter's troop. We now have it back -- returned after two weeks, one day before I was going to mail a claim to the ARRL insurance. The DJ-580 dual band radio is one of the "small" hand helds, not the smallest thing out but a very nice size. I think it has a nice solid feel to it. Display shows both VHF & UHF frequencies, as well as indication for which band is receiving a signal. Lighted keyboard. Built in CTCSS encode and decode, as well as tone paging. I purchased my first DJ-580 from Amateur Radio Supply in Seattle (ARS) at the ham fair in Washington. Price was $399. After playing with it for a weekend I decided that it was a great radio and I purchased another one for my wife. The second one was from Ham Radio Outlet (HRO) in Tigard, Oregon. Price there was also $399. At a ham fair in Salem a couple weeks ago Electro-Comm (a small Alinco only dealer in Washington) sold out of their 580s and had not yet received new ones. At the ham fair last week ARS had just received them -- I don't know how many they got, but every time I passed their booth I saw someone buying one. HRO has had two shipments of 10 each, and after I got mine they had one left. These things seem to be popular. They use a battery specific to Alinco. The battery is *MUCH* improved over the DJ-160 (2 meter only) radio. On the DJ-160 the battery can be easily removed when the radio is stressed in a purse or backpack. This doesn't break it, but is a nuisance. On the DJ-580 the connection seems quite secure. It comes with a drop in charger -- standard slow charge. I think there is a fast charger for it. Standard battery is 7.2 volt 700 ma nicad. I measured the current draw, and with a single band turned on it draws about 60 ma, and with both bands on 100 ma (squelch not broken of course). With the battery saver feature you should get about 60 percent improvement on power consumption. In battery save you listen for 130 ms and then drop to standby power for 390 ms. Unfortunately it is not easy for me to measure the power used in this standby setting but I'd guess that it averages out to perhaps a 60 percent savings. Only thing I worry about a bit with Alinco is that they seem to come out with a neat new model each year. The 580 is a clear winner over the 560 dual band. Don't know what they will have next year, but perhaps the 580 is selling well enough that they will stick with it a while. Anyway, hope they decide that this is a good battery design and keep it. We did put this on a signal generator and it was a bit more sensitive than the Yaesu FT470 (think that is their small dual bander) we also had with us. I hadn't made the out of band mods yet so couldn't check sensitivity out of band. I do know that many of the radios will display out of band but are not sensitive enough to actually pick up anything. The 580 does seem to receive out of band quite well. As I say though, I don't have any info on intermod rejection. I was asked about modification of the DJ-580 for out of band operation. They couldn't have made it much easier: - Remove battery pack. Use a small philips screwdriver (ie. jeweler size) to remove the 4 screws that hold the metal battery slide on the radio. These are at the outer corners of the metal clip. - Gently lift off the metal clip. Note that the two power wires are on this so don't pull it too far off. Also note that there is a small metal tab on this clip that is inserted in the battery release slide. You will want to insert it back in the same hole when you replace the metal clip. - You will see a small RED wire loop as well as a small BLUE wire loop. You can gently pull these up with some needle nose pliers. Cut the loops and then cover the ends so they don't contact anything. My method was to cut them not quite at the top, so one wire was a bit longer than the other. I then slipped a small piece of heat shrink tubing over the wires so the ends could not contact each other again. This is probably adequate. I took a CLEAN soldering iron and used that to shrink the tubing a bit just so it wouldn't move. - Push the wire loops back into the radio. The metal battery clip will push up against the circuit board running down the center of the radio so you don't want the wire loops crossing over the circuit board. - Replace the metal plate -- remember to stick the projection into the small hole on the battery release slide. - Replace the battery pack and reset the radio. You reset the radio by holding the function key down and turning on the power. Note that this clears all memories, so make the mod early -- this thing has 40 memory channels - a lot to reprogram. I cut both jumpers. Documentation I have, as well as verbal instructions was that the RED jumper opens up the out of band receive -- aircraft and cellular, while the BLUE wire opens up the out of band transmit. You certainly can't transmit in the aircraft or 800 band, I don't know just what transmit limits are, don't have any reason to stray outside of the ham band. Also, the default memory set up is 20 channels for VHF and 20 for UHF. You can allocate these differently if you wish, for example 30 VHF and 10 UHF. The manual describes this procedure. The manual that comes with it isn't too bad -- at least not for the "simple" stuff. I don't know if it does a good job of describing things like cross band repeat. If you get one of these radios contact jay Appell at jay@zen.cac.stratus.com and tell him you have a 580 and would like to have him e-mail you a manual. He has one in progress now. I have the first draft and it is pretty good. Think the second draft will be out in a month or so. 73, Dale. -- dale@sequent.com OR uunet!sequent!dale Dale Mosby 503-578-9842 N7PEX // Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. 15450 SW Koll Parkway // Beaverton, Or. 97006-6063