2m, 6m, or 10m Ham radios which is best, why

Somebody up the thread said something about "avoiding " 10 meters. Why? I don't see anybody "avoiding" 10 when the band is up and running. During the last "hot" cycle, I can remember 10M jumping. Contacts into South America, Europe, and Australia were common. When the band is "down" like it is now, you are not hearing a lot of activity. IOW, you don't know it's there. But it IS, and lots of hams have local nets, ragchews, and favorite meeting spots on 10!
It is a great band for a variety of things. If you are local to a 10M repeater, then you can USE it. You don't have to avoid the band: you have a perfect right/reason to use it and any repeaters you can hit (unless it is a closed one). You can use FM on 28.600 for quiet, phone-quality QSO's if you want to. Nearby, there's a window for AM, and that's fun, too. The catch is, Tech operators are restricted to SSB ONLY between 28.3 and 28.5 MHZ. They can also use CW below there, too. But if you are a General or higher licensee, there is lots of activity ABOVE the Tech portion of the band, and no reason to "avoid" what is a FUN and useful band!!!

GF

 

You forgot to mention the 10M satellite sub-band.

 

i don't avoid any band in fact i was on 432.100 ssb most of the day

 

What about the "freeband" ????

 

Before I moved to the east coast from The Great Northwest® I had three of these come into my shop over the space of two years for the same complaint: users were being told of a horrible buzzing sound on their transmitted signal that was not audible locally (i.e., it wasn't like the mic gain was too hot, etc.) These were all being used as base stations, with two of them using the optional remote control head cable/interface kit.
The first one took me a little bit of time to troubleshoot (it got a lot faster after the first one), as it didn't start to occur until after the radio had been in TX mode long enough for the fan to come on. The fan sounded fine mechanically, like any computer-style fan, but something in its internal fiddly bits (to use the technical term) started to generate noise pulses on the B+ buss, which also fed the TX PA stages. Since they were in warranty, and my shop was an Icom authorized warranty station, I replaced the fans and sent in a note to Icom's service manager. By the time I was sending in my third fan & its claim, Icom issued a service bulletin , as others had begun to send in similar reports. Soon thereafter a new fan was being used in the assembly line, and Icom Parts sent a few of the new ones to us and a couple of other shops who were deemed too far to make trips to their offices easy.
So the only consistent problem I'd come across was fixed fairly soon after their dealer network gave them feedback, which was a lot more responsive than some of the other big-gish brands I'd dealt with.
For folks who're contemplating using these mobile, the control panel is at least one order of magnitude more complex than the Heads-Up Display on, say, an F-22 aircraft. And, while most commercial gear is spec'd to work from -30 to +60 degrees C., this is only rated down to -10 C. (14 F.) Colder than that and lotsa stuff slows down, not the least important of which is the fancy display screen. Probably not a problem for diesel rigs that are *always* running in cold weather, with heat in the cabin, but if one's private vehicle stays out in the cold without heat inside, figure on leaving the radio off until it's nice & cozy inside. Trunk mounting the main part of the radio can be a problem unless your vehicle's trunk has heat in it, too.
The 7000 seems able to make the most of weak signals, between DSP and fancy filters and such, but I can't conceive of using it whilst motoring merrily down the highways and byways, except for maybe using a couple of memory channels that I can scroll through by using the remote mic. Anything fancier and I'd have to wait until next time I was parked. Or hiring a chauffeur to squire me around so I can make sense of all the info available to the user. <sigh>
So -- besides being really "feature-packed" (or just call it confusing, which it is for me), and the old fan problem that they fixed, and having a warm environment to work in, it's a really nifty rig.
Hope that helps,
-- Handlebar --
BTW, just worked California, Alaska, Idaho, British Columbia, and Whitehorse, YT on 20M as a "1-B NC" station during Field Day, 20 meters, 5 watts, battery power, wire antenna thrown over a tree. Alas, not with a 7000....
diddly dahdidah

 

No band is free you have to pay for a radio ......

 

Last night 2 meters was wide open .... Lots of guys on 144.200 mhz SSB working 600 mile path ...

 

Get a good mobile all band radio. I talk to a lot of trucks on the road across the country on the 20 meter band. There is always someone out there when you call CQ. 10 meters is good too but lots of fading if the band drops fast. 20 meters is a fun band to pass the time while driving. I run a base here. From time to time, I'll hear drivers on the 40 meter band too mobile but at night the bands are squeezed and lots of broadcast interference. Hope this helps.

 

I'll be home today looking for AM on 10 meters .....

 

Let me know where you land and I'll try to find you.

wb4bbq