SWL STATION

Having returned the AOR AR-DV10 to the supplier (because it was dire), I was back to using the AR3000A again and as much as I love the old girl, she's a little bit awkward to use with those tiny buttons and screen. And then it dawned on me that tucked away in an aluminium travel-case is my field-day radio, the ICOM IC-7100.

Seems such a shame to have this radio hidden away for most of the year, when she could be setup in the corner of my lounge as the new SWL Station. It covers HF, 6M, 4M, 2M, 70cm, AirBand, Marine Band and DSTAR. It's connected to the discone for VHF/UHF and to the SA-7000 for HF. 

The beauty of the 7100 is that fabulous head-unit with its stable base, perfectly angled touch-screen and large tuning dial. 

I detached the microphone and turned the power down to zero. All I need to do now is spend some time programming in some useful Scan frequencies (mainly calling channels and repeaters) and some Search ranges to sniff out anything new. Once that's done, I reckon I'm going to enjoy this. 

Being in the corner of the lounge means I can sit in absolute comfort and if I hear a conversation I want to join in on, I can easily move to the Shack. Thanks to the generous separation lead, I can bring the head-unit closer to me and even use it on my lap.

It's also nice to have the Record feature which will save received audio to the SD Card. I can also use the OpenSpot-2 to connect to all the available worldwide rooms, gateways and repeaters.

The audio from the head-unit's built-in speaker is fantastic and I've adjusted the tone controls to tweak it further. It also has the convenience of a headphone socket.

Pretty neat!

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73, Tom, M7MCQ.