HFU HF Underground

General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: myteaquinn on February 01, 2020, 2142 UTC

Title: What are they thinking?
Post by: myteaquinn on February 01, 2020, 2142 UTC

I’m not sure what to think of this.

My wife and I were off to see our grandson play basketball and DX Engineering just happened to be about 10 miles off course so we left home early to check out what was in the store. I specifically wanted to tune around on an Icom R8600. The ham radio station is in the back of the store so I walked in there and asked if I could tune around on their operating R8600 and the clerk said sure. I thought great; and then he said that there was no antenna hooked up to the receiver. “What in the hell”! So as I gazed at all the ham transceivers that were on and I wondered if they were hooked up to the big %&* antenna on the roof he said “well you can’t hear anything in the store anyway”.

I did spend about three to four minutes checking the display and menu on the “dead” receiver and walked away. Not sure what they are thinking about having the radio with no antenna attached to it. Well if I ever really get serious about buying one I know where I won’t get it. 

Title: Re: What are they thinking?
Post by: Matt285 on February 01, 2020, 2153 UTC

We use to have an AES here in my city and any radio's they had set up were always hooked to an antenna. They had a tribander set up as well as several different HF/VHF and UHF verticals. That seems quite silly that they wouldn't have them set up that way, even if they removed the microphones and put a simple antenna on them to receive.

Title: Re: What are they thinking?
Post by: myteaquinn on February 01, 2020, 2209 UTC

Here is a YouTube video that implies that the radios are hooked up to the antenna.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTp726Vixn4

Title: Re: What are they thinking?
Post by: Matt285 on February 01, 2020, 2219 UTC

Yup. He definitely said 'There all running on those fabulous antennas you see outside' They may have purposely had them setup that way if they knew a video was going to be filmed. However if the coax is obviously in place why not utilize it. Even if its just one radio at a time by request. Cool store though!

Title: Re: What are they thinking?
Post by: myteaquinn on February 01, 2020, 2232 UTC

The store is beautiful and the radio portion though small is well stacked as you can tell in the video. The clerk was busy with a customer but if he just told me he could hook an antenna up when he was finished I would have stayed. Just left a bad impression with me.

Title: Re: What are they thinking?
Post by: Matt285 on February 01, 2020, 2321 UTC

Yes. It was a small area, but they probably have a large inventory in their stock room based on their website. Their prices are quite fair also. I have ordered several items via the website over the years.

Title: Re: What are they thinking?
Post by: Beerus Maximus on February 02, 2020, 1437 UTC

I bought an ACOM amplifier from DX Engineering a few years ago and they were great to deal with. I had no idea they were in the back of a Summit racing store though! Are they somehow related?

Title: Re: What are they thinking?
Post by: Matt285 on February 02, 2020, 1442 UTC

I wondered the same thing. They certainly have a relationship, but it seems like an odd pairing.