Rebuilding My Home HF Station

I'm trying to get set-up again for home amateur radio operation in the HF bands. I had a station a few years ago but then moved into a new apartment. This is my setup so far:

- ICOM IC-746CPRO radio

- MT-3000 manual antenna tuner

- Marathon M12V90F 12 Volt battery

- Kawish battery charger

All of the above, except the battery charger, are equipment that was loaned or given to me.

At the moment, all I have for an antenna are two bundles of thick wire that used to be a di-pole. I'm leaving them rolled up for now, and using them just for RX operation. I'm not sure yet what I'll be able to do for setting up a TX antenna, as my particular apartment situation does not present any easy options for getting a transmission line to the outside of the building.

Comments

Alaskalinuxuser, 2021-10-03

Nice to see you are setting back up! What amperage is the charger? I'm using a 4 amp charger on my battery with my FT-747.

Christopher Howard, 2021-10-03

Maximum current is 10 Amps. It is a smart charger which tracks the current flow and goes into trickle mode when the battery goes close to full charge. It also has a manual mode for trying to repair exhausted batteries. My old boss highly recommended this model, with the caveat that it uses switching technology and so may generate some electrical noise in the system.

Kawish Full Automatic Car Battery Charger