Radio ⁽³⁶⁾

The FCS AMP headset is a tactical communications headset made by Chinese manufacturer FCS. It appears to be heavily inspired by the Gentex AMP series of military headsets.

Following the previous entry, the PCB's for the early summer 2024 assemblies have arrived. First out is the Falcon II KDU PCB's, which replace the original PCB while reusing some of the key components.

The original Tri PRC-152 I purchased in 2023 was not a very good radio, with the biggest issue being a very limited radio with very poor audio.

This is a summary of the current work up to summer 2024, with future entries to be added as I go. Realistically this won't be a finished design before mid 2025.

This is my collection of SWR measurements of various antennas I've bought, partially just to keep them somewhere I can find them.

This article will likely be updated as I acquire new antennas to test.

This article covers the Harris Falcon II KDU, P/N 10511-1300-03 and the associated cable and KDU-adapter P/N 12065-7100-02.

The TRI(iumph Industries) AN/PRC-152 two way radio is at first glance a rather silly device, a clone of the extremely capable and expensive Harris AN/PRC-152 (Falcon III) software defined hand held radio.

Is it worth the money at all?

The King KA-42B ADF antenna is a neat little 3-in-1 antenna-pod for aircraft. With some minor^[0] effort it can be used as a pretty good HF reception antenna.

^[0] for certain definitions of "minor"

A followup to the previous NAGRAFAX article, this details how I fixed the automatic phasing circuitry, and has some detail pictures of the electronics boards.

The NAGRAFAX is an early 1980's weather-fax printer, sold as a kit along with a weather-fax FM receiver and intended for marine use. I picked up this unit for $10 at a local auction (first and only offer, surprisingly).

The ITT Mackay Marine 3021N is a mid 70's communications receiver, designed for merchant marine and military use. I've basically built it again using modern electronics, which will be covered in detail in this series.

This is part 1, covering the basic overview of the receiver and its role in the original marine communications system. I acquired the 3021N some time the middle 2010's, and started serious work on it in 2018. The series has its own tag: 3021N

Someone gave me two of these couplers, couldn't find too much about them online.

I found a late 90's GPS receiver made by Raytheon, let's take a look.

This article documents a pole mounted dual band radio modem, suitable for use with 9600 baud data, 4800 baud PSK, 1200 baud AFSK, and voice.

Radio over Fiber is a well established concept by now, this is a look at a wide band multi-antenna receiver system with radio over fiber distribution.

Continuing even further along the military radio thread, I previously discussed military handsets here.

In this post I will show how I built a basic interface-box/intercom for interfacing a generic military handset to mobile radios such as the Motorola GM360 and the Hytera MD785.

After some time with my modified Comtac-a-like Sporttac setup, I found a good deal on a few proper noise reducing 150 Ω dynamic microphones. In order to use them, I had to modify my setup a bit.

This post details how to modify the band split for a Motorola GP2000 UHF portable radio.

One of the issues with building an RF Over Fiber system is the lack of affordable transmitter solutions. While detectors are extremely cheap, the transmitters can cost hundreds of dollars on the used marked.

The (3M) Peltor SportTac is a common low cost hunting/general purpose medium protection (~26 dB) ear protector headset with hear-through amplifiers.

In this article I'll briefly talk about my newest Mini-Whip antenna project, designed primarily to cover the lower bands.

A collection of various info and thoughts about the Orion radio system, also sold under GE and M/Acom brandings.

Quick post with some information on MX1000/2000 programming that I wasn't easily able to find myself.

I bought some more 58534A-H01 receivers and found that these receivers were of the older type I had seen low resolution pictures of before.

On a whim I bought some pole mount GPS receivers. 

Being unable to find any real details on what's inside I mostly bought them blind, so I took some photos of the insides to help others out.

I bought a chinese made 3-cavity bandpass filter and decided to measure it and compare it to some home-made modified duplexer filters.

Updated: VHF information below