Red Wave Radio

I see lots of articles asking what is the "best" radio.  It all depends
upon who you are and what you are going to do with it.  Here is how I
assisted my wife in purchasing her first radio.

1. I allowed her to determine if she wanted a mobile or hand held.
            She wanted a hand held.

2. I took her down to the local candy store and asked the sales person to
   put all of the hand held radios out on the counter.

3. I then asked the important questions:
            A. Which one or ones don't you like the looks of?
                    Away went several.
            B. Which one or ones don't you like the feel of?
                    Again away went some more.

4. I then asked her to pick up and program several frequencies and ctcss
   tones into them.
            There were some even the sales person had trouble programming!
                    Away went some more.

5. We were down to about 2 radios.  I then asked my wife to listen to the
   sounds of the people on a local repeater.  The final radio was
   determined.  The radio that my wife bought was one that she liked the
   looks, feel and could program without help.  She has since purchased
   a newer radio (dual band) but she still uses the one that I helped her
   purchase.

Chris Prewitt, WA6OQC

Selected couples - without names or calls:
1st: They weren't doing too well financially, so she just picked up
     his old radios, they were being used as spares for the UHF club
     members.  They included a 6-freq 2m HT-220 and a 2-freq 440 HT-220.
     On the 2m radio F1 was 146.52, F2 was 146.55 (just an alternate
     simplex), F3 was F4 reverse for T-hunts, F4-F6 were local open
     repeaters.  On the 440 handheld F1 was 446.0, F2 was the 440 club
     system channel.  She used the HTs for a couple of years, and after
     was comfortable with the operation of those radios, she got her own
     job and bought an IC-32AT duo-bander - he had an IC-U16 and a H-12
     (commercial versions of the IC-04 and IC-02), as a couple of
     channels in each were commercial frequencies.

2nd: She chose a fancy Kenwood do-anything duo-band handheld as a first
     radio - he had a similar one.  Instant confusion.  Total disgust
     with complicated radios.  She, to this day, has her husband program
     the frequencies into the memories, and limits her use to unlocking
     the keyboard, selecting the appropriate memory, locking the keyboard,
     and using the radio.  She knows how to monitor on the input for
     jammer checking or simplex range verifying, but that's about it
     on the keyboard, except for the autopatch.

3rd: He works in commercial 2-way for a living.  He has a Chevy Blazer
     (the older, big version) with several commercial radios, and all
     the test gear, all the time, plus 2 amateur handhelds and a business
     handheld.  He has the Kenwood triple-bander mobile with 2m, 440 and
     1200mhz in his Chevy.  Her exposure to radio began in the business
     front office, handling the trunked 800mhz shop channel, customer
     radios, etc.  She has technical knowledge from the service dispatcher
     point of view ("Joe, this customer has a bad mic cord on his mobile
     outside - he wants to wait, can you do it next?", or "846 from 831,
     your 3rd call today requests a phone call, over").  She chose a
     duplicate Kenwood mobile, and later an Icom duobander handheld.
     Why?  She didn't want to have to learn another mobile front panel
     layout.  But she still has the trunked shop channel mobile in her
     personal car - there's no restrictions on the autopatch calls!

The point to this?  I believe that simpler, crystal controlled radios
are easier to learn if the starting point is zero radio knowledge.  My
wife is slowly showing interest, and she will probably start out with
an inexpensive Motorola Radius multi-channel handheld that I will buy,
have programmed, then give her to use. After she has mastered the radio,
she can select a programmable radio, I will program it, then teach her
how to use it as if it was a more-channels Radius, let her get
comfortable, then teach her how to program it.  The Radius will probably
go back into commercial use.  The idea is several fun small steps rather than
one big disappointment.

My father was a commercial photographer.  My first camera was a german
35mm Contax at 7 years old - but I was taught how to use it first as if it
was a point-and-shoot box camera.  Later on I was taught how to use a
light meter and use the shutter and iris and a flash.  I learned at my
own rate, in a way that was fun - Same idea.

My $0.03 (inflation!)
Comments and discussion welcome - flames to /dev/null.

--
Mike Morris   WA6ILQ   | All opinions must be my own since nobody pays
PO Box 1130            | me enough to be their mouthpiece...
Arcadia, CA. 91077     |

 personally believe in several small steps - the first step is a

Quote:>simple radio, then later add the programming.

simpler, crystal controlled radios

Quote:>are easier to learn if the starting point is zero radio knowledge.  My

Joe NA3T

(EME, VHF weak signal, got my wife into it too...)