Using HF preselector?

[Buck]

I am using, usually, a long dipole for RX2, and I wonder if performance would be improved by using an HF passive preselector. Anyone use one of these on receive-only?

On a somewhat related matter, I'd like to make a feature request. On Setup>General>Ant/Filters, I'd like to see a check box to lock down the choice of transmitting antennas. I have an active whip attached to one of the antenna ports, and accidentally transmitting through it would fry the circuit. With a lock-down box checked, it would take two clicks to trigger that. An option, of course.

Buck ko0y

[w-u-2-o]

Hi Buck,

I built one for my 100D. Honestly, I see no improvement, but I live out in the country, with no ham neighbors close by, and no giant broadcast stations nearby either. Since I was building something that would house my external RF switch and provide opto-isolated PTT outputs, and since the eb104.ru BPF board was so inexpensive, I figured "what the heck" and built that in as well.

You can see what I did at my website here: http://wu2o.dyndns.org/wu2o_anan_helper.html



73!

Scott

[Buck]

Very nice, Scott! I decided not to bother with the preselector since, like you, I'm in a rural location.

I converted the long dipole receiving antenna to an active dipole, using the DX Engineering active pre-amp (DXE-ARAH3). I place the DXE-RG-5000 inboard of the 12 volt injector, to protect RX2. It works so well that I'd like to use it on RX1 as well. Would there be a problem with placing a splitter on the RG-5000 and running one feed to RX2 and the other to ANT3? ANT1 is my transmit antenna.

Buck ko0y

[w-u-2-o]

Buck,

No problems per se. However, you'll take a 3dB sensitivity hit using a power divider ("splitter"). You may or may not want to do that. A switch would solve that problem.

Also, just be very careful to program it up right in Setup > General > Ant/Filters > Antenna. You don't want to accidentally transmit into your active antenna!

73!

Scott