Fox Delta

[kidphc]

Anyone buy anything from them? How was the after sales support and kits?

 

Thinking about picking up an Anytone 6666 10m rig for the truck. So I can **cough also listen to 11m.

 

Got to thinking how cool would it be to have a tiny digital SWR meter with remote display/head for easy of mounting.

 

Welp, I understand the basics of the SWR meter. Not experienced enough to just pickup the project and jump on a scratch build. Ardunio or otherwise. Even the kits on EBay seam a little on the daunting side. From sourcing the parts to tools/skill to calibrate the bridges.

 

So after searching found the Fox Delta site and they have SWR kits. They don't use ribbon cables so it should be easy to expand the display leads.

 

Anyone have experience in DIY SWR meters or Fox Delta?

 

Fox Delta's Site

[kidphc]

Bueller...? lol

[tweiss3]

I've never heard of them, but the reviews on eHam are pretty good: https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=7842

 

For $65 and a weekend project the SWM3-1018 doesn't seem like a looser by any means.

[AdmiralCochrane]

I'm considering the same radio for the same use.  I think we had a QSO a month or so back

[kidphc]

I'm considering the same radio for the same use. I think we had a QSO a month or so back

Only thing I have heard as far as negatives are that it has the habit of blowing its final. Single stage from what I get. Looking at a modded one, upgrade final and regulator. Just not sure if it is worth x2 the cost.

 

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[AdmiralCochrane]

Extended warranty

[kidphc]

Extended warranty

Yup. Talked to a local radio fantic ham. He said buy it stock with or w/o the warranty. If it blows up we can mod/fix it hopefully.

 

I think the blow ups are caused by people over driving it. Why? There is a video of a guy open keyingbit with high swr for hours (could be wrong) and it didn't blow up. So it has to be something else.

 

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[kidphc]

Welp bit the bullet. $315.94 for radio and 3 year warranty. No shipping (prime) but the tax

[tweiss3]

Isn't the 6666 FM only? Kinda missing the point of modding for 11m, right?

[kidphc]

AM FM SSB 15/45/60 pep

 

Modding for final reliability

[kidphc]

On 4/9/2021 at 7:29 PM, AdmiralCochrane said:

I'm considering the same radio for the same use.  I think we had a QSO a month or so back

So here are my thoughts on the radio.

My take on the Anytone At6666. Found another poster and it about sums my experience.

-SSB receive distortion. (Not bad but, sometimes have to play with the clarifier more then I like)

-Impotent NB (really doesn't do much)

-Barely touch the RF gain pot and it maxes out

-Only 6 memory channels (come on! Really?) (really has 400 memory in frequency mode)

-Mode not saved in memory (yeah wtf)

-Programming software failure out of the box (really no really controls, minus saving some memories and turning features off, for me turning of FM since it is outside of license.

 

-The VFO is a click digit then dial each digit in. Royal pain in the ass.

 

• The plus, clarifier works well. Better then I expected.
• Wish there was a way to adjust ALC.
• Wish there was an eq for sound out. This thing is tinny. Same speaker I use at home for the HRI, which is bass heavy. Too the point where HI-Cut has to be on for some conversations or you can't hear anything becuase of the tinniness.

 

It is sensitive, a bit too much. Can pull signals out of the noise floor. However, even with an external speaker (noise filter on), NB on the radio the fricking thing half the time you barely hear anything due to cosmic hash. When you get a strong signal it blows your ear drums out. It's either too quiet (background static/cosmic hash) or way too loud. Constantly, fiddling with the volume. The VFO is a click digit then dial each digit in (did I mention I hate this? For a mobile radio bit of a pain unless stopped way to much time staring at the screen)

[AdmiralCochrane]

19 hours ago, kidphc said:

So here are my thoughts on the radio.

It is sensitive, a bit too much. Can pull signals out of the noise floor. However, even with an external speaker (noise filter on), NB on the radio the fricking thing half the time you barely hear anything due to cosmic hash. When you get a strong signal it blows your ear drums out. It's either too quiet (background static/cosmic hash) or way too loud. Constantly, fiddling with the volume. The VFO is a click digit then dial each digit in (did I mention I hate this? For a mobile radio bit of a pain unless stopped way to much time staring at the screen)

This is my experience as well.  Running it in my daily driver until my base antenna arrives.  

Curious to put my meter on it and see what the output is relative to the RF gain knob position (had to retype that a couple of times, LOL)

[kidphc]

1 minute ago, AdmiralCochrane said:

This is my experience as well.  Running it in my daily driver until my base antenna arrives.  

Curious to put my meter on it and see what the output is relative to the RF gain knob position (had to retype that a couple of times, LOL)

So today isn't the day for that type of test for you!! lol

I went from NMO30 and NMO34 with 64" whips. To a MFJ 1610T hamstick. So the SWR for both 10m/11m are below 1-1.2. I was seeing about 10w on AM. 

From what I have seen from CB tuners. Out of the box the radio puts out close to what is advertised. I think I would of preferred a digital power setting rather then the analogue style power control.  So depending on the mode your are using, the power output will change. But it is curious to see if there is any correlation.

 

[tweiss3]

Do you have any photos of the Fox Delta unit? Now that you have it installed, all the photos I've seen are kind of vague. 

[kidphc]

2 minutes ago, tweiss3 said:

Do you have any photos of the Fox Delta unit? Now that you have it installed, all the photos I've seen are kind of vague. 

Didn't get the Fox Delta kit. Kinda, wish I had. The RS-70 was more compact. Doesn't have a peak hold, which would of been nice for mobile. Nor does the RS-70 do SSB real well, (lack of the carrier to measure). However, it came down to really to 3 things.

1.) Money the RS-70 was cheaper.

2.) Didn't want a project on top of  a project.

3.) Did not have the space in the console for it. It's a lot more compact.