Icom 706 and 6 metres

I use an Icom 706 Mk1 in my car. Coupled to an LDG IT100 auto atu it works well. Press the "Tune" button on the rig and the ATU does its stuff. Although I use mono band whips for the HF mobile the ATU is very useful in broadening the useable bandwidth.  reading the reviews on Eham I recently saw a reference to this mobile antenna  and am thinking about getting one. It seems it is basically a whip with a balun of some sort in the base. Although it would not be likely to be as efficient as a mono band antenna it would, along with the LDG ATU, allow me access to all bands including or so I thought, 50 mhz, 6 metres-a band which I have not used mobile before. 6 metres is output on the same antenna port as HF on the 706
The 706 covers 6 metres as does the LDG atu. BUT as I found out today the 706 will not generate a tuning tone on 6 when you press the tune button. Neither will the atu work on 6 when I generate a carrier from the rig. Why this should be I have no idea. The Specs of the LDG atu state it covers 50 mhz. Now I believe it is a known shortcoming of the MK1 706 that the "tune" button does not work on 6 metres but why the LDG does not react to a  50mhz carrier I am not sure. As it stands though it seems that if I did get the multiband whip I would not be able to use it on 6 metres.

4 Wheels on my wagon

Today I have managed to Install the Icom 706HF rig in my car. Actually I am quite pleased with the mount of the Head Unit- it looks quite neat. In order to get the space to mount the head unit I had to remove the factory fitted double size radio/cd unit and replace it with a single DIN sized unit. Here is the old Volvo unit I removed.

And here is the 706 head unit with the replacement CD player below.

The 40 metre whip on the boot mount rather dwarfs the VHF/UHF dual bander!. I am not too happy with the quality of the boot mount I have used, it was the only one a could get at the last rally I went to, I may have to change it later.

Si far I have two HF whips, one for 40 metres and one for 20. I have done some preliminary tuning and managed to get them both fairly close to where they should be in terms of resonance but there is still a bit of work to do. I am thinking of getting hold of an auto ATU which would make life easier. The only problem is I don't know where I would put it. Under the driver's seat is my remote head VHF/UHF rig and now the body of the 706 is under the passenger seat.

General Update

I haven't made an entry for a while, mainly due to less time in the shack (due to the good weather we have been enjoying) but there have been a few radio related activities going on here.

I am still enjoying playing around with the little Softrock SDR radio. The one I have covers roughly from 7070 to 7020 Khz on 40 metres and is well down in the CW end on 80. I have settled on the Winrad software and am slowly getting the hang on it. Since the Softrock is connected to the same antenna as my R5000 receiver it is easy to compare the two. So far there has been nothing I have heard on the Softrock that I could not hear as well or better on the R5000. Of course the little SDR radio has the advantage of a spectrum display and infinitely adjustable filters but my practical experience is that its not noticeably better than my traditional receiver. From my experience SDR radio is not "plug and play". There is quite a steep learning curve in using the software and I still haven't worked out how I can decode PSK etc as the soundcard is tied up with the SDR rig. I believe I need a "virtual audio cable" and indeed I found and downloaded some software, could i make it work? No! I'm afraid it was beyond me at this stage- further research required.

I have now assembled most of the items I need to install the Icom 706 HF rig in my car. Since it also involves changing the in car stereo unit (to free up space on the dashboard) I am going to have to set at least a day aside to install it. Other commitments hear mean that won't happen for a few weeks yet.Rest assured news of the HF mobile will appear here when its underway. In the meantime the Icom 706 will continue to be my portable rig.

Out in the open

Today I had a day off work and since the weather was good I decided to pack up a rig and antenna, a flask and some sandwiches and go portable!
I drove to Bwllch-y-Clawdd, a high spot  about 30 minutes drive from where I live. This location overlooks the Rhondda Valley  and the views are pretty amazing from here.


I set up the Icom 706 and  Buddistick antenna, powered from my portable 20ah battery (weighs around 705Kgs!) and I was ready to go. This is a very peaceful location, for the three hours or so I was there I saw no-one else. I have operated VHF previously  from this location and know that its a good site. However I had not tried HF before and I wondered if with my limited small vertical antenna I would be able to work anything. I was able to vary my output power but for the most part I was running around 30 watts.
Initial attempts were not too promising with just a marginal QSO with a mobile station on the Isle of Man on 40 metres SSB.
Switching to 10 metres I had a little more success working into Germany and Italy, one of the Italian stations was running only 900 milliwatts!


6 Metres was also open, but try as I might I could not get my antenna to a good match on 6 metres although it is supposed to work on that band.

All in all an enjoyable few hours using the radio in the fresh air. A couple of learning points too.
1) The Buddistick on its little tripod is prone to blow over in a strong breeze, I need to look into a way of weighting or anchoring the tripod better.
2) The Buddistick whilst a clever antenna can be VERY tricky to tune. I have read that the radial length is important but varying the radial length didn't seem to make much diffeence for me.
3) I could not tune the antenna on 6 metres at all. I need to look into this as I like to operate 6 when the band is open.


I do have a small MFJ ATU which I could take with me but I would like to get the antenna to match as closely as I can without an ATU, after all its just more weight in my rucksack!!

Practising for Portable

Here is the latest addition to my shack. Well its not actually for the shack. this is the rig that I intend to fit into my car so I can go HF mobile. Its an Icom 706Mk1. Quite an elderly set now but it works well. I have had it running here in the shack and strangely enough it seems more sensitive on 145Mhz than the Yaesu FT857 which I normally use. This is odd as I believe the early 706 had a reputation for being deaf on this band.

I revisited an old friend today in the form of the "Buddistick"  USA made portable HF antenna. I purchased the antenna a few years back, it is very well made and can be put up from scratch in a matter of minutes. It can cover from 40 metres up to 2 metres.I haven't had the time to do any portable operation for a while but am hoping to do so this year so I thought I had better familiarise myself again with this excellent antenna.

Here it is in its carrying bag.

And here it is fully erected in the garden

Since the Icom 706 was doing nothing better at the moment I set it up in the garden with the Buddistick and monitored 20 metres in the sun!