Back in mid-December, I found myself searching Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace for ‘ham radio’ items. I don’t know what I was looking for, nothing specifically. Maybe a CW key or a cheap antenna (I would like a reasonable dual-band UHF/VHF ‘base’ antenna that would be better than my discone) but nothing expensive. Money is tight and I shouldn’t even be looking.
Still, I spotted an interesting ad on Facebook: an ICOM 7300 ~1-year-old and including a desk microphone for $700.
I really didn’t *need* a new HF rig. There’s nothing wrong with the Xiegu G90. It functions well and has an amazing list of features.
The only complaints I have are:
- that the screen is small. Almost too small. I wish it were a little bigger.
- Power output is limited to 20 watts – this is fine most of the time but I found myself wanting a little more… all the time.
- digital operation can be a little buggy
- I have to power cycle / hard reset the device frequency
Still, it’s an all mode, all band HF rig.
Back to the ICOM 7300… I contacted the seller thinking that I might like to take a look but knowing that I didn’t have the dough. I toyed with the idea of making a lower offer and then saying “sorry, I just don’t have the cash”.
I arranged to drive down to Lincoln (about 45 min away) to take a look.
the whole drive down, I was thinking of different scenarios of how things would play out. I thought that perhaps it would turn out to be a dud or maybe it was stolen. I’d offer the guy $650 and then head back to Omaha empty handed.
No need to drag this out. I got to the guys house and met him at the door. He had everything boxed up in the living room. We talked for a few minutes and I asked why he was selling his gear. He shared that he was terminally ill and on hospice care and that ham radio no longer had a place in his life.
Everything looked good, the rig was clean and looked new. The microphone, an MFJ-299, wasn’t something I would have picked out for myself (I don’t do much voice work on HF), but it was also in like-new condition.
We made a little small talk and I forked over $700, all the while feeling mildly uncomfortable buying this guy’s rig. Mostly because he was dying. I wished I could offer MORE rather than low balling him.
Before I walked out, he pulled out a Samlex power supply and offered to sell it to me for $60 – I had no more cash so I offered to ‘venmo’ it to his son.
All the way home, I cursed myself for buying the gear. But the deal was done. I foolishly left his house without even powering the rig up. (I had brought a few items to do some cursory testing)
Over the course of the next week or two, the guy was calling me every couple days – initially I thought he was having sellers remorse but he kept finding items that I might be interested in.
I made another trip down and picked up an MFJ manual tuner and an MFJ CW decoder device.
I’ve been using the ICOM 7300 ever since. The screen is significantly bigger and the rig has way more features than the Xiegu. It’s like night and day.
Plus, I now have access to 100 watts, though I’ve kept the power output down to 50 generally and 75 occasionally.
I also ordered a mobile dual-band rig, a Yaesu FT-7250D after struggling with those shitty Baofeng rigs. I can now hit plenty of repeaters and have had a few simplex contacts to various points around Omaha.