Specifications

From January 2005 QST © ARRL
of the radio is for the charger or to connect
an external supply of up to 6.5 V dc.
Getting Things Under Control
The gray front-panel pushbuttons bear
clear, white legends for their primary
functions—
V/M (VFO/memory), SCAN,
BAND, PWR
and FUNC. These access
major, secondary and, in some cases,
tertiary functions, and the most important
of these are spelled out in blue legends
above each button.
Sometimes, these buttons work in
concert with the tuning dial—another
feature the DJ-C5T managed without. For
example, to change frequency in 1 MHz
increments, just press and hold the
BAND
button while twirling the tuning dial up
or down. Access other functions by
pressing and holding the button. To lock
(or unlock) the controls, for instance, you
press and hold the
FUNC button (a small
key icon appears on the upper part of the
display window).
The other primary uses for the tuning
dial are to set the volume level and the
squelch level. Push the knob once and you
can set the volume anywhere between 0 and
30. Pushing the knob twice puts you into
squelch mode. The squelch setting is not
band exclusive. The range is from 0 to 9.
To set various global parameters, press
FUNC and the tuning dial in quick
succession. Pushing the tuning dial
further steps through the various settings,
accompanied by beeps (if beep is
enabled) that run up the musical scale
with each knob press. The parameters
include audio volume level to the
earphone jack (high or low), antenna type
(the C7T lets you use either an antenna
connected to the SMA jack or the
earphone cord as an FM broadcast
antenna), repeater function (see below),
tone burst frequency (there’s a choice of
four), auto power off, battery save (on or
off), beep (on or off), bell (rings when a
station breaks squelch on a channel
you’re monitoring), memory write
protect, scan type (“busy” or “timer”),
and AM/FM (you can only swap receive
mode after selecting a particular tuning
step but not in “auto” tuning step mode).
On the Air
As noted, you won’t be able to hit
anything beyond the local machines (your
mileage will vary, of course), but 300 mW
goes a long way, and I had no problem
accessing repeaters 15 or so miles away
on both VHF and UHF.
I judged the transmit audio quality as
excellent. Eliminating the repeater as a
variable, my wife and I swapped hand-
helds and worked each other on simplex.
We both considered the C7T’s transmit
audio not only crystal clear but very full
and natural sounding.
Visiting Other Radio Worlds
It was, of course, great to be able to
tune in the FM broadcast band (88.1 to
108 MHz, wideband FM mode). The C7T
also tunes the “AM aircraft” band, 108-
136 MHz—fun for long waits between
flights—as well as FM (or AM if you’d
like) from 136 to 174 MHz on VHF and
380 to 512 MHz on UHF.
By programming lower and upper
frequency limits, you can set up the C7T
to scan bands or entire swaths of
spectrum. The unit will, of course, also
scan just the memories you’ve already
programmed, and you can choose
between
BUSY and TIMER mode to
determine how the unit reacts when it
detects a busy frequency or channel.
In
BUSY mode, scanning stops when
a signal breaks squelch, and the receiver
remains on that frequency until the
receiver squelches again. In
TIMER mode,
it stops for 5 seconds—typically just long
enough for you to decide if it’s something
you want to hear—before moving on. The
TIMER mode eliminates the annoyance of
having the receiver lock onto stray signals
leaking from the local cable TV system,
for example. Kudos to Alinco for
including this scanning option. I found it
very handy.
The C7T also will scan signals and
detect the CTCSS tone (
TONE SCAN).
That’s a nice feature to include, especially
with more and more repeaters migrating
to tone squelch operation in repeater-rich
regions.
With an accessory cable, it’s possible
to “clone” the memories of one C7T into
another unit.
Experience Doesn’t Always Count
Now, most of us fairly experienced in
using the typical handheld transceiver can
figure out quickly and intuitively how to
get any radio up and running. That’s not
always the case with the C7T. All too
often, the manual would start to describe
how to enable or use a particular function
in one section only to send you elsewhere
to get the details. On occasion, I found
myself flipping back and forth to grasp
the big picture.
You’d think details on how to set up
the C7T for repeater use would be right
up there among the initial major points
the manual covers. Not so.
REPEATER
FUNCTION
(a parameter setting item)
isn’t even covered until page 24 of the
manual’s 32 pages. Additionally, it
doesn’t become clear until you’ve
thoroughly pored through the manual at
least once that the transceiver can be set
up either manually or automatically for
repeater operation, or, for that matter, that
manual settings override automatic ones.
Automatic repeater function means
having to figure out how to tell the
transceiver where to swap from negative
to positive offset and vice versa—
typically at 147 MHz in the US. As the
manual explains, “Prior to set [sic] this
parameter, edit a lower limit frequency
(the shift direction and the CTCSS tone
if requires [sic]) in the VFO mode and
store it to
AL memory channel.” Then,
“Edit a higher limit frequency to
AH
memory channel.”
While we’re on the topic of memory
programming, the C7T doesn’t let you
dump the contents of a memory back into
the VFO. Memories are not “tunable”
either.
Other operations were less confoun-
ding. It took a bit of initial experimenting
and, finally, a trip to the manual to write
to memories (it’s also pretty easy to
overwrite a memory unless you enable the
memory protect feature).
Clearly, this skimpy booklet with its
small typeface needs a bit of beefing up.
A Quick Reference Guide of some kind
spelling out basic, how-to-get-on-the-air
steps clearly and concisely would also be
a welcome addition.
Manufacturer: Alinco, www.alinco.
com/USA.html or Ham Distribution, Inc
(Alinco), 15-B5 S Trade Center Pkwy,
Conroe, TX 77385; tel [phone].
Price: $169.99; EDH32 external power
cable, $19.99.
Going Once,
Going Twice . . .
The ARRL-purchased equipment listed
below is for sale to the highest bidder.
Prices quoted on the Web page are the
minimum acceptable bids, and are
discounted from the purchase prices. All
equipment is sold without warranty except
as noted.
Details of equipment offered and
bidding instructions can be found on the
ARRL members’ Web page at www.arrl.
org/prauction. The following items are
available for bid in the January auction:
• ICOM IC-7800 200 W deluxe HF and
6 meter transceiver,
• Kenwood TS-480SAT mobile or fixed
HF and 6 meter transceiver,
• Spi-Ro AS-2 portable HF antenna,
• Elecraft XV-144 2 meter transverter,
• Palstar AT1500Bal balanced HF
antenna tuner,
• Wavenode WN-1 power meter with
software display.