ora@munich.DEC (Ora Jaervinen CIM Engineering Munich) (02/24/86)
Does anyone have any practical experience with the following products: 1) Kantronics UTU-XT and AEA CP-100 terminal units. The Kantronics seems to have a more features (built in microprocessor with AMTOR etc.) while the AEA one is a 'plain' RTTY converter (or modem, if you like). The price is roughly the same though; makes one wonder whether the actual 'modem' part of the AEA is so much better? Also, I would be interested to know whether you can bypass the internal micro in the UTU-XT (tap the demodulator output directly) if you want to use your own SW/HW to decode strange speeds, codes, protocols etc.? 2) Trap slopers. There is a number of small companies advertising very similarly looking trap slopers in CQ, 73 etc. Are these any good? Something like that would suit my limited space very well. I'm becoming active after a long time again; I need a compact wire antenna to get on the air in the first place (until I get something better for 20/15/10) and would be using it on 80/40 permanently (maybe 160). No DX ambitions for 80, just short-range ragchewing. 3) Butternut HF4B ('Bytterfly') This is a very compact 'mini-beam' for 20/15/12/10 meters. I realize that one cannot expect the performance of a full-size six-element monobander from this one, but it's about maximum that I can put up. Any experiences? Any other recommendations for a *very* small beam?