Well, sort of. On FT8 I mean. I just received a couple of transverters from the transverters store in the Ukraine. These are not the newer model with the TCXO but are cheap and cheerful. Yes, they do drift a little but it’s a toe in the water for me pending something else later on. I already have the Spectrum Communications 70MHz transverter and that works nicely but these are small units when compared, so I got a 70MHz and a 144MHz one.
I connected the 144MHz one up today and set the FT450D to 28.174 and immediately heard FT8 tones. I’d not even fired up WSJT-X but sorted that quickly and made my first 144MHz FT8 contact within 2 minutes of turning the transverter on – followed by one further QSO and an indication via pskreporter that I had been heard all the way in NI.
Yes, I know this is a minor achievement compared to those of other radio amateurs but it’s still a new one to me…
I now plan to sell off some kit including the Trio TR-9130 which has worked well. The one thing I don’t like about that set is the notchy and fairly slow tuning when in sideband which makes it hard to scroll across the band looking for signals – having the transverter means I can use the FT450D’s tuning which I am far more used to.
