14 January 2025

Something Interesting For The New Year

Lab599, the Russian company behind the development of the TX-500 HF rig, has been teasing out a new 'manpack' version of the radio for almost a year now. Lab599 has a habit of surprising the ham radio community. The TX-500 was in 'rumored development' for several years, and many (including me) thought it was just vaporware. Then one day, there it was! And not only was it a real radio, but it turns out they had secretly partnered with Chameleon Antenna here in the states on some antenna concepts for the radio, and they managed to sign up Ham Radio Outlet as the exclusive US-based retailer. The TX-500 had a bit of a rough start - a number of manufacturing and distribution issues, some poorly thought-out launches of accessories like an attachable battery pack, COVID, and then the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Remarkably, Lab599 weathered all of this. They repudiated Putin's moves in Ukraine, moved manufacturing to the United Arab Emirates, struggled with some chip issues, continued to push out firmware updates, overcame some service issues here in the US, and all the while kept up an honest dialog with their customer base. Along the way the TX-500 became a minor hit both here in the US and in Europe. Performance is good, it's rugged, and its designers stripped out all the frilly bells and whistles that festoon competitors in the same market space, like the Icom IC-705 - a move that got the approval of a huge swath of folks in ham radio.

Over a year ago Lab599 hinted that they were working on a manpack version of the TX-500, called the TX-500MP. The computer generated images showed a radio that resembled a very large HT, with a small screen and no VFO knob - no knobs of any kind. When I saw the digital mock-up it struck me that Lab599 wasn't designing this strictly for the ham radio market. They are going after commercial, government and military contracts with this radio. 



A few weeks ago Lab599 announced that not only is the TX-500MP a real product, but it's in production and will be released for sale in late January 2025. Then a video of the radio being tested by Russia-based YouTuber RadioChief appeared, along with some Facebook videos. My Russian language skills are a bit rusty (i.e., they don't exist), but it's easy to follow the videos. In addition, YouTube (Google) will do a fairly good job of providing English language captions. Unfortunately since the video is hosted on YouTube's Russian servers I can't post it here, but you can open the link (above) directly in your browser and watch.

There's a lot to like in the YouTube and Facebook videos, and here's what I'm able to glean:
  • The radio has a built-in tuner. In fact, in the videos I've seen, Lab599 is making a lot of noise about how the built-in tuner performs better than the Elecraft T1 tuner. The T1 tuner has been a popular accessory for the original TX-500 owners. If I was Lab599 I'd be careful here. The T1 tuner is legendary in ham radio for being able to tune just about anything. It's not all about tuning speed. On a radio like this it's about impedance matching capability. If the TX-500MP tuner is faster, but can't match as wide a range as the T1, then Lab599 is setting themselves up for criticism
Screen capture from a Facebook video

  • Battery pack. The radio includes a detachable battery pack. The battery pack for the original TX-500 is one area where Lab599 stumbled badly. They came up with a very good design, and some made it to market in the US, then the supply quickly dried up. I suspect Lab599 just couldn't get sustained volume production going on this item. But with the TX-500MP, it looks like the battery pack is an integral component to the radio
  • No conventional VFO. Good! This radio is designed to be a channelized unit - load up your pre-determined frequencies and assign them to channels. By eliminating rotating dials, either for the VFO, audio, or other functions, you make it easier to fully weatherproof the radio. 
Almost exactly a year ago Julian, OH8STN, discussed the radio on YouTube, relying on some information he'd apparently received directly from Lab599. Julian discussed, and showed pictures of, what he called a 'break-out box' being made for the TX-500MP. The design and concept looked great, but I have not seen any discussion of it in the recent postings and videos.

From Julian's YouTube channel

By now it's obvious I'm intrigued by this radio. This is the radio I've been waiting for Icom, Yaesu or Kenwood to make. I won't be an early adopter - I'll let others test it and wring it out - but if the radio lives up to its promise then there'll eventually be one in my backpack. 

I'm looking forward to this radio getting into the hands of an experienced English speaking reviewer (not a fanboy or an 'unboxer') and giving it a good, honest shakedown. Until then, I'm saving my pennies!

W8BYH out

03 January 2025

Winter Field Day 2025

It's January, and you know what that means! Winter Field Day! Yeah!

Goodness gracious, it's 2025 already, and the last full weekend of the month is Winter Field Day. I won't go into the particulars about Winter Field Day (WFD from this point forward). You can read about WFD and it's rules on their website. I really like WFD because my club, KK4GQ, traditionally goes to a local state park and we do individual setups, with only the bare minimum of coordination. Some folks come out just for the day, some come out and tent camp for the weekend, and others like my lovely YL and I will take our camper out for an extended stay. For us it's less an operating event, and more a social gathering as members (campground staff and other campers) wander from setup to setup to see who's running what. There'll be food, campfires, lots of tall tales, some technical stuff, and a generally good time. 

This is, I think, the fourth year we've gone out to this state park. It's called Chattahoochee Bend State Park, and it's in the northwestern corner of Coweta County, south of Atlanta. While it's a large park in terms of acreage, other than camping and hiking there's not a whole lot to do there. That's why it's easy to get reservations, and it's quiet. For my wife and I it's our 'home' park - it's where we go when we just want to get away from it all, but don't want to travel far (the park is only about 50 minutes from our house). It has the added bonus that our daughter and her family live only about 20 minutes away, so they can drop by for a quick visit.

We've never had a bad WFD at this park, but we have had some interesting ones. One year it snowed, then the power went out. Roberta and I were lying in bed wondering if, a. we had enough propane left in the single 20 gallon bottle to see us through the night and, b. if we had enough juice in the battery to keep the furnace igniter and blower working until the power came back on. The answer to both of those questions was, 'we're not sure', so we packed ourselves and the dogs into the car and rushed home through a snowstorm to spend a warm night at home, returning to the campground the following morning to finish out the weekend. 

Another WFD brought us rain, lots of it, and we had to take refuge in the camper. I clamped a Chameleon vertical antenna to the picnic bench, snaked some coax into the camper, set my IC-705 in an overhead cabinet, linked to it wirelessly and collected some contacts while sitting at the dinette table. 

Good thing the Chameleon is waterproof


Snuggled away in an overhead cabinet, talking wirelessly to my laptop

But like I said, most of our club's WFD setups are more social events than operating events. It's fun to wander around, take a look at not just the radio setups but the campsite setups, catch up with friends I see too infrequently, and just shoot the breeze. 

The weather's not always bad, and some years it's balmy and shirtsleeve weather - 


And other years it's just downright cold - 


But we always seem to draw a crowd.

Some park staff and other campers talking with KI4ASK about amateur satellite comms.
Joe always puts on a good show

This year Roberta and I will have some interesting changes. First of all, we have a new, larger camper that is much more comfortable to take refuge in if the weather gets really bad. Next, while it's close to Atlanta and all of its infrastructure, cell coverage at Chattahoochee Bend is lousy. We'll be using Starlink quite heavily on this trip. Next, I've got some new antenna setups I'm eager to try. And while I don't have any new radios, I've got old radios with new configurations that I'm looking forward to testing out.

If you are not doing anything on January 25th, drop on by. We'd love to meet you!

W8BYH out