A Surprisingly Good Little Four-Banger

Recently, I found I needed a simple 'four-banger' calculator with an easy to read display. Something that can easily and quickly do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, with maybe a few storage registers, square root and exponents. Nothing too complex, just a simple scientific calculator.

I checked my pile of old HP calculators, and nothing fit the bill (plus most of my old HPs have achieved collector status, and I don't want to use them as daily drivers). Checking HPs website, nothing is on offer that's reasonably priced. There's the HP Prime, which is way too complex for what I need, and a commemorative edition of the classic HP-15C, which is way too expensive for my tastes. A very good calculator, but just too pricey. I want something cheap - in the $10 - $20 range, so if I lose it or beat it up I can replace it and not feel bad. HP does offer the 300s+ Scientific Calculator model for $100, but that's too much for what looks suspiciously like a re-badged Casio.

Alas, it looked like I'd need to go to the Dark Side, and consider a non-RPN (reverse polish notation) calculator. There's plenty of them available, probably over 50 models from various manufacturers. Amazon has page after page of them. A few weeks back I took the plunge and ordered a Casio fx-300es calculator. It's inexpensive, just ten bucks on Amazon, and billed as a 'standard' scientific calculator. It's anything but 'standard'. The darned thing is so frustratingly complex that after just 10 minutes of poking the keys I put it aside. I'm sure it's a crackerjack calculator - it gets great reviews - but if I can't figure out how to use a calculator for a simple equation, say 25 x 60, within two minutes of opening the package the problem isn't me, it's the calculator.

Back to Amazon. After a bit more shopping I decided to take another $10 chance on a model that's been on the market, in one form or another, for almost 50 years (!), the Texas Instruments TI-30. I've had a natural dis-inclination for TI calculators for decades. They were HP's major competitor, and I much preferred HP's RPN operating system. Plus, EVERY early TI calculator I owned or used exhibited quality issues. In the late 70's, TI made a conscious corporate decision to go cheap on their calculators. The TI algebraic operating system was solid, the calculators themselves were not. Keys would stop working, LED displays would start dropping character segments. battery packs would crap out at the worst time, like during an exam (ask me how I know). 

I owned at least two early-ish TI calculators, an SR-51 and a TI-59. I bought the SR-51 while I was in college. I couldn't afford even the cheapest HP calculator, so I had to settle for the SR-51. The TI-59 was my father's (he much preferred the TI algebraic operating system), and he gave it to me when he retired. The SR-51 is long gone, but I still hold onto the TI-59 for nostalgia reasons.

Anyway, back to the modern iteration of the TI-30, the TI-30Xa. I figured I'd swallow my pride and give TI another chance. Hey, it's only a ten buck gamble, so if the calculator is a complete fail I'll give it to my grandkids to play with.

To my surprise, and reluctant delight, this is a great little calculator! The keypad is well laid out and the selection of functions is remarkably complete, to include DMS < - > DD conversions. It has three storage registers (I rarely use more than two), the display is a multi-segment LCD and readability is great (by comparison, only my HP-11C comes close in terms of contrast & clarity), the build quality is quite good, and the keys have an almost (blasphemy alert!) HP-like 'snap' to them.

Comparing displays. The TI-30Xa is the hands down winner.

Drawbacks? Just one that stands out. The printing of the 2nd key labels can be a bit hard to read, but that's about it. 

I'll go out on a limb and say this is the best general purpose scientific calculator on the market today. The $10 price tag is just icing on the cake. Why does it work so well? Simple - it doesn't try to be more than it needs to be. The display is clear and crisps because it doesn't have to display complex equations or symbols. The keypad is well laid out. All critical functions are 'first key' operations. The feature set is limited compared to more advanced calculators like the HP- 11C, but I'm not going to be doing matrix functions or advanced statistics on this little TI. Again, it doesn't try to be more than it needs to be.

Sadly, for HP fanboys like me, this is a calculator that HP should be making. HPs last foray into the general purpose scientific calculator was the HP-35s (above). It was a very good calculator but HP stopped production on it about 3 years ago. There is still a strong demand for a simple and inexpensive scientific calculator that uses RPN. C'mon HP, you can still do it if you try!

Until then, it's the TI-30Xa. I've never said this publicly before, but here goes - great job, TI!

W8BYH out

What's Got My Attention - Late 2025 Edition

It's late November and we're past the hyperventilating wonder of the 2025 releases of new radios like Yaesu's FTX-1, or yet another Xeigu (this time the 6200). I'm looking around at the pile of press releases, new product announcements and feature enhancements that might interest me, and there's only three that have held my attention through much of the year - two radios and a firmware upgrade. 

The two radios are updates to existing products, but build on the success of the current platforms (which were already very good), and offer truly new and useful capabilities.

The first is an update to the classic, and ubiquitous, Icom IC-7300. The IC-7300Mk2 will be released in a few months, and I understand evaluation models are already in the hands of testers. The 7300Mk2 builds on the success of the original 7300, which is still for sale and is a great buy at current prices. The Mk2 adds reduced power draw on receive, reduced phase noise, an external RX antenna port, an ethernet port, USB-C, built in software server support (basically the server piece of Icom's RS-BA1 rig control software), HDMI video and audio output, and a few firmware gimmicks like CW decode. 

Back of the Mk2 model, showing the new connectors

As long as Icom doesn't screw with the original IC-7300 features that I really admire - the excellent but little understood 'Emergency Mode', and a native quiet scan function that makes the 7300 the default choice for folks looking to run ALE - the Mk2 looks like a great, and truly useful, upgrade to the original IC-7300. A great radio made greater.

Next, the newly released Lab599 TX-500MP. A few years ago Lab599 teased out that they were taking their successful TX-500 field radio and re-configuring it as a true manpack rig. This new concept incorporates a built in battery pack and antenna tuner. Lab599, like most companies, got hit hard by Covid, and had the extra whammy of being a Russian based company, with Russia-based manufacturing. The Ukrainian dust-up also impacted them, and drove them to move production out of Russia and to the UAE. Through all this, Lab599 was able to keep production running and introduce a few new projects. The announcement of the manpack version generated an incredible amount of interest within the intersecting QRP/POTA/SOTA/EMCOMM communities. 

TX-500MP. Look Ma, no VFO dial!

While many low power HF radios hint at being built for the outdoors, none are ruggedized in a true sense. They are not shock resistant or even remotely water resistant. They are just small and easy to drop in a backpack. Lab599, however, started their product design for the original TX-500 with the premise that it was going to be used outdoors in harsh conditions. This resulted in a radio that was highly water and shock resistant. While the radio (sadly) has never been certified to meet to any industry or MILSPEC water resistance standards, it never-the-less has developed a reputation as a highly water resistant and rugged unit. 

The original TX-500 was (and still is) a successful radio, but it looks as though Lab599 wanted to take the product design further and develop a fully integrated and fully sealed rig. My suspicion is that Lab599 is after government and commercial contract with this radio, customers that want a more fully enclosed and idiot proof rig. The first thing you notice with the TX-500MP is the lack of knobs, and for good reason. Rotating knobs, like a VFO knob, tend to be major points of failure on any radio - they get knocked off or bent, and the encoder seals leak, letting in water or dust. 

Lab599 recently posted pictures of TX-500 radios that had been used by Siberian
reindeer herders, and returned for repair. The radios all worked, but
many were missing their VFO knobs. Do you think any current production
Icom or Yaesu HF radio could withstand this much abuse?

Eliminate rotary dials and replace them with push buttons, and it becomes much easier to fully seal the radio against water and dust intrusion. The TX-500MP isn't a radio for someone trying to hunt POTA stations or work contests. It's a radio designed to support voice or digital operations on pre-determined frequencies or channels. As far as I know, ham radio operators have never had access to a fully water resistant HF radio unless it's a very expensive commercial, marine or military rig. The TX-500MP brings a high level of field ruggedness to the ham radio world at a reasonable price. There's one on my shopping list.

My last item of interest falls into the 'teach an old dog a new trick' category. Elecraft's flagship HF rig, the K4, came with a neat audio tool built into the firmware called called Controlled Envelope Single Sideband, or CESSB. CESSB is a compression technique that increases signal output by up to 4 dB, with no distortion or splatter. In the real world it can almost double the effective received audio. Think of a 100 watt rig sounding like a 200 watt rig, in terms of signal power at the receive end. Last year Elecraft started to hint that, because the K4 and both the KX2 and KX3 share the same digital transmit processing lineage, it might be possible to implement CESSB in the smaller KX QRP radios. In the last few weeks, Wayne Burdick, N6KR, one of Elecraft's founders and the principal designer of the KX2 & KX3 radios, announced that they will be releasing a CESSB firmware upgrade for both the KX rigs. The firmware is still in testing, but Wayne reports they see no critical issues that will keep it from being released. This would have the effect of making a 10 watt KX2 sound like a 20 watt rig at the receive end. 

An extra 10 watts for free? I'll take that!

Elecraft as a company continues to impress. The KX line of radios is over 10 years old. While that's not 'old' for a ham radio (Icom still sells an HF radio that have been in production for over 20 years), most manufacturers end firmware updates and support within just a few years of introduction. Elecraft is the exception. They still tinker with the firmware and push out bug fixes and updates as they appear. That they are about to release a major performance upgrade to two legacy radios, do it for free and fully support the upgrade is remarkable. It's one of the reasons I'm a big Elecraft fan.

When the CESSB update comes out, I'm looking forward to testing and tinkering with it on both my KX2 and KX3. It may well satisfy my 'lust' for a QRP rig that provides more than just 10 watts. I can finally take that Xeigu G90 out of my Radioddity shopping basket.

So of all the ham radio hoopla of 2025 - new HF rigs, new HTs, new mobile rigs, new antennas, etc. - these three releases are the only things that really grabbed and held my attention. Everything else was, honestly, boring or disappointing..

W9BYH out

Light the Path

At our last club meeting, several members gave back-to-back presentations on POTA/SOTA/field operations. All the talks were good, and even old dogs can learn new tricks... 😀

There were a few fairly new-ish hams in the audience, and after the presentation I heard one of them comment, "Goodness, there's just so much to learn. I don't know where to start". This fellow hit on one of our major problems in ham radio. There's too much to do, and too little direction.

Think back to the early days of Amateur Radio in the US. Let's use 1947 as a starting point. WWII was over and many servicemen were starting their civilian lives with a interest in radio and electronics. The things the military taught them had 'clicked', and radio electronics was a growing field. Amateur Radio licensing saw a surge like it had never seen before. Guys who a few years before had manned CW keys on ships in the middle of oceans, or from foxholes in Europe or the Pacific, wanted to keep doing it from the comfort of home, for fun. 

In the mid-20th century, the Amateur Radio learning and progression process was pretty well laid out, and every ham had to follow it. You started out with a teacher and guide - an 'elmer' - who taught you CW, radio theory and practical operations on the VHF & HF bands. You took a test, got a Novice license from the FCC (which was only valid for one year). Under the guidance of your elmer, you concentrated on code speed, more advanced radio theory, improved your operating practices, maybe built a kit or two under his tutelage. You were learning and practicing the fundamentals with the training wheels on. Before that  year was up, you toddled down to the local FCC field office and sat for the General class written and CW exams. If you passed, your training wheels came off and you could begin operating with the big boys. What's important in this paradigm is that the training wheels didn't come off until the new ham was rock-solid in the fundamentals of radio theory, design and operations, and that someone was by his or her side for the the entire journey.

Today the licensing process is much different. You buy a book or look on-line, study the answers to the questions (let's be honest, we've all done that), take a fairly easy exam, get a license and buy a toy. Some just sit and stare at the toy (an HT), and wonder what's next. Others have been watching and listening, and soon understand that there's an unbelievable range of things you can do in ham radio, but to a new ham the choices can be overwhelming. This highlights one of the fundamental problems in Amateur Radio today - elmer is dead. The concept of an experienced counselor who will guide a new Technican through the process of becoming an experience Amateur Radio operator is... well, it's like the weather - everyone talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.

(And no, the internet is not an Elmer, and AI won't help you get over mic fright or talk you through the  RF issues in your setup.)

The broad expanse of things new hams can do in the hobby is fascinating, and intimidating. This often drives people away, or causes confusion and a lack of focus on the fundamentals.

I was a victim of this myself. In 2003, when I got my General ticket, I was going to rule the Amateur Radio world - CW, SSB, VHF voice & packet, RTTY, PSK, APRS, satellite comms, fixed base and mobile HF operations. I tried to eat the elephant in one bite. For a few years I struggled. I did most things merely OK, nothing particularly well. I burned time, effort and money until I decided what I really like is long-haul HF operations and EMCOMM. My journey was not a waste, not at all. But it could have been a straighter path if someone had just whispered in my ear "focus boy, focus".

Too many choices and nobody to light the path. The breadth of ham radio activities can be what 'saves' amateur radio, but unless we get the concept of one-on-one guidance baked back into the system, we'll continue to see disappointingly high attrition rates among newly licensed Amateurs.

Have you ever guided anyone through their ham radio journey? Has anyone asked you to be their guide? Think about 'elmering' as the equivalent of a church ministry. It's what you do to support, give back and help the 'church' grow (and no, I'm not equating ham radio to a religion, it's just a metaphor). So, help spread the gospel to a congregation of one - be an elmer.

W8BYH out