{"id":44888,"date":"2020-08-19T18:22:08","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=44888"},"modified":"2020-08-19T19:55:42","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T23:55:42","slug":"lets-hit-the-field-with-the-new-lab599-tx-500-discovery-qrp-transceiver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2020\/08\/lets-hit-the-field-with-the-new-lab599-tx-500-discovery-qrp-transceiver\/","title":{"rendered":"Let’s hit the field with the new lab599 TX-500 Discovery QRP transceiver!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday, I took delivery of a lab599 TX-500 Discovery<\/strong> QRP transceiver. Many thanks to Josh at Ham Radio Crash Course<\/a> for shipping it here and Ham Radio Outlet<\/a> for trusting me with this fine machine for the next couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

I’ve been looking forward to this day for months<\/em>–indeed, nearly a year.<\/p>\n

A few initial impressions…<\/h1>\n

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I won’t lie: the TX-500 is a gorgeous little transceiver and it’s solid<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The form factor is even a little smaller and lighter weight than I had imagined. I thought the multi-pin connectors on the side panels were the same size as, say, an XLR connector. Turns out, they’re much smaller and quite easy to use.<\/p>\n

To put the TX-500 on the air, you’ll need to connect a minimum of three things: the power cable (terminated with Anderson Power Poles on the battery side), an antenna (BNC), and the speaker microphone. The TX-500 has no built-in speaker.<\/p>\n

That’s all you’ll need if operating SSB. If operating CW, of course you’ll need to connect your key, but you’ll still need the speaker\/mic connected for audio. That does make for quite a few things connected to the radio all at once.<\/p>\n

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The backlit display is high-contrast and easy to read indoors and in full sunlight. (And yes, that’s the Voice of Greece!)<\/p><\/div>\n

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am not a fan of speaker microphone combos, but I’ll readily admit that the one with the TX-500 is about as good as they come. It feels durable and produces serious volume. The audio fidelity is obviously built around voice and CW, so it’s not ideal for HF broadcast listening, although it does have an external mono speaker port on the side of the mic.<\/p>\n

If I owned this TX-500, I would order another speaker\/mic 6 pin connector and build a headphone cable for broadcast listening and CW use. An easy fix.<\/p>\n

For SSB though? The provided speaker\/mic works. Indeed, it works quite well in the field because it’s so easy to hear.<\/p>\n

There’s so much more to this radio, but I’ll save that for future posts and my full review. Let’s talk code…<\/p>\n

Attaching a key<\/h1>\n

This morning, the first thing I did was fire up my soldering iron and make a CW paddle cable. (I hope HRO doesn’t mind–I didn’t exactly think to ask. Come to think of it, let’s just keep this between us, ok?<\/em>). \"\"<\/a>I soldered three wires to the supplied 5 pin connector (pins 1, 2, and 5).<\/p>\n

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To keep things simple, I hooked the TX-500 up to my Vibroplex single lever paddle which sports three terminals, making it easy to connect to the CW cable pigtail. Plus, heck, any excuse to play with the Vibroplex, right!?<\/p>\n

CW<\/h1>\n

I was so eager to see how the TX-500 would perform on CW, that immediately after hooking up the key the first time, I checked POTA spots<\/a> and worked two stations (WR8F in Ohio and NG5E in Texas) in rapid succession. Here’s a video of the exchange with NG5E:<\/p>\n