One addition for the FT-817 that I should have added for a long time, arrived today from Box 73, the online shop of the german ham radio magazine, Funkamateur. It is a microphone compressor based on the SSM2165 chip, housed in a handy enclosure and plugged between the transceiver and the microphone. Kit details can be found in this description from their website, both in german and english.
DYC-8×7 Mic Compressor
The online shop is only german, but very intuitive to use even for non german speaking users like me. In my emails to them confirming the payment they were actually so kind to translate based on the shipping country I selected, but the text was in portuguese. Funny… A romanian living in Italy and speaking portugese with germans.
Working in SSB, with 5W and small antennas its not a suitable combination, but hope will make a difference with this little jig. Folks from eHam.net and some Facebook groups gave it a thumbs up. From the datasheet: “When transmitting SSB, a dynamic compressor increases average transmitted power, and thus the audibility of a weak signal at the distant receiver, by at least one S-unit.”
The kit comes with the SMD components already soldered, the only things to mount are the SSM2165, two pots, RJ connectors, a tantalum cap and a switch. I will give it a try soon these days and see what it can do.
YO4HHP's blog 