Magnum 257 RF Limited

  Hi All

I Just recently took possession of a Magnum 257  (non High Power) by Rf Limited and having read a lot of reviews about this transceiver I was eager to try it for myself. The radio was not new only new to me but well looked after second hand.It's one of the older versions brought out in 1999 and therefore only has the reset pads and 2 conversion points as opposed to the new versions that have a reset button and 4 conversion points. This small difference does not however take away from the performance of this little radio.

       Out of the box the radio covers 10 meters only from 28.000 to 29.699 AM/FM/SSB a little let down that it didn't have CW facility but that's a minor issue. To expand the radio's coverage is a breeze open the rig find the reset board move the jumper from one position to another ans with power off (off course) short out the reset pads momentarily. Put the covers on and power up the Radio,as usual it powers up on 29.300 (the Japansese FM calling channel) why I don't know as over here it's 29.600 mhz. Press function button and hold,then press call button for approx 3 seconds and wallah you now cover from 25.165 to 29.699 .

      I use it as a base unit hooked up to my 10 meter loop antenna on my balcony (3rd floor apartment) and it works pretty well indeed.This model (or mine anyway) is conservatively tuned to deliver approx 28 watts SSB / FM & 15 watts on AM this suits me just fine as I'm a keen QRP operator anyway.The receiver is pretty hot but a tad noisy radio really benefits from an external speaker something a little more widebanded frequency response wise than the built in speaker.On the CB part of things it can suffer a little from strong signal overload (backing off the RF gain here helps a little) but on the 10 Meter side this is not as noticeable.

       Ease of use (well I found my way around it) in about 3 mins flat without reading the manual,so yes it's pretty user friendly.I found it hearing weak signals pretty well and it picked up 10 meter beacons better than my FT301d did. I worked a few PY stations on it yesterday and it performed flawlessy .

      In my humble opinion it's better than the HTX 10 from Radio Shack (I've used both) so if you can pick one up for under $150 grab one they really are a nice little rig to have around.

Derek   KD-0-PNP