From the RAT Files Circa 2003: The Amazing RadioShack HTX-420!

The following was originally composed as radio copy for THIS WEEK IN AMATEUR RADIO for airing Saturday September 27, 2003 as a feature entitled: THE RANDOM ACCESS FILE. Please click on http://www.twiar.org/ for additional information on this premier amateur radio audio news service.

I had a Sunday brunch with a remarkable Motley Crew of ham radio operators. Among the quorum in session were George Bowen W2XBS, our Technical Guru here at This Week In Amateur Radio and Bill Continelli W2XOY,our Maven Emeritus of the Amateur Radio Archives. We had convened at a nearby Denny's Restaurant in Defreestville, a little half-mile strip of nowhere, planted right in the middle of anywhere, jammed in smack dab somewhere in where ever, upstate New York. Bill was in his best evangelistic form extolling the virtues of his brandspanking new Radio Shack HTX-420 dual band handheld transceiver which he sternly advised was on closeout for a mere $129.00 US. Bill quietly murmured in conspiratorial tones that the very last unit in the area could be located at the Hoosick Street Radio Shack in Troy.

The 420 was a cute little blister, reminiscent of the Kenwood TH-D7A in terms of appearance and keyboard layout. The HTX-420 transmits from 144 to 148 MegaCycles and from 438 to 450 out of the box and offers extended receive from 136 to 174 and from 420 through 512, plus the aircraft bandfrom 108 to 137.

The little HTX might not have been of further interest except that Bill further intoned that this radio could be easily modified to transceive far beyond its respective band edge limits. How easy? This is how easy. On page 42 of the owner's manual, under the heading: CHANGING THE TRANSMIT FREQUENCY RANGE The following statement: "To extend the range, turn off the transceiver. then while holding (the SCAN button) plus (the 9 button), press POWER". With this so-called MOD, the two meter transmit now expands from 142 to 149.88. This is typical Civil Air Patrol and MARS capability and so no big deal. It was the extended transmit from 420 through 470 that caught my attention so let's flag that thought for just a moment.

This is a quite a sea change from previous Radio Shack policies regarding their amateur radio walkie-talkies especially since when they first debuted their HTX-202. That radio was loudly hailed as a two meter-only rig, no extended transmit, no expanded receive. Apparently, this ham-only approach has been slowly tail spinning away from stated doctrine. This keyboard approach is also light-years away from the days when open heart surgery had to be performed on some HTs. I still have my Kenwood TH77A which had to be physically disemboweled. Some highly significant mega-chip had to be unsoldered and physically lifted off the primary board just to further unsolder two microscopic surface mount components hidden beneath. Professionals were needed and secured for the project. This was far beyond my own capabilities. But the job got done. Similar devices such as the Standard C528A did not require the scary circuit board hospitalization but did offer keyboard MODs. However, the prospective owner was required to enter several pages of many PRESS FUNCTION and many PUSH NUMBER in an effort to unfetter and to unshackle. A major-league headache!

My now archaic Alinco F-1 handheld, which in untimely manner became the F-1 MINUS 2 when my son, four years old at the time of the incident, smart-bombed a well-targeted shoe onto the surface of the innocent radio and promptly amputated the bright white little number 2 keypad button which quickly bounced away and got lost forever somewhere in the flibbity-jibbity. And my other assorted Alincos...well, they did make life a bit easier by providing the obvious SNIP HERE bright yellow wire or the obvious CLIP-HERE bright white resistor but even so, the protective covers to the transceivers needed to be undone and their soft and secret internals violated.

But not so with the HTX-420. At the conclusion of our Sunday brunch with the Motley Crew, I decided to take a leisurely tour upstreet to Troy and sauntered into the emporium and put forth my request and the requisite cash-flow. Five minutes later, I had the booty in tow. I was tempted to change tracks and go with a pair of Motorola T-5950 Family Radio Service radios sitting on the shelf, but I held firm which brings us back to my flagged thought. This little HTX by its own design parameters embraces both the Family Radio Service and also the General Mobile Radio Service and this little HTX byits own design parameters transceives very well in both the 462 and 467 MegaCycle ranges. Armed with this sensitive little brick of technology, I was now privy to an amazing microscopic world just outside my ham shack window and just right down the street.

But the signals...................................
They are so small..............................
And the signals..................................
They are so much higher in frequency..............
That you can just barely hear them...................
Outside your window...........................................
........................much less right down the street.
And the radios that are being used....................
They are so small.................................................
That they..............................................................
Like the cellphone................................................
And the pager.......................................................
.................could easily be dropped into a toilet.

So on my own city block where I live, lots of little kids have lots of these little 500-milliwatt FRS radios that you can grab for nine bucks at the WalMart. An endless chaotic stream of beeping noises can be heard in the late after-school hours, playing endlessly between dinner-time, homework-time and bed-time. Legal issues aside, I decided to attempt first contact with the pre-teen street population using the the amazing HTX-420 on high power and much like the CB of yesteryear, lines like "Hey, what's your 20???" were still very much part of the working vernacular.

I immediately met resistance when I asked them what they were doing on MY channel. Perhaps I was a bit forward with this unsubstantiated claim.

"Who are you?" They demanded.
"I am the King!" I asserted.
"You are not the King!" They challenged.
"How can you say that?" I stated in self-defense.
"Because the King lives in Egypt!" They argued.
"But I am from Egypt!" I lied.
"No you are not!" They theorized with obvious knowledge and truth.
"How can you tell?" I wondered aloud.
"Because you are here in Albany on my street!" They assured me.
"I am the Queen!" Said another, far more adult, far more feminine and far closer to my age.
"You are?" I stammered.
"Yes, I am a nurse too..." She purred.
But I was not sure if this was an act of seduction or an offer of mental health therapy, so I put the 420 down and continued to listen to the on-going drone of the beeps, the boops and the blips while the Queen called for the King several times more but to no avail. I did learn a few hours later that the Queen had a late-night working spouse who might not appreciate HIS Queen getting it on with the King.

And later that same evening just a few minutes east of midnight: "The King is here!" I announced to the pre-squelched static rush and to no one in particular.

"Hey man...!" An anonymous young male voice countered.
"Yes?" I responded with guarded concern.
"Hey man, where are the girls?" He cooed with a edgy, wicked smile.
"I don't know." I waffled, caught off guard.
There was no more chit-chat to follow. My answer clearly was incorrect and it appeared to the young fellow may have sharked his way on to another channel in search of the "girls". Quite a departure from the kiddie-talk six hours earlier.
But better than cable TV just the same.

Now far be it from me to suggest that you or anyone employ non-FCC type-accepted RF equipment in the service of the 21st century CB lest some well-meaning but most-likely over-intentioned FRS or GMRS user freak out and spew government regulation dogma out through your speaker grill but I did have some fun. By the way, I did go back and picked up those Motorola 5950s at the same Radio Shack a few weeks later so now when the moment strikes me, I can jockey back and forth between the radios in an effort to keep mycantankerous audience at bay. Should you try this yourself? Only you...can answer that question! -30-