The RF-10 is a military VHF FM manpack that was
manufactured for the Czech army by the Tesla company in Pardubice in the early
1070’s . It was intended to replace the
obsolescent Russian R-105 and R-109 manpack radios that had previously been
used by the Czech Army at company level.
It is much smaller and lighter than the radios it replaced and also
compared favourably against the US army PRC-77 and PRC-25 radios used by NATO forces
at the time.
The RF-10 covers the frequency range of
44 to 53MHz in 25 KHz steps . The mode is FM and power output is about 1W. Power is supplied by a battery box that
contains 5 x 1.2v D-Cell nicads.
The front panel has a multi-way
connector for the handset (8) , a BNC connector for an external antenna (2) and a socket for short and long whip antennas
(1).
Operating frequency is entered using
three frequency selectors, the first (3) covers 44 to 53 MHz in 1MHz
steps, the second (4) provides 100 KHz
steps and the third (5) selects 00, 25, 50 or 75KHz. This allows the band between 44 to 53 .975MHz
to be covered in 25KHz steps. Operating
frequency is displayed in the windows above the frequency selectors (6) . A red light (10) illuminates to provide a low
battery warning.
A mode switch (9) controls power on/off, squelch on/off and
‘whisper mode’ .
The icons on the mode switch are as
follows –
Whisper mode allows the microphone gain
to be increased so that the operator can communicate without having to raise
their voice – useful for some military situations !
The front of the radio is printed with a
set of simple operating instructions designed to allow non-technical operators
to establish communications with minimal training.
The RF-10 is supplied in a polystyrene
packing box with a complete set of accessories
-
1 – Carrying case
2 – Battery case
3 – RF-10
4 – Battery
5 – Handset
6 – shipping case
7 – Long wire Antenna (30M)
8 – Long wire antenna (5M)
9 – counterpoise
10 – padlock
11 – long whip antenna (1.5M)
12 – short whip antenna (0.5M)
13,14 – straps
15 – spare fuse wire
16,17,18 – Manuals.
The manuals are in Czech and provide
detailed operating instructions , including diagrams of how the set should be
carried -
The record book for this particular set
indicated that it has been in use from 1984 until 1995.
The set comes with an extensive set of
antenna options – long ( 1.5m ) for up to 5Km range and short (0.5m ) whip antennas , a 5M vertical wire antenna for up to 10Km
range and a 30M long wire for up to 20Km
range.
The instructions on the side of the set
indicate how these should be deployed.
This particular set has been tested on the
amateur 6M band both portable using the whip antennas and mobile using a ¼ wave
mobile whip. It proved to be very
sensitive on 6m and allowed contacts of > 15km distance when mobile and >
20Km when portable from high ground. As
this is an eastern block set it does not
use the 150 Hz tone squelch common to NATO sets which makes it more suitable
for amateur use .
This is an interesting collectors item and
is still a very usable set on the amateur bands. They occasionally turn up for sale on e-Bay
for around €70 to €100 .
