[Drake] drake guy in the Rockville MD area

[Al Parker]

MIke,
	After reading your whole msg, I must say that you didn't pend enough 
time to learn (again) how to use the Drake twins.  Properly used, you 
won't find much of a signal, if any, on the "wrong" side of center.  The 
twins do make a good CW rig.
	I will agree that if you really want to operate CW in a serious way, 
TenTec is the way to go.  I've been a TenTec owner continually almost as 
long as a Drake 'nearly continuous' owner.  Drake started in 1975, 
TenTec in -76.
	I presently own Drake B-twins & TR-4CW/rit, and TenTec Omni-V &  Triton 
IV.  I got most of my DXCC on a Triton IV back in the late 70's, with 
early help from a TR-4 (much on CW).
73,
Al, W8UT
www.boatanchors.org
www.hammarlund.info

"There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much
worth doing as simply messing about in boats"
Ratty, to Mole

On 8/24/2011 6:55 PM, Mike Hyder -N4NT- wrote:
<snip
> I went to a friend's house in Knoxville to work a CW contest with his
> T4XB/R4B station and was driven even crazier by its filtering system. There
> is a multi-position switch that sets the bandwidth and I'm pretty sure it
> uses an RC filter and do not think it had crystal filtering. I tell you this
> because when I tuned across a CW signal, I could hear the carrier on both
> sides of zero beat which made a crowded band seem twice as crowded. I ran
> home and got my Heath HW-101 and found it far superior to that 'B-Line.' The
> R4A had the same filtering system.
>
> Unless you have a burning desire to have a Drake station, I respectfully
> suggest you consider a Ten-Tec radio. You can find those on the used market
> at very reasonable prices. They are excellent rigs, especially for CW.
>
> 73, Mike N4NT