[Elecraft] Drake twins quiet compatred to K2?

[Lyle Johnson]

Hello Tim!

> ...My question is this: were the tube rigs by default
> quieter than the solid state rigs and now the DSP rigs?
> I've never operated a tube radio and am curious.

The short answer is, "No." :-)  But there were quiet vaccum tube radios, and
there were noisy ones.  There are quiet solid state radios and there are
noisy ones.

In general, a radio with synthesizers tends to be noiser than one without.
And synthesized radios tend to be solid state.

Wayne went to some trouble to design a synthesized radio with a clean VCO,
low power consumption, and single conversion.  The K2 also has most digital
circuitry in idle when receiving to minimize noise without having to include
a lot of shielding.

Your friend's R-4C is a hybrid, with some tubes in the signal path and some
transistors and ICs.  It has no synthesizer, but the external FS-4 can be
added to give you more flexibility - and phase noise like amodern radio :-)

73,

Lyle KK7P