[HBR] which receiver is THE BEST receiver

[Walter A. Hutchens]

Rob wondered:
> Which receiver is THE BEST receiver.

Now you could start a fight in most any homebrew radio bar with that.   The 
answer is "it depends."

Going camping?  Portability will be important.   Working long hours in a 
contest?   Human factors including a well-laid out panel will be on your list.

Listen a lot under crowded conditions?   Selectivity, ultimate rejection, and 
intermod will be your issues.    Given to popping into the shack for a short 
QSO or two at odd times?   You'll want low drift during warm-up -- and so 
on.   

How's your pocketbook?   Commercial or home made, the more you can pay, 
the better all-round receiver you're likely to get.   

> Is one type best for CW and another type better for SSB?

If CW is your main mode you'll want maximum selectivity and just good 
enough stability that you don't have to retune during a QSO.   For SSB you 
don't want such good selectivity and qualities that mean good inteligibility -- 
low intermod, good audio, and drift in the 10 CPS/hour range are helpful.  

> I always wondered why receivers commanded high price tags. 

Crappy receivers don't -- they are cheap.   But the more strong points you 
want a receiver to have, the more you're going to pay.   A very sharp 
designer can turn out a good compromise at a good price, but that just 
means you know up front what you're not going to like.   If you want 'no 
compromise' then you're looking at an R-390A -- no compromise for the 
1950's though it cost a couple of year's salary at the time and weighs what -
- 80 pounds.   Today, maybe something from AOR?   

The Ted Crosby HBR series are an example of a sharp designer doing a 
home brew design for ham construction.   Ease of construction -- YES; 
flexible performance -- YES, adequate sensitivity; freedom from serious 
intermod, enough selectivity, all YES.   Low drift -- NO on low bands; HELL 
NO on 20 and 10.   Ease of use -- FAIR to NO -- many controls, most were 
built with 'economy' dials.  

But it remains a truly great design because that combination of choices 
worked well for U.S. ham skill levels and pocketbooks.   

The G2DAF designs were technically superior -- far better than the W6TC 
sets.   But fewer were built, especially in the U.S., because they were more 
demanding construction projects.  Another sharp set of design choices but 
for a different (smaller) group of constructors.

I agree that U.S. commercial receivers of the 1950s-60s were overpriced 
for their performance but that was because they underperformed their 
parts and manufacturing costs.   Just as is true in many areas today 
(computer software!!!) designers were trapped in a spiral of adding features 
for marketing reasons rather than building to a performance spec.

Study the NCX-5 (National's attempt to compete with the top Collins sets) 
and weep.   For that matter, study Collins ham sets -- good performers, but 
at GREAT cost.   Military receivers -- there were some good ones, a lot of 
warmed-over commercial designs, and some very expensive bottom of the 
barrel -- I nominate the SRR-11, 12, 13 series for the 'least bang for the 
taxpayer buck' award.   A superb job of building a 1940 receiver in 1950, 
with subminiature tubes.   You ever wonder why RCA is no longer an 
independent company?   Study one of these sets for a while.   Try to listen 
to a signal.   

Someday I'm going to meet someone who worked at RCA and knows how that 
sad story happened.

> What is best to buy or build from scratch? Regen, superhet, direct 
> conversion, TUBES? , transisters, crystal radio?

As above, "it depends" -- on what you want and what you are able to pay or 
build.   If building you pretty much have to start with simple designs 
because there's too much that can't be put in the diagram and construction 
notes and must be learned as you go.   Tubes give more performance for a 
given level of complexity and fairly simple sets -- six or seven tubes can do 
a really excellent job on a couple of bands.   

Build the HBR-8 then extend it to the HBR-11.   Good performer, and has all 
the parts of a 'real' receiver.   Then you're ready to tackle anything you 
want.

Walt 
KJ4KV