[ICOM] True phase-locked diversity

[Bill Tippett]

K4MO wrote:

 >Interesting ... I will check it out. I had a '1000D back in the early
90s that I used on 160. I had some beverage antennas for receiving and
it was the most amazing thing to listen to weak stations in diversity
mode with the beverages on the sub-rx and the full sized vert on the
main. I think our brains can do some incredible "cranial noise
reduction" when the signal is heard from one receiver in one ear, and
the other receiver in the other ear. It give the sound a third dimension
that lets you listen "around" the noise.

 >There were many times that solid copy could only be achieved in this
way, and either receiver alone only produced an unreadable signal buried
in  noise.

 >I found it quite incredible. Having a dual diversity system with two
good receivers and phase-locked tuning is, to me, the Holy Grail of Low
Band receiving set ups.

         Exactly!  It works even better if you have directional
antennas on both (e.g. 4-square for TX and Beverage on RX).
You can hear weak signals fade back and forth (L-R) between
your ears, but the combined copy is much more solid than if
you listened to either antenna alone.  Orion has quasi-diversity
but it is not phase-locked.  Also its Sub RX is far inferior
to the Main, which causes problems if there are many strong
signals nearby.  Both Main and Sub in the K3 are identical and
both should have front-end performance equal to and possibly
even exceeding Orion's (see performance notes in previous link).

73,  Bill  W4ZV (DXCC 341 cfmd on 80; 323 on 160)