[Milsurplus] RBC

[Kenneth G. Gordon]

On 16 Jun 2016 at 9:12, George Babits wrote:

> is now taken up with various HROs.  Every old receiver I have ever had that 
> someone added a product detector was pretty well ruined by the addition.

That depends, hugely, on how it is done, George. I agree that most of those "additions" 
were horribly bad. They were never thoroughly or well thought-out.

However, in my own case, after some careful study, "back in the day", I added a product 
detector to my very first BC-779, and the result was completely astonishing to me.

The apparent sensitiivity was increased many-fold, the overall internally-generated noise 
level appeared to drop very significantly, and that receiver became my very favorite receiver 
for CW and RTTY for as long as I had it.

I could copy stations with that receiver I couldn't even hear with the others I had in the 
shack.

Its sensitivity and "quietness" was at least equal to my RBB, and I thought at the time it was 
better. The two RF amp stages in the '779 made a big difference, I suspect.

It was amazing.

In my opinion, there are only two areas in the design of receivers which are true 
improvements since about 1939 or so: those are in AGC circuits, and detector circuits. 
Otherwise, the modern stuff is simply "fooling around" with what went before.

The OT designers weren't stupid, and they did it all without 'pooters.

Ken W7EKB