[Premium-Rx] Resident WJ guru? New member question

[John Reed]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: R390rcvr at AOL.COM 
  To: premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2003 5:50 PM
  Subject: [Premium-Rx] Resident WJ guru? New member question


  Good evening all:

  My name is Randy Stout, a new member to the list. I have a WJ 8718A MFP option 19 on the way to me. I have Osterman's book, but am trying to find out a few more details about this receiver in particular, and WJ in general.
  I have gone back through most of the archives, but haven't seen anything specific about this particular version. Having always had more mainline radios in the past, I am struck by the almost boutique nature of the WJs, with a huge number of options and various configurations. Web searches to date have been unproductive. Is there a repository of WJ info somewhere? Online manuals?

  Thanks in advance for your help. A very interesting group. Its pretty amazing to see so many names I recognize from the R-390 list.

  Hi Randy, welcome to the list.  I don't know if I qualify as a W-J guru, but I've owned a few of these, all the way from the old CEI 373A to the HF-1000.  If you need a manual the easiest, but not cheapest, way to get one is to call 1-800-WJHELPS.  They will print one for you.  I recently ordered one for a W-J DMS-105R tunable demodulator.  It cost $125 which I didn't consider too bad for a newly printed manual.

  As far as the 8718A, I worked on one of these a while back.  It's a pretty good receiver.  The controls are good, and performance is on a par with other receivers of this vintage.  Having owned old and new W-J units, I actually prefer the older ones that were designed and built by CEI.  When W-J bought them out many of the more expensive CEI features were changed to cheaper alternatives in the newer W-J models.  For example, the CEI type 357 LF receiver was replaced with a W-J unit, the 340A.  I worked on a 340A, and had a chance to compare it with the 357 I own.  The biggest difference was in the tuning.  The 340A uses electronic tuning, a ten turn pot with voltage variable diodes.  The old 357 uses a precision variable capacitor with ball bearing anti-backlash gearing.  There's no comparison in stability between these.  In addition the narrow band crystal filters in the 357 were replaced with 1, 6, 20 and 50 KHz filters in the 340A.  The noise blanker that was in the 357 is also gone.  All in all, an inferior replacement.

  My latest piece of W-J gear is a DMS-105R tunable demodulator.  I've compared this to several other receivers I have here:  Harris RF-590, Racal RA6793A and NRD-525 with ESKA add-ons.  The DMS-105R comes out on top.  It is single conversion to a 2 MHz IF, analog tuned with all those gears and ball bearings from CEI, and has selectable bandwidths in sideband mode.  It only tunes to 1.6 MHz, but in the broadcast band it is the best receiver I have.

  Good luck with your 8718A.

  John Reed
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