[Premium-Rx] Cubic 3030 Rx

[GandalfG8 at aol.com]

Hi John

And very well put.

Like Richard I was beginning to drool over the 3030 and was quite surprised 
and, initially, somewhat disheartened by some of the cautionary comments here.
However, it's certainly a darn sight better to be fully aware of both good 
and bad points in a receiver than to spend a lot of money and end up 
disappointed.
One of the great joys of PremRX is that you can guarantee informed opinion 
and know it's not just a case of "I've got one so it must be the best" as often 
found elsewhere.
When most, if not all, "negative" comments come from current users of the set 
then you know it's time to sit up and take notice:-)

Still one of my favourite receivers of all time, if only because I'm a sucker 
for large lumps of machined alloy in a well oversized rack mount chassis :-), 
is the Marconi receiver from the ICS3 system.
This, though, must be one of the best examples ever of something becoming 
very user unfriendly when removed from its intended environment.
Whilst the shipboard installation, with multiple banks of receivers and 
centralised computer control, must surely qualify as "premium", even if a bit 
impractical to bring home:-), take the receiver on its own and what do you get?
A connector for a proprietary computer bus with no information seemingly 
available anywhere so that's out for a start.
On board processor and display? Nope, didn't need that for centralised 
control.
Strictly intended for localised maintenance purposes only...
you get a row of knobs to dial up the frequency to the nearest 10Hz....
a mode switch with predetermined bandwidths...
memory select for 20 channels...
and a headphone level adjustment pot.
Oh, and a very big multipin test connector, but again with no information 
available:-(
Switchable AGC?, RF/IF gain adjustments?, variable BFO?, etc etc...
what are they???:-)
At the end of the day I have to admit I admire my "favourite" much more for 
its quality of engineering than for usability.
It does have a very nice inbuilt motorised preselector, but that's not of 
much use when it's such a pain to tune.
So again, even though much loved, I'd be very reluctant to recommend it to 
anyone else.
Weighing in at as much, if not more, than an AR88 though....
it does make a great doorstop:-)


A couple of years ago I did find, listed online, separate computerised test 
consoles for the receiver and matching transmitter.
All I gleaned from the write up was that a different bus protocol was used 
for each but, at $15k per console, I decided I could cope with what I'd got for 
now:-)

If anyone has, or ever comes across, any of the computer interface 
information for this I would be very interested to hear about it.

regards

Nigel
G8PZR










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