[Premium-Rx] better receivers.

[John P Ceresole]

Hi Listar

I have been following the debacle on receivers.  Well they are meant to 
communicate in the environment that we (man and women) have created.  We 
now have PLC and resurgence in interest in OTH (Over The Horizon) HFRadar 
all of which is making the HF bands more difficult to use and so we will 
need better/different operating techniques to successfully communicate on 
these bands - well so be it.  My bent is to try to use narrowband 
techniques (either using older receivers - my favourite is a WJ-8940B with 
IF detection bandwidths down to 5 Hz - good for CW (I will have to learn 
morse or use very slow RS-232) and stable to 1 in 10E-9 quite a fabulous Rx 
in it's day or use a software defined radio with equivalent narrow 
detection bandwidth.  It doesn't matter the fun is in communicating via the 
ether (easier on the net but not half as much fun as making it with a 
boatanchor of a receiver  The 8940B is described on OJ's Norwegian Site for 
those interested enough.  (It was not designed as a comms Rx) but has 
useful attributes) 
http://www.kongsfjord.no/data_sheets/Watkins-Johnson/Watkins-Johnson%208940B%20data%20sheet.pdf. 
If anyone has an 8940B out there and needs help with it, please e-mail as 
have considerable experience of these and would be happy to share info/help 
out.  (We have another member of the list who has some of these) I believe 
that only some 50 odd were made tuning up to 1 GHz and about 5 were made 
that tuned up to 18 GHz.  The WJ Tech Notes describe a 8940A version which 
was a non-computer operated version. (Never seen one)

I shall also be trying out E-M-E using QRP and 4 ft dish + LNAs on as many 
bands as possible (The Rx/LNAs allow me up to 18 GHz but legally up to 10 
GHz - I see this as fun to try out the possible - which is what this 
activity is about - partly I believe.  Is there any one else out there who 
would be willing to try out such a thing?  (At the moment I have no antenna 
pointing device nor moon tracking software but I am working on the idea of 
bands 144 MHz and higher since the Rx can tune those bands The Tx will be 
more difficult)

Best regards

John G8BSD