Fw: [Premium-Rx] Ten-Tec RX-340 - Amateur Use

[Mac McCullough]

> One more weigh in.  I talked earlier with Walter,  when he was wavering, I 
> had ordered a new 340, and they were experiencing 20 days or so delay in 
> that production run..  but to the point.. this male menopause here is 
> tuff. and recently I decided to reconfigure my shack for a long term, that 
> I was trying to emphases equipment that was maintainable, and I was not at 
> the mercy of difficult or hard to find service , but was looking for 
> support.. I had ordered a new 340, with the view toward it becoming my 
> mainstay for HF SSB work, with the added feature of BC work and the 
> ability to decipher Mondial ..  where before I had done this in reverse , 
> using and owning virtually all the available PREMIUM RX's WJ, Harris 
> Racal, blah blah  .. and never finding them totally suitable for SSB 
> Amateur work,   and please keep in mind, we're talking on a high plain 
> here, so my saying not totally suitable, is not in the least a 
> condemnation, but I wanted the ability to have the 54 or so BW filters the 
> ability to use PBT and Notch, the infinite AGC speed setting..  so this 
> said, the 340 has been a very welcomed addition here, I dont have the 
> ability to do the low signal and quality or reception testing that has be 
> mentioned, but I dont care about these abilities, it's my contention that 
> I make those differences up in my receiving antenna system, using a long 
> boom 6 element old Telrex for 20 mtrs, and F-12 for the other ham bands 
> reception, all of these in the 100-130' takeoff angle area, so what ever 
> shortcomings in poor signal reception, I have done enough to overcome that 
> with my receiving system..
> What has been a very big disappointment is the N4PY program..  I wont reup 
> or continue my subscription after this first year has expired, I dont see 
> the significant differences between it [ n4py ]  and for instance the HRD 
> operating suite,  albeit HRD does not offer support for the 340 at this 
> time .. the several other comparisons of N4PY and HRD have just not been 
> convincing,  I went ahead and went with the n4py program for the 340 
> hoping it would wow me , but not so.. it didn't offer anything unique to 
> the 340, all of his programs seem to come from the same format, and you 
> find in the 340's case with extra functions that were set up for a 
> transceiver like operation, but features you dont have on just a 
> receiver.. I did omit, I was expecting the AUDIO control to be a remote 
> feature as well, but I can see the logic behind TT's thinking of just 
> setting that at a pre-determined level, and riding the RF control from the 
> remote control screen.. it just takes a bit of getting used to.. TT's 
> thinking that the popular user is going to be operating multiple 340's 
> and that pre-setting all the AF gains to one level, insures you dont by 
> happenstance turn one receiver to a near mute condition..as well their 
> [TT's]  view of mute, is driven from a RECEIVE only scenario, where they 
> only mute the audio chain, but from a amateur perspective, I need a whole 
> lot more isolation, QRP is not an operating level I use..
> BUT would I buy this receive again, yes in a heart beat..it has not been a 
> dis appointment.  mac/mc  w5mc
>
>
>
> Located 46 miles due North of the Alamo, and 121 miles due South of the 
> Western White House.   see my website at  www.collinsandharrisradios.com
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <ToddRoberts2001 at aol.com>
> To: <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2005 2:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [Premium-Rx] Ten-Tec RX-340 - Amateur Use
>
>
>> In a message dated 2/7/2005 11:22:28 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>> salmaniw at shaw.ca writes:
>> Hi, Barry.  I have a Ten Tec 340, as well as a HF-2050, an Icom 756ProII, 
>> a
>> R390A with a SE-3, and a AOR 7030+ which are often on at the same time, 
>> so
>> A-B-C-D-E testing is possible.  Of all these receivers, (and this is only 
>> my
>> opinion), the Ten Tec performs the worst on MW with a strong adjacent 
>> signal.  The
>> MW dxers out there are well aware of this fact and have gone to some 
>> trouble
>> installing roofing filters to correct the poor performance.  For the 
>> longest
>> time, I A-B'd the 2050 and the 340 and virtually in every instance, the 
>> 25 year
>> old 2050 out gunned the 340 by a long shot.  I was all set to sell the 
>> 340,
>> but it's performance on HF is really very good, and with ERGO4 computer
>> control, it's a very nice set up.  The 7030+ is an excellent performer in 
>> close, as
>> is the 756, and of course nothing seems to bother the old Collins R390A. 
>> I
>> know several of my MW colleagues have added the roofing filter on the 340 
>> which
>> improves the performance markedly, and they seem very pleased, but at the 
>> price
>> of losing the wide audio bandwidths available in the 340..........Walt.
>>
>> Thanks for the comparisons Walt. I was thinking strongly at one time to 
>> buy
>> an RX-340 but after reading recent posts and comments about it I'm not so 
>> sure
>> I would like it since I do a lot of AM BCBand Dxing. From what I have 
>> read so
>> far it has a steep rolloff in the audio response which makes using filter
>> choices wider than about 8 KHz or so meaningless and apparently poor 
>> strong
>> adjacent-signal handling ability in the BC band. Adding a roofing filter 
>> would just
>> about guarantee losing wide audio bandwidths for AM. None of these
>> shortcomings were mentioned in the early reviews of the RX-340. I am 
>> still in awe of the
>> ability of the HF-2050 to pull good-sounding audio out of an extremely 
>> weak
>> carrier in AM mode plus its superb performance on LF and the medium-wave 
>> BC
>> band. 73 Todd Roberts
>>
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>
>