[Premium-Rx] Collins HF-8050A

[Karl-Arne Markström]

I have an HF-8054A (the 4-channel ISB version of the HF-8050A)

My impressions are:

1. "Fair" performance, but not as good as some other late-70's equipment (SRT CR90 comes to my mind)
2. Needs a preselector (HF-8060 or HF-8064) to handle broad-band antennas night-time in Europe
3. Relatively simple to work on, except that the synthesizer can very difficult if you don't have the extender boards
4. Nice remote control protocols which are easy to implement, especially the ASCII text string protocol

The reasons for the 450 kHz filters are that the mixing scheme uses 119.8 and 9.9 MHz at several places.118.8 is 9.9 x 12 and  9.9/20 is 450 kHz. If 455 kHz had been selected, the mixing scheme would have been less straight-forward.

If I would to replace the thumbwheels, I would make up a separate knob panel and generate 
the proper remote control sequences for the receiver. 

Some versions of the remote protocol firmware even contains a field for tuning knob rate and direction.

73/

Karl-Arne
SM0AOM




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul" <radioboy at telus.net>
To: <premium-rx at ml.skirrow.org>
Sent: Monday, March 06, 2006 5:39 PM
Subject: [Premium-Rx] Collins HF-8050A


> Hi Group,
> 
> I have finally found time to start working on a new project in the shack and
> this time is getting my Collins HF-80 system setup and operational. I
> managed to repair the mice damage in the HF-8050A RX alst night and got it
> running. It actually sounds very good. Didn't get much time to cruise the
> bands as it was after midnight when I finished but first impressions are
> that it has "nice audio".
> 
> Has anyone else here operated or own an HF-8050A? What are your thoughts?
> Any "mods" to improve them? I know the biggest one would be to replace the
> thumbwheel switches but that would be a big project. My filters are slim.
> 2.75KHz USB/LSB and 16KHz AM. Problem with these is the IF is 450KHz not
> 455KHz. I wonder why Collins did this? These radios were made in Canada.
> Maybe these are "metric" filters.
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Paul
> VE7KHz
> 
> 
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