[Premium-Rx] TenTec Rx340 vs HF1000A

[Ka9p at aol.com]

HI Kai,

Michael's comments were spot on, I think and you should read the Peter Hart 
stuff, I can probably dig it out if you have trouble finding it.

But I find the synchronous AM performance of the HF1000A to be better.   A 
few years ago I cleaned house and settled on the 340 and the 1000A, hoping 
to spend more time listening and less fixing and tweaking and spent a lot of 
time on with the two going head to head.

My favorite test is to listen to the DX60 net - a bunch of low power AM 
signals not quite neted up on the same frequency - and time and again the 
HF1000A follows and locks up the weak signals quicker than the Ten Tec.   But 
that's more of a curiosity than serious advantage I think.

The   HF1000 tuning does feel slightly better, but the smaller knobs on th 
Cubic 3030A racked up with them feel even better, as do most amateur knobs.

And as many people can tell you, the SSB audio is harsher, which is what I 
listen to primarily, and the Ten Tec is relatively pleasant and low 
distortion audio.   

The RX340 is also much better for me in a high power amateur rdio 
application - easily muted, good recovery, behaves like an outboard receiver should.  
 The HF1000A is not easily muted as delivered, at least as far as Iknow, 
and seems to take a long time to recover from a very strong signal such as you 
might have if you had a KW output running - even with the antenna input 
shorted - the AVC recovery takes several seconds.   This could be a problem 
peculiar to my shack, but the 340 handles the muting and general RF environment 
better in my admittedly less than perfectly engineered installation.

My HF1000A has an 8 khz roofing filter, and I think the later ones were 16 
like the Ten Tec, and I think once in a while I can tell a difference if the
re are extremely strong signals within the roofing filter passband, (or I'm 
biased because I know what the answer should be) but again, for day to day 
use, that's more of an academic observation than an issue to deal with.

But either are great.   I expect it to be a much more pleasant experience 
to get a 340 fixed if need be, however :)

Best, Scott