[Premium-Rx] Re WJ Receiver

[Terry O']

I've interviewed the lead engineer of the HF-1000/8711 series several 
times at length.  The HF-1000 would make a quite a story if there were 
any magazines that print things like that anymore.

The long and short of it was WJ lost money on the HF-1000.  It was a 
product designed as the Cold War collapsed and WJ was exploring the 
commercial market as means to sustain operations.  They had to establish 
a new support channel segregated from their usual (and secretive) 
customers.  The company was surprised when support costs went over 
budget.  They found many purchasers simply couldn't understand how to 
operate the radio properly and/or damaged them through misuse.  It 
became a real headache and WJ ditched the product.

BTW, the design of the 8711 grew out of the WJ-9548 (and the faceless 
9546) series of demods, which are quite sensitive and work reasonably 
well as multiple channel HF receivers for certain purposes.

Terry O'


On 6/14/2017 11:55 PM, Ed via Premium-Rx wrote:
> The issue with WJ HF-1000/8711s is the firmware, which cannot be upgraded.  You truly get what you pay for. If you get stuck with an older version, it's markedly inferior to the later ones, which command commensurate prices. Adding the preselector automatically raises the price. For the latest firmware version with preselector, these run about $2k+. There were a few coming out of S Korea that had the latest and greatest, selling for about $2500 on EBay.
>