[Premium-Rx] Premium-Rx Digest, Vol 161, Issue 3

[Joseph Pistritto]

the R-390 was my very first receiver of any serious quality (I eventually
got a McKay Dymec DR-101 which was my *2nd*), and the only reason i got rid
of it was i was tired of moving it.
I actually had to build a special shelf to hold it up.  Nice radio.  Know a
bunch of hams and SWLs who still have them, but *heavy*.  I try not to own
radios i cant easily lift anymore.


On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 8:49 AM Terry O' <watkins-johnson at terryo.org> wrote:

> R-389?  UGH!  I bought two many years ago.  They weigh a ton and the
> tuning is ungodly stiff.  Even after a full tear down, cleaning and
> relube you'll wear out your wrist in a few minutes of scanning the
> bands.  That's why the damn things have motorized tuning.  They are just
> too laborious to manually tune.
>
> The R-389 performance is, as expected, really good.  But even with top
> notch tubes in the RF portions, the Watkins-Johnson 357 (R-1401) was
> neck and neck in performance, if the local BCB transmitters were far
> enough away.  The R-389 simply wasn't worth the weight, size, and tuning
> hassles.    I sold them both when the fascination of owning something
> rare, but not fun to use, wore off.
>
> Nowadays, at home I use the WJ DMS-105 because switching supplies,
> particularly for LED lighting, have flooded the lower end of the urban
> radio spectrum.  When I travel I use a Tecsun PL-660 and an AirSpy HF+
> (though I won an SDRPlay RSP1A at a hamfest and now like it better).  A
> perfect trade off between performance and space in my carry on bag.  I
> listened to a lot of LF and AM broadcasters from around the
> Mediterranean while in rural southern France last fall.  The added bonus
> is France shut down all its AM stations, except for one in Brittany, and
> there were no IM problems.
>
> Terry O'
>
>
> On 4/2/2020 8:46 AM, Bob Betts wrote:
> > Well, if you can't find a Collins 389...who can(!), you might want to
> c0nsider an upconverter. I've been using my R340 and 8711 barefoot with a
> quasi Beverage and decent lowpass filtering. It's hard to tell if the
> upconverter helps of running barefoot is better. There are times when one
> is a little cleaner than the other...then it flip-flops according to time
> of day/night, WX condx, etc. But that keeps the hobby fresh and fun. Also
> have good luck with 8718 and 6790GM.Gud sigs to all and please stay
> safe,Bob, N1KPRHere's a linkhttp://www.bobsamerica.com/upconv.html
> >
> >
> >
>
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