[R-390] OT: Other Radios You Like

[Cecil Acuff]

Actually I prefer ECSS to syncro and any of these radio's will do that 
nicely.  The R-75 with the KIWA mods comes real close to the R8B in all 
regards...I've played with both.  It's not quite the R8B in the syncro 
department but it's real close and for a third the price.  The DSP is 
limited but quite handy at times.

The sleepers are things like the Icom 746pro....very hot receiver.  That is 
what many SWL hobbyists are buying now a days....amateur transceivers.

Cecil
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Loken" <richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca>
To: "2002tii" <bmw2002tii at nerdshack.com>
Cc: <R-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 10:09 AM
Subject: Re: [R-390] OT: Other Radios You Like


> On Sun, 24 Feb 2008, 2002tii wrote:
>
>> If you listen at all to AM, once you have tried a radio with good 
>> selectable-sideband synchronous detection, passband shift, and a proper 
>> notch filter, you will never look back, no matter how much you love 
>> boatanchors. The same is true of the passband shift and notch filter for
>
> Well, in my opinion, Your Mileage May Vary.
>
> I will opine about the negative aspects of digital radios first: I have a
> Sony ICF-7600D and it is indeed convenient to dial up a frequency and it 
> is
> also convenient to have a few dozen frequencies stuffed in its memory
> ...IF... you can remember which of those channels has the frequency you
> want.  I also find I can never remember how to use the seldom used 
> functions
> like putting a frequency into memory - I have to look it up in the manual
> every darn time and (as last week in Burlington Ontario) I do not carry a
> library of manuals with me on my travels.
>
> On a analogue radio - every knob has a purpose and a label so I rarely 
> forget how to do something and a browse of the front panel labels will 
> overcome those "senior's moments".  My Sony has the usual assortment of 
> multipurpose obsurely labelled little rubber buttons which do not tweak my 
> memory.  I also have poor vision and cannot read a lot of the lables or 
> the obscure hiroglypics on the display without a magnifying glass - these 
> are rarely problems on some elderly Zenith Transoceanic.
>
> Now about synchronous detectors.  My Sony (fortunately) will switch 
> between a diode detector and the sync detector and I can select sidebands 
> and tweak the tuning but...  the diode detector sounds better when things 
> are good so I don't want to use the sync detector all the time.  The synch 
> detector is not a miracle worker: it does a good job of cleaning up a 
> badly distorted signal but it does not make it into push-pull 6V6 armchair 
> copy, it just makes it readable.
>
> Alas, radio is no longer cool - all the best 22 year olds listen to radio 
> on their computers or for a monthly fee on satellite radio so a lot of the 
> nice digital synchronous detector radios are no longer available except on 
> the used market. Sony has stopped importing their toy radios into Canada 
> and they will not allow their US vendors to sell across the border and 
> Drake has gone out of the shortwave radio business so a lot of our 
> favourite solid state radios are in the same catergory as our boatanchors: 
> obselete, unsupported, and in limited supply.  Parts for digital radios 
> are going to run out long before we run out of 6K7's, now ain't that 
> wierd.
>
>> boatanchors), and the R8B is the best of the bunch.  (The Drake SW8 is 
>> the second-best, IMO, then there is a huge gap to everything else.)
>
> I keep intending to buy an R8 so it can grace the shelf beside my two 
> Drake
> 4-lines, I should do that sooner rather than later.
>
> -- 
>    Richard Loken VE6BSV, Systems Programmer - VMS  : "Anybody can be a 
> father
>    Athabasca University                            :  but you have to earn
>    Athabasca, Alberta Canada                       :  the title of 
> 'daddy'"
>    ** richardlo at admin.athabascau.ca **             :  - Lynn Johnston
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