[R-390] What's in the window?

[Barry Williams]

> A group of some of the "heavy hitters" in the SWBC DX community, myself
> included, went on a DX'pedition to Cape Hatteras, NC.
>
> Quite an array of receivers had been brought along including a Drake R8
> and R8A. A pair of Watkins-Johnson HF-1000's, an R388, R390A and a JRC
> NRD-535. It was a particularly good morning with extraordinarily quiet
> conditions and a strong opening into the Pacific and Asia. Around 1130
> UTC I checked 3304.8 for the Radio Republic Indonesia outlet in Dili.
> Although it had not been reliably logged since the late 70's, it was
> there that morning weakly, just a heterodyne in the R8A.
>
> Everyone quickly tuned to the frequency, determined not to miss the
> opportunity to log such a rare station. However, even the $4,000
> Watkins-Johnson receivers could not extract more that a few words of copy.
>
> The R390A and Sherwood SE-3 extracted recordable audio from that signal
> when no other receiver we had could. That put the receiver in a whole
> new category not only for me but the others in attendance.
>
> Of the R390A's I own, 3 are capable of sensitivity performances in the
> .07-.08uv for 10db S/N + N using the 4 kc filter and standard AM
> detection. I know of few receivers available today at any price able to
> duplicate of that level of performance.
>
> ---Charles Rippel
>
>
That was a comparison that made waves in the SW magazines. One HF-1000 
belonged to George Zeller, and the R8A belonged to Andy Yoder. I never 
knew there was a second W-J on the dxpedition. Both wrote a lot about 
Chuck's R-390A. George emailed that the noise was always a problem with 
the HF-1000, and that it couldn't touch Chuck's radio. I had an email 
exchange with Andy Yoder and he was very impressed. The H-F was a new 
radio from W-J that listed for $4000 back then!



Barry