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

[Barry Williams]

I almost forgot something interesting about Chuck's R-390A and the 
HF-1000. Chuck told the guy who had it to turn it off because it was too 
noisy to have near other radios for hardcore dx.



Barry

> And importantly none of that text has any bearing at all on the radio being
> sold.  Even Chuck mentions near the end of his writeup that on 3 of the
> radio's he owns perform at that level.
>
> Nice writeup to promote the sale of the radio...Marketing.
>
> Cecil..
>
>
>>> 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