schrieb:

I have recently been thinking about buying a new portable receiver for
bedside use, I'd just about decided on a Sangean ATS-909 (Roberts R861
here in the UK) when I wondered whether I'd actually be better off
getting my FRG-7700 off the shelf and using that.

Judging from http://www.sherweng.com/table.html, the FRG-7700 is
better than even an upper-class portable in terms of strong signal
handling (though still not particularly impressive for a tabletop), but
doesn't fare so well in terms of maximum filter rejection (dunno about
the quality of the filters themselves) und has rather high phase noise
(this seems to be typical for PLL synthesizers from those days), which
makes selectivity even worse.

I already have an external aerial (could be improved). Will the
FRG-7700 actually perform better than a modern portable still? Reading
through old postings to rec.radio.shortwave opinions seem quite mixed.
I have the FTR-7700 Aerial Tuner for my FRG-7700 and it has the memory
option and the Gilfer Associates improved filters.

With an antenna tuner on a decent antenna, the memory unit (seems to
improve frequency stability) and better filters, it shouldn't be hard to
beat even a well performing portable. The only downside may be the
operation that shows the age of the receiver, and apparently it performs
best after warming up for an hour or so. This is certainly a receiver to
have fun with even today, even some DX shouldn't be a problem. I haven't
specfically looked for any modifications, but this article (in German)
suggests that changing some parts can improve the reception quality even
further:
http://www.dr-boesch.ch/radio/yaesu-frg7700-mod1.htm
Doesn't seem to be for the faint of heart though. If anyone should be
interested, I could translate the text.

Stephan
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