Thread: Drake SW8
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Old March 23rd 04, 07:34 AM
Pete KE9OA
 
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Thanks Brian.....................with the whip antenna, the radio doesn't
sound bad, but on the external antenna inputs, both high and low impedance,
sensitivity isn't too good. I wonder if there was some ESD to the input
stage. I made my measurements at both 700kHz and at 10MHz, so I don't think
that there is an input filter problem, but probably, one of the input
transistors has been damaged. Once I receive the unit back from R.L. Drake,
I will let you folks know what the problem was.
Oh, the S/N starts with a 4, so this would probably be a 1994 model.

Pete

"Brian Denley" wrote in message
news:x1O7c.65561$SR1.112821@attbi_s04...
starman wrote:

I have the schematic sets for both the early and later SW8. The early
models were reported to have a poor impedance match for the whip
antenna. The later schematics show some changes in the componants of
the double diode circuit which protects for static electricity on the
whip. This circuit is also connected differently to the following
circuits in the later model.

There's a change in value for the series resistor on the gate of Q1
(2SK152), the whip amp'. Some of the capacitor values in this gate
circuit are also changed. Q1 might be running at a higher gain in the
later models but this would only affect the whip sensitivity because
the other HF antenna inputs bypass Q1 through the antenna selection
switch (SW2) on the back of the receiver. I think these changes
(above) were made in 1994. The biggest change occurred in 1996 when
the selectable sideband sync' detector was added. The first digit in
the serial number denotes the year of manufacture.

How did you inject the test signal? Maybe your SW8 is out of
alignment.


I had the early (1994) model and while it was fairly deaf on the whip, it
was very sensitive on my external random wire. Not quite as sensitive as

my
R-5000 but not far behind. One of, if not the best audio receiver(s) I

have
owned.
Brian Denley
http://home.comcast.net/~b.denley/index.html