wrote in message
oups.com...
According to Kiwa's website, their shortwave preamp will make your
receiver quieter. They claim that when you turn off your receiver's
internal preamp and instead rely upon the Kiwa preamp, you will have
fewer noisy circuits operating inside the receiver.

I find myself unmoved by this claim, since it would apply to *any*
external preamp--and most external preamps will do nothing to improve
S/N ratio, at least in my (limited) experience.

Of course, the Kiwa preamp also has a BCB rejection filter. I *do* see
how this could improve S/N ratio, but I'd like to hear some first hand
reports.

If you've used Kiwa's preamp, can you comment on whether it resulted in
a significantly improved signal to noise ratio?

Thanks in advance,

Steve

Unless the noise figure of the Kiwa preamp is significantly better than the
NF of the one in the receiver, there will be no improvment in S/N- it's not
magic, it's math. At HF S/N is hardly a concern anyway as the noise floor is
not device limited but atmospherics limited. If you hear an increase in
noise on your receiver when you connect the antenna, you are already seeing
the limit.

Dale W4OP