I think you should buy the preamp if you think you will like it. I think
that the reason nobody on this NG seems to have the Kiwa preamp is because
they all have decent receivers. With a halfway decent receiver, you don't
need a preamp. The trend in recent years has been to use NO RF amplification
ahead of the 1st mixer. In the tube days, an RF amp was generally needed,
because of the use of pentagrid convertors, etc. Exceptions were the R390
(at least the 1970s unit I had), which used a 6C4 1st mixer, the Squires
Sanders IBS Superhet and their amateur version (SSR-1 or SS1-R?), which used
a 7360 balanced mixer. If you have a good NF, there is no need for a preamp.
A case in point...........even though the Kiwa preamp, which is very good,
has an IP3 of +34dBm, the gain that the preamp provides still degrades the
IP3 of the receiver itself by that same amount. +34dBm is ok for a high
level preamp, but it is possible to design an RF preamp that has a +40dBm
IP3.
In all fairness to Kiwa, the preamp is very reasonably priced. I once looked
at a schematic of the regenerative preamp for the Kiwa loop.............a
very good design. The things they were doing with the high performance
ceramic filters were very good. Too bad Murata decided to discontinue
everything but their 4 and 6 element ceramic filters.

Pete

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ups.com...
do you know how to spell ? (besides being gross)