RadioBanter - View Single Post - Requesting Your Opinion on Boatanchors for AM work

October 25th 03, 10:27 PM

In article ,
(David Toepfer) writes:

Hallicrafters SX-28
is the receiver to have if you are looking for good sound.

Lots of good LOUD sound, and plenty of bass, which is great for AM-BC and SWL,
but not for Ham work. Make sure you get a 28 that's been thoroughly rebuilt,
or set aside LOTs of time and eyesight to do the job right.

People say it has good frequency stability.

For 160m thru 40m AM you don't need much stability, and anyway you'll be
constantly tweaking the tuning to dodge the QRM and maximize voice quality --
and besides, you have to have *something* to twiddle while sitting there
listening, right?

I was wondering how you would
compare it on these points as well as selectivity and sensitivity with
these other receivers which seem to be quite fine as well:

Collins R-390
Hard to beat in any sense. The non-A sounds a bit better, with its L-C IF
filtering rather than the A's mech filters. However, while the non-A's audio
is adequate, there's a clean mod to put push-pull audio in the 390-A. I have
it, and it sounds awesome. Of course, you can feed the non-A's output to an
outboard audio amp.

Collins 51J-4
Or the J-3 (R388). Mine sounds very good on AM, plenty of audio. BW is pretty
wide, good for hi-fi AM; 1st xtal filter position on the J-3 is good with
QRM/N.

Collins 75A-4
I had one, and somehow the audio left me less than impressed. A superb SSB/CW
rx, but even there the audio was not crisp. Yes, I had all three filters.
Some else said the A4 was not a good AM rx, period. I wouldn't go that far --
there are mods for the audio. You might look for an A-3, since you won't need
that great passband tuning for AM, and $$ you save will buy more TX.

This is the only Ham-band-only rx you listed. If I were to own just one BA rx
with good audio, I sure as heck would get a general-coverage set.

Hammarlund SP-600
Another hard-to-beat classic. Good single-ended audio. Freq readout isn't
nearly as good as on the linear-tuning radios -- about like on the SX-28.
Front end can overload and give spurious responses, at least on the BC band.
But with its 8 and 13 KC bandwidth settings, the SP-600 can't be beat for hi-fi
reception of AM from the Hams who are frustrated BC engineers and don't cut off
their mikes at 3 KC. For that bandwidth, you'll want the SP-600 (or 400, what
the heck), or the R390.

Also consider some version of the Racal RA-17 with the 1 Watt audio feature and
8 KC BW setting. Whatever you get, enjoy -- 73, Mike K. AA1UK

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