In article .com,
"Joe Analssandrini" wrote:

Hello.

While Drake's synchronous detection circuit is generally excellent,
when it is locked on variable-strength signals, it often "warbles."
While this is not often noticeable on a "talk/news" program, it is
often VERY noticeable on music. (It is often noticeable on the Voice
of Russia - whose signal is often quite variable - musical shows;
it's also noticeable on the Voice of VietNam's musical shows as well
as Radio Bulgarias's and others.) The pitch of a note changes
annoyingly - as if the music was "sour-ing." If you own one of these
receivers, try it for yourself on a musical show.

Snip

That does not happen on my Drake R8B and I don't recall that happening
on the R8 I used to own. Could be you are not tuned exactly to the
station. Put the radio in CW mode with a larger than default filter to
zero beat the station and then switch back to AM sync to see if that
warbling goes away. If that does not fix it then the Drake might need a
tune up or you have another adverse reception problem like an
additional on channel slightly off frequency carrier.

If you have it enabled the 7030 will auto tune itself so you won't see
that problem.

I own both radios and the sync performance is comparable between the
radios but for the side band selectable feature on the Drake, which the
7030 does not have.

By the way a station you can hear a warbling 1 to 2 KHz tone on is
Italy's RAI International. The tone changes with the modulation. It is
very distinctive sound and once you hear it you can easily identify that
station within seconds despite not knowing the language.

Another practical test (and example) is when the BBC (and a few other
stations) shifts transmitters on the same frequency. There is then no
signal for 10 - 30 seconds. My Grundig Satellit 800's lock will
generally not re-engage - with the radio's AGC set to "slow" and the
sync "on" - when the new transmitter comes on the air (I cannot say
wthether the Drake R8B or SW8 exhibits this phenomenon as I have not
personally heard it on those sets) but my AOR's ALWAYS does, and
perfectly too, with no delay.

I have had the Drake sync drift to the on channel noise or some faint
off frequency carrier in the temporary absence of the BBC station
switching over. Sometimes it reacquires rapidly, other times it drifted
off due to the presence of other weak off frequency signals and then it
whines a bit before it re-locks. I have not had the 7030 in this
listening situation so I don't know how it would behave for sure but I
expect it would not be much different than the Drake.

You can't expect the radio to recover from a no carrier for 30 seconds
quickly when you have sync engaged and the AGC on slow. Normally for AM
I have the AGC on fast unless the signal is rapidly fluttering. The
fluttering is usually due to polar propagation. Slow is normal for SSB.
Normal lock time on the Drake R8B is something like 1 to 2 seconds.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California