Hi John,
I had variable experience with the FRG-7, depending on which iteration that
I had. I remember that when using an 8 foot diameter untuned loop, MW
reception was very good with no signs of intermod.
Under these same conditions with a later iteration (I had both units at the
same time), there would be a marked increase in the noise floor as you
approached a strong signal. It almost sounds as if there were very high
noise sidebands coming from the 1st LO, in turn causing reciprocal mixing.
I must apologize to Mike M for jumping a bit hard on his comments. I've
talked directly to him over the phone in the past and he is an ok person,
but unless you actually make test measurements yourself you never know
actual test conditions.
Please accept my apology Mike...............it was one of those 18 hour work
days.
Pete
"John Plimmer" wrote in message
...
I owned an FRG-7 for a year but passed it on as being useless due to it's
poor filters and intermods.
But there is always the exception, in Cape Town is a DX friend of mine who
swears by his Frog and leaves his awesome Drake R7 on the shelf. He is one
of the world,s most accomplished MW DXer's and says the Frog delivers such
superior audio on the really faint DX catches that he will not upgrade to
a
more modern high end receiver - go figure!
He runs rings around us with our more modern RX's..!!!
I also owned a FRG-8800 for a couple of years - another useless receiver
that I was glad to get rid of. On Robert Sherwood's
http://www.sherweng.com/table.html
he tested it and the filters were so poor he couldn't even get a
measurement.
--
John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa
South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s
RX Icom IC-756 PRO III with MW mods
Drake SW8 & ERGO software
Sony 7600D GE SRIII
BW XCR 30, Braun T1000, Sangean 818 & 803A.
GE circa 50's radiogram
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop
http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx
"mike maghakian" wrote in message
...
I thought I would dig up some numbers to back up what I have said for
years, the FRG-7 is grossly over rated.
These stats are measured in the lab of the great Ranier Lichte in his
awesome book "radio receiver, chance or choice" the best review book ever
written in the history of shortwave radio. In fact I just modified one of
my copies to make it easy to scan reviews to mail to people for proof of
what I say.
FRG-7 FRG-7700 FRG-8800
SW sens (uV) 2.1 2.1 1.1
3rd order ICP (dBm) -25 -10 +3
selectivity (-6/60) 3.2/8.8 *1 3/7 + 7/18
*1 Wide 11/26 Norm 5.2/13.5 Narr 2.6/8.2
In every category of these most important specs, the FRG-7 loses. In fact
the 3rd order ICP is pretty BAD !!!!!!
The facts speak for themselves, the reputation of the FRG-7 is not based
on reality but fantasy.
I am not crazy about the selectivity of the stock units of any of the
FRG's so my FRG-7 and my FRG-7700 both have mechanical filters and the
7700 has an upgraded ceramic as well. But the 7 selectivity is way too
limited for the real world !
And the 7700 and 8800 both sound really NICE !!!!