mike maghakian wrote:

In a recent receiver article, Phil of R75 fame made some negative comments
on the TT RX-340. I asked my friend who is an RX-340 expert to comment.
these are not my comments but the source is someone whose opinion is above
question on this subject. Unless you have really used and understand the
340, you don't know what you are talking about.

I used one for about a month. It went back home to Tennessee.
All I can really say is that that's some pretty expensive sheet metal work.



here is what he wrote me:
*********************************

What is he talking about? He NEVER has tried an RX-340, or any of the other
radios he compares in his charts OTHER THAN that OVERRATED R-75. He has his
head up his ass on the following issues:

1. The RX-340, he says, has poor dynamic range. This declaration is
deceptive! In truth, the dynamic range of the 340 is excellent in almost
every aspect except in one type of monitoring condition in which it IS poor:
in VERY CLOSE-IN conditions--less than 2KHz--under extreme duress. In those
instances, yes, the d r is poor! He's right only in these instances.
Fortunately for any RX-340 user, these conditions rarely are encountered
because the filtering is superb, the front end is excellent, and blocking is
good. Here's an example of where the RX-340's d r WILL behave poorly.
Let's say you have an RX-340. You have it attached to a high-performance,
outside antenna. You are tuned to 882 kHz trying to hear a very weak
transatlantic/transpacific medium wave signal from half-way around the world
at s3 or s4 on your meter. You are located in Eastchester NY, only 6 miles
away from 50 KW WCBS NYC on 880 kHz, just two kHz away from the weak station
you are after and they are hitting your s-meter at 80 db over s-9. (BTW,
that's a rock-crushingly strong signal next to a weakling of a signal.)
With this being the case the 340 will, very annoyingly, splatter out the
weak signal and will most likely "de-sense" for about 5 kHz on either side
of 880 kHz. Not good. So, yes, Phil is right to criticize the 340 as
having poor d r, but only under these circumstances. It is a limitation of
the 16 bit DSP processor in the 340 being compromised in this aspect of
performance.

2. Phil says the RX-340 has fair audio. Never having had any real-world,
hands on experience with an 340 he relies on a discredited internet report
by written by Jan Alverstad of Norway. This report was discredited by REAL
RX-340 owners because Alverstad admits to not spending the proper amount of
time needed to adjust and learn the radio!! So he makes a report slamming
the audio in narrow SSB as poor when he didn't know that the AGC, the
Variable IF Gain control and the PBT MUST be "set-up" BEFORE you can recover
good audio. He would have had better results if he bothered to spend time
reading the manual. No, the 340 is not hard at all to use. It doesn't take
a lot of time to learn it. But you cannot just use it out of the box like
you can with most other radios. The first-time 340 user HAS to read the
manual first--it's friggin' common sense on a complicated, unconventional
radio!! The audio, especially in SSB is not just good, it is outstanding.
Refer to Larry Magne's review in PWBR in regards to what he calls
"breathtakingly low distortion in SSB."

3. The SAM is fair, Phil says. In my opinion, he's right to a certain
extent. But it isn't ALWAYS fair. Most of the time, about 80 percent of
the time, the SAM works well, but not as well as the R8-B. The 340 synch
quirks has been well-documented by PWBR, 340 "gurus" Albert Belle Isle and
Carl Moreschi, and by myself on eHam. And as for the remaining 20 percent
of the time? The SAM is indeed only fair. This is because when the desired
signal goes into a rapid, deep fade, the synch "lets go" of the signal
causing a disruptive clicking which grows tiresome and distracting. Using a
long hang time setting helps iron this out considerably. There is another
situation--part of the 20 percent--that causes the SAM to misbehave. When
there is an extremely, key word: extremely, strong, nearby signal 5 kHz away
from the one you are tuned to, the synch throws a fit. It starts to "pop"
and "screech" loudly. Really no excuse for a great radio to have. TenTec
failed on this. But overall the synch is just OK. This feature is the
340's major fault; it's ONLY major fault luckily. What redeems the 340 and
prevents me from hating it for its fair synch is that the radio delivers
outstanding manual ECSS, better than any other radio I have ever owned.
When all of the parameters are properly adjusted--PBT, AGC speed, IF Gain
setting, BW--the recovered audio is similar to the audio of the HF-225 with
its synch on and in the HiFI mode.

4. The internal speaker is poor. No qualms here, he's right. But big
****ting deal. Who wants to use a small 3" top-firing speaker on a $4,000
radio? Put a REALLY good speaker on the 340--I use and LOVE the Sounds
Sweet--and you'll be happy.

5. The display, Phil says, is fair. WHAT??? The display is a thing of
beauty. The readablitlty is great; the S-Meter is very large and pleasing
and esay to read and is professional and accurate. The contrast/brightness
is fully adjustable. The read-out is HUGE. Why does he say that the
display is fair? He never sat in fron of a 340 so where does he get his
info from?

Phil, not having any hands-on, real-world experience using an 340, takes
ANECDOTAL information from PWBR and on-line reviews and publishes them out
of context. This is the most egregious thing to do when claiming to be
writing a review of receiver performance specs. It is a disservice to the
hobby!