Whew! we sure can get hot under the collar when we own a mega buck radio!
It's just natural human nature when you have spent over 4k for a radio that
you are going to defend it to the hilt.

Fact is that two of my serious DX mates owned them and sold them off as
mediocre DX machines.

Fact also is that the Icom R75 is amazing value for money in a top class DX
machine for around 500 bucks
--
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, Redsun RP2100
BW XCR 30, Sangean 803A.
GE circa 50's radiogram
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop, PAORDT Roelof mini-whip
http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx

"mike maghakian" wrote in message
. ..
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.

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!