dxAce wrote:

D Peter Maus wrote:



And you may be right. But, I have seen it done. And I've seen it done
at at least one station in Chicago.

Don't forget another participant in this newsgroup who used the flame
wars he started on RRS for his classroom. As well, he put them up in
edited form on an anti-nazi website, one that was quoted in a Peter
Jennings story on ABC News.

I must have somehow missed that one, or forgotten about it. What was it about?


Actually, you were instrumental in running that one off. A certain
"professor" who took it upon himself to create chaos where there was none.




I have a great deal of respect for you, Pete, but you're really making me laugh with
this one.
Well, damn, Steve. Normally I have to be naked before I get laughs
like that.

You are, however--you'll be very glad to hear, not my type.

As long as I've got you here, let me ask you a question.

Being the Drake afficionado you are, what kind of experience have you
had with long term performance changes in your rigs? Component drift.
Heat related issues. Alignment stability. Things like that.

The R8 series seems to hold up quite well, other than the issue the R8B (and perhaps the
R8A) has with the rotary encoder used in the tuning mechanism.

I've never yet had to send in an R8 series for alignment per se though I did send my R8 to
Chuck Rippel for a passband tuning adjustment, I believe it was a number of years ago.


You've said you've had your rigs serviced by Drake....is that for any
specific failure, or is it just general maintenance?

Drake has/did service one of my R7's in the past and that was due to heat related issues
in the power supply. If I recall correctly a few diodes went. The only other *big* issue
to watch out for I think with the R7 is a failure of the on-off switch which is prone to
failure and is a hard item I understand to find. It of course is a dual control being both
an on-off switch and RF gain control.

My current R7 was aligned by Jeff Covelli, WA8SAJ, in November 2005. Good service.

The reason I ask is I'm looking at an R-8, and thinking about
stability and reliability matters.

Stability always seems to be good with the R8 series as does overall reliability IMHO.



Thank you.

I appreciate the insights.