On Nov 2, 1:54 pm, wrote:
Some of you have been contemplating upgrading to a serious tabletop
receiver, like the NRD 545D, AOR7030+ or even an Icom 756 PRO III.
But I must tell you that in the MW DX circles that I am active in very
many of my co-DXer's have moved to the RFspace SDR-IQ in the last
eighteen months and quite rave about it. These fella's are the top
DXer's in the world and are getting amazing results from this modestly
priced computer receiver.

Apart from being a highly adequate receiver it has the huge advantage
that you can record a 190 Khz spectrum of the band. This has enormous
advantages for DXer's as stations usually only ID identify at the TOH
top of the hour, so listening on a conventional receiver you are
limited as to how many stations you may catch and record for QSL
purposes in such a brief time.

But with the SDR-IQ you record a whole segment for a few minutes
before the hour and then play it back later and analyse it and get a
whole bunch of ID's that was never possible before = amazing!

For more details on this SDR receiver see:http://www.universal-radio.com/catal...com/sdriq.html

There are drawbacks though - you need a decent PC/laptop plus a
massive 500Gb hardisk as the recordings are huge.

Have fun and good DX

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 Mk II, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop, PAORDT Roelof mini-whiphttp://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx

Maybe I'm old fashioned. I have a Ten Tec RX-320D and I love it. I
think it's a great value. But I could never reconcile myself to having
my primary receiver be a black box. I appreciate the advantages of the
black box approach and frequently enjoy them, but it can only be an
occasional thing for me.

Why do I feel this way? I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. It might
be because I work with computers all the time and don't want them to
be so integral to my hobby. Even more, though, I think it has to do
with audio that's coming off a computer's sound card. I've used my
320D with some crappy sound cards and with some really nice ones, too,
and even the good ones just don't sound "right" to me. Over time they
produce a kind of fatigue that's hard to describe, despite the fact
that they offer you more control over the audio properties than any
other kind of rig. It's not the 320D's fault either. I borrowed a
Winradio from my cousin and had the same reaction. Maybe I just don't
like the amplified speakers that they make for use with computers. I
don't know.

Back to the R8B now...