D Peter Maus wrote:

dxAce wrote:

D Peter Maus wrote:

dxAce wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:

dxAce wrote:
D Peter Maus wrote:

denny wrote:
Anyone have any thoughts or experience with either the Drake R8B
compared to the Icom R71A (with mods), which do you think would be the
better receiver?
R71A was the benchmark for many years. It was the standard receiver
used by three-letter agencies for monitoring. It even found its way into
the military. Sensitivity is good. Selectivity can be exceptional, and
when working crowded bands for a contact deep in the noise, there are
few that are it's rival.

In stock form.

For hobbyists, not so hot. Audio is poor, and like most rigs built
for professional users, it really doesn't deliver it's best performance
without a superb antenna. Don't misunderstand...most any antenna will
get you going, and performance will be very good. But to get the best
out of R-71, you really need as professional an antenna and transmission
system as the agenicies for which it was built.

That said, you can still find an array of filters for it, ceramic,
crystal and mechanical. Ergonomics are reasonably good, with most every
function on its own switch. And, in the hands of someone who knows what
they're doing, it's quite the cannon. Even on a random wire.

R-71 does not have a few of the more luxurient features that some in
the hobby consider essential, today.

Drake R8B was built more in line with today's hobbycraft users'
needs. Again, don't get me wrong...it's a very high performance
receiver....but it's not intended for the kind of installation you'd
encounter on a hidden island where men-in-black are listening to racks
of receivers for the clandestine, untoward, and subversive. R8B has a
cleaner layout than R-71, with much more luxurient features, ear
pleasing audio, and ergonomics more in line with the needs of a less
military user.

Side by side, the Drake will be more pleasant to operate for long
periods of time than R-71. And on simpler antennae will produce the same
or better results.

I had an R71 for many years, and still miss it, today. And R8B wasn't
around when I bought mine.

But, if I were looking for a heavy hitting receiver, today, and those
were my choices, I'd probably have more inclined toward R8B.

Widening the field abit, I'd recommend looking also at AOR's
AR-7030+, Palstar's R30 (and its variants), Ten-Tec's RX-320D, RX-350,
RX-340, and if you can find them, Lowe's HF-150, HF-225, and HF-250.
Though HF-150 isn't in quite the same class as the others. Basic,
small...but its lack of features is more than offset by it's potent
performance.
I once owned a Yaesu FRG-7700 from Gilfer. What is interesting is that when I
had some serious noise issues here, a fellow from our now defunct FCC Monitoring
station south of here showed up with what I guess would be their 'covert'
vehicle, and it had a FRG-7700 in kind of a rack on the passenger side.


Yeah....long ago, in a life far, far away, there was an FCC monitor
in my neighborhood. 11 meters was the Wild West in those days, and he
had a cluster of receivers in a rack in his panel truck.

Really exciting stuff for a Jr High Schooler back then.

I've not worked FRG-7700. How did it handle compared to your
benchmark rigs?
It served me well and then I bought a Drake R7 in 1984. I used them both for a few
years, then I got the Kenwood R-5000 and sold the Yaesu.

I had some better filters installed in the '7700 from Gilfer, and I certainly heard a
lot of stations on it. I guess what got me back into the hobby back in '82 or so was
the digital readout.


That was certainly ground breaking territory, back then. And a lot of
kids I knew were drawn to the hobby because of it. I was still using a
Hammarlund BC-794 Super Pro that I'd aligned within an inch of its life.
Finding frequencies, even with the analog dials, was a snap. Still, it
turned off a lot of my friends, who were determined to go digital.

Of course, that was when the noise floor was low, and the bands were
full of stations like WNYW. And BBC/WS was still largely an
entertainment medium. So, that variable IF served me very well with some
fine audio.

Except for the Hammar, and a couple of Nationals that I'm putting up
for sale, everything else I've got has a digital readout. Digital
readouts aren't as fun as spinning the analog dials. But the rigs today
are a whole lot easier to work.

Yeah, that and timer controlled taping. It was a dream come true.

No kidding. An entirely new level of monitoring was possible. Which
led me into providing audio of international broadcasts for News.

I did that sort of thing during the *first* Gulf war and then again during the *second* and
now ongoing problem.

Actually made a few bucks. Doubt that will ever happen again.



Plug in the freq. and
either they were there or not, what fun!

Yep. And you could set up and trap stations as they were coming on.
No more hunting for one station while keepng an ear on another. Miss
nothing.

I bought a Switchcraft router out of a stereo store, and set up my
shack with several reel recorders. If something interesting broke, I
could route to a waiting recorder with the punch of a couple of buttons,
without disturbing what was being recorded elsewhere.