Dear John,

Your posts are always enjoyable to read and this one is no exception.
You are correct when you indicate that some shortwave listeners are
trying to do "too much" with portable receivers - these radios are
just not designed to be DX machines. (How would you modify a Kia Rio
so that it could compete in the French Grand Prix or Indianapolis 500
motor race? The short answer is "you couldn't." And the same holds
true for portable shortwave receivers, with the POSSIBLE exception of
the Eton E1, the Grundig Satellit 800, or the Drake SW-8 - and a
couple of Lowe semi-portables.)

It is a pity that more SWLs do not own tabletop models. I suspect that
this is partly due to their cost but it may be that, as tabletops do
indeed require "top" antennas and dedication (there is a LONG learning
curve - I've been learning for fifty years now), many (most?) people
are just not willing to make the effort in this age of "instant
gratification."

Frankly, this is not a good time to buy a tabletop (unless you are a
"radio collector" or are upgrading/replacing a unit) as we are now at
the bottom of the eleven-year sunspot cycle. Conditions are mediocre
at best and this would surely discourage most newcomers to tabletops;
expecting lots of exotic signals, they would be most disappointed when
they heard little more than their portable, with its whip, could
supply. That's not to say that a good tabletop/antenna combination
would not do that, it's just that I do not believe many people would
be willing to take the time to learn HOW to do it.

That said, however, I should encourage shortwave listeners who are
fairly serious about the hobby to consider purchase of a good tabletop
(and the ICOM and, especially the AOR in my opinion, are two excellent
receivers at relatively affordable prices). As you stated, the antenna
is of PRIME importance. After all, it is the ANTENNA that picks up the
signals; the radio merely translates those signals to something we can
hear. Of course, as you said, the antenna MUST be matched to the
receiver. Apartment dwellers need not necessarily be excluded from
owning a tabletop, however; there are always tricks to erecting a
suitable antenna in such a location and it has been done many, many
times. I encourage all here to learn as much about shortwave/MW
antennas as they can. Certainly there is no lack of information on the
web and there are many books on the subject as well.

Obviously there is a major place for portable receivers in our
armamentarium but they are no substitute for a good tabletop/antenna
combination nor should anyone ever consider that they might be.

We must get over the desire for that "instant gratification." The
hobby of DXing with the proper equipment will give you FAR more
pleasure, entertainment, and enjoyment than the relatively small
effort it takes in learning it.

Best,

Joe

On Jul 10, 2:31*pm, wrote:
Everyone in this group owns a portable, some many portables. Fewer in
the group own tabletops and even fewer serious tabletops. Most of you
are just content to listen to the more powerful stations on the AM
shortwave band. A very few are serious DXer's who chase those very
faint far off stations at the limit of audibility.

What I write about is the owners of portables who are constantly
trying to maximise their portables performance with ever larger and
more powerful antenna's. This can actually be counterproductive as
portables are not designed to take a powerful antenna, rather they are
designed to maximise their performance only on the whip antenna.
Connecting more than 50ft/15m of wire to a portable is likely to bring
on all sorts of problems that will actually reduce good performance.
By this I mean that it will overload the front end of the radio and
lead to distorted sound and spurious signals all over the place.

I say this in relation to most of the portables in the $200 and $100
and less range. The Eton E1 at $500 is an exception and can
comfortably operate with a powerful receiving antenna, such as a good
active or 500ft/150m of longwire. My Sony 2010 overloaded badly with
too much wire and blew the front end twice as a result.

Don't put too much wire or too powerful an antenna on a portable.

When to upgrade to a tabletop such as the Palstar, Yaesu 100, Icom IC-
R75 etc? When you can actually connect a decent antenna and when you
want faultless sound from far distant stations. I see a lot of fella's
wasting their money on expensive table tops who live in apartments =
really a waste of money. A decent portable such as the Redsun RP2100/
Kaito KA2100/CC Crane SW will do just as well.

Sadly I see that Universal now only offer two tabletops for current
sale: the Icom R75 at $600 and the AOR 7030+ at $1500. The number of
SW listeners have really declined over the years. But that is where I
advocate buying a transceiver, as there is a wide variety on offer in
all price ranges, and that is why I myself have used transceivers in
the last three years. Of course there is always the preowned market
and eBay for used tabletop receivers.

Having waffled on about all that, there is a new branch of our
wonderful hobby appearing, and that is the "ultralight" receivers. The
creme de la creme of which appears to be the Eton E100. These chaps
modify this tiny little radio and get the most astonishing reception
out of them, but I hasten to add that a good tabletop is always
better.

So have fun, enjoy your radio's 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
Icom IC-7700, Icom IC-756 PRO III with MW mods
ERGO software
Drake SW8. Sangean 803A
Sony 7600D, GE SRIII, Redsun RP2100
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro Mk II, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop.http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx