"SC Dxing" wrote in message
...

I recently got back into listening to SW radio. It seems every new
unit that comes out gets torn to shreds while all the old units were
glorious works of perfection, but I'm inclined to believe it's people
being perhaps over-analyzing.

The problem is the quality control (or lack of it) on the newer radios.
Older ones, even ones from only as far back as the 70's and early 80's, had
much better build quality and service life. The ones that used buttons, used
tactile switches, the good mechanical kind that could even be replaced when
they failed, as opposed to cheap buttons with carbon on the underside to
make contact with PC board traces underneath. The components were of a
better grade, in general, as well.

Go back further, to the old tube boatanchors, and the build quality gets
much much better. Sure, they didn't have synchronous tuning or PLL's, but
they were built to last (many are already over 60 years old and perform
better in many ways than modern radios) and had real tuned circuits in them
instead of a broadband front end, a noisy PLL, and a ceramic filter feeding
a single stage high gain IC IF amp. I'll put my old Hallicrafters SX-25 up
against most any new radio station for station.

Mind you, I have a couple new radios: An Eton E1XM and a Degen DE1123, plus
a Grundig Satellit 650 Professional (last of the true Grundig big portables)
and a couple ham rigs with GC receivers. For pulling out the DX, the SX-25
beats them all...