On Jun 1, 9:47*am, "D. Peter Maus" wrote:
On 6/1/10 11:33 , bpnjensen wrote:





On Jun 1, 8:35 am, "D. Peter *wrote:
On 6/1/10 01:31 , bpnjensen wrote:

The SIBC on 5020v (5019.96) has been a bit better than usual the last
several late nites at my QTH, especially after 0900z when they fade in
strongly enough to beat the Radio Rebelde splatter from 5 kHz upband -
may be worth a grab at your house too. *Try LSB or passband to slide
Rebelde aside. *Wrote a couple of reception reports for them this
week, we'll see what happens.

73 and Gud DX,
Bruce Jensen
California

* * Which rig are you using these days?

For toughest stuff, I use the Icom R75. *For casual listening, almost
anything - the SX-190 or DX-160 are both fun. *Occasionally the
DX-398. *My main limitations are, and probably always will be, the
antenna and the location. *Both are less than ideal, and can nevver be
much better. *I will put up a higher antenna this summer, but in an RF-
noisy residential neighborhood, that will get me just so far...

Thanks for asking :-)

Bruce

* *How is that SX-190? I looked at one years ago, and when they were
new, but never moved on one.

* *Decent performance? Any trouble finding crystals?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Well, it may need a bit of alignment on a couple of the bands (25
meters especially is weak), and there is some hum in the audio that
could be reduced, but it is certainly sensitive, it is fairly
selective, sound is OK. Frequency accuracy and precision is
remarkably dependable for a pure analog unit. The 31, 41 and 49m
bands experience overload/images in the evenings when signals get
really strong; but using the RF gain for volume provides a partial
solution, and my MFJ-1026, which allows the gain on both antennas to
be scaled back, finishes off the problem.

Obviously, without an adjustable AGC or S-AM you can go just so far
with it when fading strikes, but that was generally true anyway with
older radios.

The Q-Multiplier is semi-useful, but I think a good notch works
better. The crystal calibrator is mostly functional, but the crystals
are old, and for best freq. calibration it is most useful to tune to a
known station like VoA, WWV, BBC etc.

It comes with most of the crystals needed for SWL and a couple for
ham; and all of the ones in there seem to work fine. Crystals are
certainly available from a couple of different sources; but they need
to be custom made, and I have not priced them just yet. If I get
some, they will be for a 13.5 - 14 mHz crystal to add or replace the
14 mHz ham band, and add a 4.6 - 5.1 MHz crystal to gain 60 meters or
replace the 75 meter ham band.

All this aside, the FUN factor is high :-)

Bruce Jensen