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dave · March 7th 11, 02:13 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave

On 03/06/2011 10:45 PM, BDK wrote:
In om,
says...

On 03/06/2011 11:55 AM, BDK wrote:
In om,
says...

They look way better than they perform.

I beg to differ. That one in particular was fanastic on SSB and RTTY
modes.

She's got a great personality. I hear the audio is muffled. And it's
full of extinct parts.

You had to have the right speaker on an external amp, and on SSB, it
wasn't bad at all anyway. As a non program listener, I couldn't care
less about the wooly audio. My friend had other receivers if he wanted
to listen to that AM stuff, and so do I. You would be shocked at some of
the parts I got for mine recently, without resorting to cannibalization
of another 515. I just made a few phone calls. Other receivers have long
come and gone, but my 515 and 525 stay around. I bought my 515 in 1984,
and my present 525 in 1989. My R5000, R71a's, Drake R7A and R8A, and
several ham rigs have all gone away. Some, like the R8A annoyed me due
to the el cheapo encoder failing and horrible ergonomics, along with
generally disappointing me, performance wise, others, like the R5000,
just didn't grab me, and the fact it ran insanely hot on AC power, made
it go away. It didn't have the bouncing keypad yet, but I knew it was
coming.

I run my receivers on a decent quality PC UPS, and have surge protectors
on all the antenna lines coming in. The radios get their inputs shorted
when I'm not listening. With those precautions, the main worry I have is
electrolytic caps failing. All the problems my 515 has ever had were
cold solder joint or interconnect caused, and it's been problem free for
about the last 20 years. The 525 has a dimming display, but it can be
"rejuvinated" by simply leaving it on for a while. It doesn't affect
anything anyway.

It's a beautiful radio, very macho. I run my radios on an Astron power
supply, made for 2 way radios.

Wooly. I like that.