On Wed, 2 Nov 2011, Edward Feustel wrote:

On 1 Nov 2011 18:14:27 -0000, Kulin Remailer
wrote:

sctvguy1 wrote:

What other radios do you think are better?

I had a couple Nationals and my friends ran homebrews and Drakes and the
occasional Collins.

The National 303 especially was a favorite. Audio was warm like Bill Haley
and the Comets on Fender tube (of course!) amps, and that heavy heavy tuning
flywheel could almost spin across the whole band with one flick of the
wrist. I believe it had 6 bandwidths from about 6K down to 250Hz. I haven't
seen a better tube CW rig ever. SWL was great on it too. They seem to be
loved by everyone who had one or ever used one. They were huge though, make
room in the shack.


What are the attributes that must be "part of better"?
Does sctvguy1 want just a receiver or will a transceiver do?
What modes does he really want to listen to, e.g., teletype, digital,
cw, ssb, am, fm? What frequency range is desirable? Would he want
VHF and UHF if he could get it? How about frequency setability?
How about a computer interface to the receiver? Does it have to have
knobs, or is a Software Defined Receiver ok? Is sensitiity more
important than selectivity? Must it look "pretty"?

Better is also a function of $. What kind of $ range is to be
considered.

And I suspect at this point that "better" may not be the only criteria.

The H1-180 was about a decade old when I first read about it, coming into
the hobby in 1972. It always seemed intriguing, something different about
it, even though it wasn't the only receiver at the time it came out that
dropped to 60KHz for selectivity with LC circuits (and thus supplying
multiple bandwidths with less limitation of the phasing type crystal
filter). So wanting it now might be because of that lust when it came out
and was too expensive. There were lots of receivers that came out that
had some neat thing about them, or others that were barely discussed, and
yet they may take precedence over the "better receivers" because it's the
unique that's desired, not "best reception".

Now, so many have transceivers (or a matched pair of receiver and
transmitter), and if recent enough, they even have general coverage
reception built in. So like I said, criteria is different now from even
forty years ago, when you'd be trying to stretch a general coverage
receiver to ham use. If you now have the function of general coverage,
and generally good design, then the novelty of that Clegg receiver with
the external converter so it covers the shortwave bands is much more
appealing, whether or not there are "better receivers".

I'm not just talking about collecting, but that one can still lust after
an old receiver without it being Top of the Line (though perhaps one lusts
after those at the same time).

Michael VE2BVW