On 7/21/13 11:53 , Michael Black wrote:

Except, it's a transistorized one, which I gather were quite plentiful,
and of course more recent. Perhaps if someone was just collecting
they'd pay the price, but some of that $250 has to be due to the name,
as Peter points out, their circuitry was never extraordinary.


There are improvements that can be made to both tube and transistor
T/O's. The solid state, FET based substitutes for tubes, for instance,
lower the noise floor, reduce distortions.

And the transistor models used socketed transistors, so lower noise
subs can be dropped in, which actually improve the RF and AF performance
of the radio significantly.

I did some experimenting with a 3000-1, and side by side with an
unmodified model, it WAS quieter, with more usable sensitivity than the
unmodified radio.

The difference wasn't drop your pants dramatic, and if you're in a
high noise environment, there's not a lot you can do to improve
performance without external, and isolated, well grounded antennae, but
out in the middle of nowhere, thermal noise was down audibly, and the
audio was much cleaner.

So, the T/O line isn't hopeless. But if you're expecting it to handle
like a Drake, you're going to be very disappointed. Like many ICOM's, it
has to be significantly modified before performance excels.