On 1/6/2016 3:20 PM, Michael Black wrote:
 On Wed, 6 Jan 2016, gareth wrote:
 
 What was the best performer (in whatever terms youchoose) of the old
 analogue
 receivers, and receivers in rigs?
 My money is on the Eddystone EA12 for optimum haptic interface, and
 narrow
 on the nose CW filter with its single Xtal, followed in short order by
 the receiver in the Trio 830S
 (pace that the EA12 preceded WARC 83 by nearly 20 years and lacks the new
 bands)
 I think you have to clarify.  "Receivers that we wished for" and
 "receivers that we could actually afford".
 
 I knew someone who had both a R388 and Hammarlund SP-600 in 1972 (and a
 KWM-2 complete with the 6 and 2 metre transverter).  You kind of needed
 both of those receivers since since the R388 tuned in 500KHz (or was it
 1MHz) bands, so get to the top of one and you'd have to get down to the
 bottom of the next band, while the SP-600 could get across the band with
 a few spins of the knob, it had a great flywheel.  The R388 was the
 better receiver of the two, which I guess is why I had the use of that
 SP-600 for a decade.
 
 You look at people now, and those receivers, and the R390, are still
 considered pretty high up on, solid state receivers are a whole lot
 lighter and have more features and are easier to tune, but most never
 reached the level of those top end tube receivers.  But people are
 willing to spend a lot to get those top end receivers now, which leaves
 me wondering how someone I knew could afford both the R388 and the SP600
 in the late sixties.
 
   Michael
 
Michael, I agree - the R388 and R390 were great rigs.  I was in Civil
Air Patrol back in the 70's, and we got some R390's through surplus
channels.  An absolutely super receiver (although it was a bear to
realign) - nothing like it available commercially short of maybe a
Collins 32S-3b.
In in an emergency, you could use it to anchor the QE-II. 
-- 
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Jerry, AI0K
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