Well, I am beginning to have some doubts about the likelihood of finding
an excellent-quality Hammarlund HQ-180 at a price I can afford.

Certainly I am going to keep looking, but meanwhile I guess I need to come
up with a few alternatives that I can "settle" for if, as seems likely,
the HQ-180's have priced themselves out of my reach.

I need something that is all tubes, and works well on SSB. I plan to use
it mostly on CW but I need decent SSB performance. AM is relatively less
important (it should work on AM but doesn't need to be a spectacular
performer).

It does need to be general coverage 500 KHz to 30 MHz.

R390's and 51J4's would be good (but of course, more expensive than the
HQ-180) but none comes with a product detector and so performance on SSB
is likely to be marginal at best, right?

I have looked at a few Hallicrafters SX-100's (that is to say, looked at
their pictures on eBay... haven't actually seen one up close in at least
30 years). How does that model and other comparable models from
Hallicrafters and National stack up?

Did Heathkit ever make a general-coverage communications receiver that was
worthy of the name "communications receiver"? I know they had one, I
think the model was AR-3. I had one when I was a kid and it wasn't much.
Everything else I've seen from them seems to be ham bands only, and mostly
80-10 (no 160).

Any suggestions, places where I should start looking?

Rick,
I'd say the best peformance for your buck would be
an R-392, but it doesn't have a product detector.
I've never had a problem tuning in SSB on mine though.
Another rig worth checking out is a Halli SX-122.

Finding a tube rig with a product detector, general coverage,
and for a decent price is getting tough. A friend has asked me to
look for an HQ-180 (preferably a 'C'), and prices have
been astronomical.

Steve

The SX-100 is beautifully built and nice to look at - but it is mechanically
unstable. A friend had one and it changed frequency when he dropped his
pencil - when on 20 meters cw.

For cw and ssb, a crystal controlled front end is a big plus. You have the
same stability on 10 meters as you do on 80.

Here are a few relatively inexpensive receivers which I like:

Drake 2B (you do not have complete coverage - just selcected bands.
However, you can change crystals.

Drake R4. Very good buy. However, you have to add crystals for full
coverage. You can also use an oscillator to replace the crystal.

Hallicrafters SX-117. Again, you need extra crystals - but it is a nice
performer.

Racal and Eddystone makes some real tube beauties. Although the early ones
do not use crystal controlled front ends, they are quite stable.

The SP-600 is also a favorite, although no product detector.

For short wave listening, push pull audio is nice. But, that feature does
not mix with product detectors or crystal controlled front end.

Do like others, and buy many receivers.

73, Colin K7FM

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 02:11:32 GMT, "COLIN LAMB"
wrote:

The SX-100 is beautifully built and nice to look at - but it is mechanically
unstable. A friend had one and it changed frequency when he dropped his
pencil - when on 20 meters cw.


73, Colin K7FM


I agree about the stability of the SX-100. I brought a new one home
back in 1956 or 1957. The first thing I noticed was the instability
of the oscillator. The SX-101 is a much better and more stable
receiver (and a lot heavier.)

Dick - W6CCD

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"Rick" wrote in message
news

Well, I am beginning to have some doubts about the
likelihood of finding
an excellent-quality Hammarlund HQ-180 at a price I can
afford.

Certainly I am going to keep looking, but meanwhile I
guess I need to come
up with a few alternatives that I can "settle" for if, as
seems likely,
the HQ-180's have priced themselves out of my reach.

I need something that is all tubes, and works well on SSB.
I plan to use
it mostly on CW but I need decent SSB performance. AM is
relatively less
important (it should work on AM but doesn't need to be a
spectacular
performer).

It does need to be general coverage 500 KHz to 30 MHz.

R390's and 51J4's would be good (but of course, more
expensive than the
HQ-180) but none comes with a product detector and so
performance on SSB
is likely to be marginal at best, right?

I have looked at a few Hallicrafters SX-100's (that is to
say, looked at
their pictures on eBay... haven't actually seen one up
close in at least
30 years). How does that model and other comparable
models from
Hallicrafters and National stack up?

Did Heathkit ever make a general-coverage communications
receiver that was
worthy of the name "communications receiver"? I know they
had one, I
think the model was AR-3. I had one when I was a kid and
it wasn't much.
Everything else I've seen from them seems to be ham bands
only, and mostly
80-10 (no 160).

Any suggestions, places where I should start looking?

If you really want a lower limit of 500khz you will be
pretty limited. If you mean just the bottom of the broadcast
band (535khz) there are plenty.
You might consider using a receiver with a built-in IF
output and building an external product detector. Product
detectors are not very complicated. It will give you
superior performance for CW as well as SSB. There were a
number of after market adaptors made but the good ones are
very rare. A homebrew does not have to be as complicated as
the commercial versions. There are circuits in old editions
of the _Radio Amateur's Handbook_ and other places. Perhaps
even on the web.
Don't eliminate the SP-600-JX from your list, it has
both IF output and an AVC tap on the back so you can connect
its internal AVC to an external source. A very good external
adaptor was made for these guys but its extremely rare.
There is a lot of literature on the SP-600 on the web, I
suggest educating yourself about the various versions if you
decide to look for one.
You might also check on some of the later National
receivers, they, with Hammarlund and Collins were the
quality brands. Hallicrafters was good at producing
receivers with lots of features at relatively low prices,
most of them IMO, were mediocre.


--
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA





--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

I used to manage operations for the military that used R-390s in vast
quantities. It was not uncommon to have over a hundred of them at a
facility and thousands in our overall inventory. For what they were
designed to do they did a great job. As is mentioned they did not have
a product detector. I once saw a prototype sideband adapter, but
before it was adopted in any number, we went to newer solid state
receivers (none in the ham price category... 10K each and up.]

There were a couple problems we had with R-390's. The main one was
maintenance. The tuning scheme was so complicated you practically had
to be a mechanical engineer to fix one. The gear trains to control the
permeability tuning are a wonder to behold. They were cumbersome to
tune and military intercept operators who used them all day long
complained of "R-390" wrist because it took so much arm torque to
change the megahertz dial. It was time consuming to get from one end
of the spectrum to a different end. Some guys, particularly HF search
operators got carpal tunnel from tuning them day in and day out. They
consumed a lot of energy, particularly if you had a bunch of them
operating at the same time. We usually had air handlers to cool the
rooms they were in. The only reason they didn't drift is because ours
were on all the time.

I was the program manager for programs which used a bunch of these,
and as such I didn't use them day in and day out (I did use them some,
but not as a day-to-day operator.) I also didn't have to fix them
myself, but I oversaw the programs that made sure there was someone
there to fix them. The criticisms I heard were from the military ops
and the maintenance guys. We reduced our maintenance overhead in
personnel and spare parts considerably when we finally got rid of
them. We could afford to buy 10K receivers because we didn't a ten man
maintenance shop on site to keep the R-390s (among other gear) going.
Of course in the end, we had to get rid of them because there just
weren't parts available in the quantities we needed. They were used
for long after government contracts for manufacture and for spare
parts production ran out. I've been retired now seven years and the
last 15 or so years of my career we didn't have any R-390's on my
projects (there probably are some still in the government through, if
only in depots.) I saw my last operational SP-600 series in the early
70's. The search operators loved it because you could scan a large
chunk of spectrum (before automated systems) in far less them than
with an R-390 or 51J receiver. The 51Js were all gone by the time I
started in 1964. I don't think I ever saw one operational.

Of course a ham restorer dealing with unit quantities doesn't have the
maintenance management problems we had because a ham trying to fix up
one or two can probably scrounge up the parts or cannibalize another
like units, but we had to look at the R-390 and almost any other piece
of gear the military used in terms of life cycle support, personnel
costs, training tails, depot stockpiling and a host of other issues.
It was a good receiver that just wasn't supportable anymore. The same
could be said for the SP-600 series which was actually obsolete when I
entered the profession 43 years ago, but that hasn't stopped dedicated
hams from making them work in unit quantities.

Jon W3JT



On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 21:01:37 -0400, Rick wrote:


Well, I am beginning to have some doubts about the likelihood of finding
an excellent-quality Hammarlund HQ-180 at a price I can afford.

Certainly I am going to keep looking, but meanwhile I guess I need to come
up with a few alternatives that I can "settle" for if, as seems likely,
the HQ-180's have priced themselves out of my reach.

I need something that is all tubes, and works well on SSB. I plan to use
it mostly on CW but I need decent SSB performance. AM is relatively less
important (it should work on AM but doesn't need to be a spectacular
performer).

It does need to be general coverage 500 KHz to 30 MHz.

R390's and 51J4's would be good (but of course, more expensive than the
HQ-180) but none comes with a product detector and so performance on SSB
is likely to be marginal at best, right?

I have looked at a few Hallicrafters SX-100's (that is to say, looked at
their pictures on eBay... haven't actually seen one up close in at least
30 years). How does that model and other comparable models from
Hallicrafters and National stack up?

Did Heathkit ever make a general-coverage communications receiver that was
worthy of the name "communications receiver"? I know they had one, I
think the model was AR-3. I had one when I was a kid and it wasn't much.
Everything else I've seen from them seems to be ham bands only, and mostly
80-10 (no 160).

Any suggestions, places where I should start looking?

Jon Teske wrote:
I used to manage operations for the military that used R-390s in vast
quantities. It was not uncommon to have over a hundred of them at a
facility and thousands in our overall inventory. For what they were
designed to do they did a great job. As is mentioned they did not have
a product detector. I once saw a prototype sideband adapter, but
before it was adopted in any number, we went to newer solid state
receivers (none in the ham price category... 10K each and up.]

There was a military sideband adaptor available using sheet-beam tubes,
although I forget the nomenclature. There also were a lot of civilian
models that will work as well.

There were a couple problems we had with R-390's. The main one was
maintenance. The tuning scheme was so complicated you practically had
to be a mechanical engineer to fix one. The gear trains to control the
permeability tuning are a wonder to behold. They were cumbersome to
tune and military intercept operators who used them all day long
complained of "R-390" wrist because it took so much arm torque to
change the megahertz dial. It was time consuming to get from one end
of the spectrum to a different end. Some guys, particularly HF search
operators got carpal tunnel from tuning them day in and day out. They
consumed a lot of energy, particularly if you had a bunch of them
operating at the same time. We usually had air handlers to cool the
rooms they were in. The only reason they didn't drift is because ours
were on all the time.

They are phenomenally stable by the standards of the day, and the short
term stability is actually better than some PLL receivers today.

The audio quality is pretty bad, though, and the mechanical filters
on the 390A that are a godsend for pulling signals out of the noise floor
also contribute to severe ear fatigue because of the enormous group
delay. I get a headache listening day in and day out.

Of course a ham restorer dealing with unit quantities doesn't have the
maintenance management problems we had because a ham trying to fix up
one or two can probably scrounge up the parts or cannibalize another
like units, but we had to look at the R-390 and almost any other piece
of gear the military used in terms of life cycle support, personnel
costs, training tails, depot stockpiling and a host of other issues.
It was a good receiver that just wasn't supportable anymore. The same
could be said for the SP-600 series which was actually obsolete when I
entered the profession 43 years ago, but that hasn't stopped dedicated
hams from making them work in unit quantities.

The good news is that Chuck Rippel's shop down in Chesapeake looks like
the Ft. Devens radio refit facility did thirty years back. He has racks
and racks of 390s in for repair, and he has all the special tooling and
jigs for module testing. So you still have the depot level support that
the military provided, it's just that Chuck is providing it now.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

The good news is that Chuck Rippel's shop down in Chesapeake looks like
the Ft. Devens radio refit facility did thirty years back. He has racks
and racks of 390s in for repair, and he has all the special tooling and
jigs for module testing. So you still have the depot level support that
the military provided, it's just that Chuck is providing it now.

I remember hearing about the Ft. Deven facility. I was never there,
but most of the Army GI's who worked for me trained there. As I worked
with all of the services, I got guys who came from all the schools,
Devens, Pensacola, Goodfellow and others. They seemed to have
different syllabi for training, often contradictory. I was the Program
Manager for the overall project and I didn't have specific
responsibility for the guys who actually worked in the maintenance
shops. My job was really to see that there WAS a maintenance shop and
that someone had responsibilty to train the folks and staff the
facilities, so it was far more political than practical. Since I had a
ham ticket and the guys in the shop knew that I knew which end of a
soldering iron was hot, they cut me a lot more slack than they would
with the average "suit" who came in from Washington. I tried not to
say "We're from HQs, we're here to help you."

Is Chuck Rippel in Chesapeake VA????

Jon W3JT
--scott

Jon Teske wrote:

Is Chuck Rippel in Chesapeake VA????

Yes. It's like a 1960s military supply depot in his backyard. It's wonderful.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Rick,
Owning not a few receivers in my current collection, including all those
spoken of, so far, let me first agree with many of the comments,
including those about the SX-100. Its a beautiful looking receiver but
not without its foibles. A truly nice R-392, SP-600, R-388/51J, et al
currently appear to demand what an HQ-180 would, or more. I'd like to
add to your list the Hammarlund HQ-160. Its not a selectable sideband
receiver, per se, but it is double conversion, general-coverage and,
arguably, a less expensive substitute for the HQ-180. I have a late,
raised-lettering version that works quite well with one of my vintage
operating positions. I have tried several outboard product detectors
with this receiver, to include the Hammarlund HC-10, the CE Sideband
Slicer, and the kit detector from that Canadian fellow. They all work,
although the price of an HC-10 approaches the base price of an
HQ-180A!!! I'd also bet money that you might find yourself liking the
HQ-145A, also a general-coverage, double-conversion receiver with very
respectable performance. Nice thing about later Hammarlund receivers is
that they didn't use many (if at all) paper capacitors. Finally, FYI,
Heath never made an upscale general coverage receiver. Good hunting.