Tim Shoppa wrote:
laura halliday wrote:
There are indeed used professional receivers out there.
You will get an astonishing radio if it has a name on it like
Watkins-Johnson or Harris (two names that have shown
up in this thread), but just because they're less than
they were new doesn't mean they're cheap.

I spent about a day's salary on my WJ-8716. I contrast that with the
stuff I had thirty years ago and that's dirt cheap :-). In constant
dollars I spent way less on the WJ than on my HW-100 back then.

You got a bargain, and I'm envious. My RF-590 cost more
than my car, though that's not saying much. :-)

I made up for it with my 51J-4 (oops...sorry...it's a Collins!),
which I got for hauling it away.

That said, I have a lot more fun with simple one-mode ham-band-only (or
a few-ham-bands or one-ham-band) receivers. The most fun ARE just a
step or two removed from the most simple. While the filters on my HW-16
aren't nearly as tight as those on the WJ-8716, the receiver of my
HW-16 feels MUCH more like a "window on a slice of the 40M CW band".

The HW-16 is one of the great radios, and is an excellent
example of how simple a radio can be, and how well it
can work. I had one for a while, but it kept frying the QSK
switching transistor. :-(

There is an enormous amount of choice out there.
If you (the original poster) come across anything
that looks even remotely useful, grab it.

Laura Halliday VE7LDH "That's a totally illegal,
Grid: CN89mg madcap scheme. I like it!"
ICBM: 49 16.05 N 122 56.92 W - H. Pearce