Bob wrote:

My valve (tube - U.S.) receivers far out-perform /any/ semiconductor
receiver.

Your tube receivers outperform *any* semiconductor (solid state -
U.S.) receiver? I guess that would mean in all ways. That's a big
claim. What receivers might those be?

I don't need any digital processing at all.

Ah, I'm getting the picture now. You are firmly rooted in the past.
Not unusual with old timers. The problem often is that we think
everyone else should be the same. That's why it took so long to kill
the code test.

I can "work the world" on tiny power using CW, whereas I'd have to use
stupid amounts of power to get similar results with SSB.

Less power needed is an advantage of CW. Also less antenna needed. I
run 50 watts to a random wire 8' high (HOA stealth antenna) with quite
satisfactory results. It's not a DX antenna, though I do snag one
every now and then. CW ragchewing's my game, and I seldom fail to
complete a QSO.

Also, the people you meet on CW tend to be much more friendly!

Yes CW is a gentlemans band.

AJ Lake wrote:

Bob wrote:

My valve (tube - U.S.) receivers far out-perform /any/ semiconductor
receiver.

Your tube receivers outperform *any* semiconductor (solid state -
U.S.) receiver? I guess that would mean in all ways. That's a big
claim. What receivers might those be?

Yes. In every way. Intermodulation, noise floor, selectivity, ultimate
sensitivity, every parameter you can think of! The receivers were very
carefully designed and constructed by me, (though taking advice from some
of the "classic" designs), and have been widely tested against some really
serious, exotic receivers!

I don't need any digital processing at all.

Ah, I'm getting the picture now. You are firmly rooted in the past.

Not at all. I'm a professional electronics designer, and use the very
latest technology when applicable. I haven't seen /any/ digital processor
that assists me in actually picking signals out of QRM. I'd rather use
tight filtering (RF, IF and AF), and synchronous demodulation when needed.
The real trick is a receiver with extreme selectivity (not the bogus
pseudo-selectivity given by digital filters with all their nasty artifacts)
and a really low noise floor.

Not unusual with old timers. The problem often is that we think
everyone else should be the same. That's why it took so long to kill
the code test.

Absolutely not - I'm happy for you if you're happy with your digital Rice
Box - I'd rather use something *I* made and get results that often astonish
my friends and colleagues.

I can "work the world" on tiny power using CW, whereas I'd have to use
stupid amounts of power to get similar results with SSB.

Less power needed is an advantage of CW. Also less antenna needed. I
run 50 watts to a random wire 8' high (HOA stealth antenna) with quite
satisfactory results.

I have a loop over my garden (backyard - U.S.), which is (just) resonant on
7 Mhz and has a reasonable match on other bands. It's basically two long
wires above each other, connected by a vertical section at the far end and
with a transformer coupling at the house end (the transformer is 6 metres
of UR 67, and the horizontal sections are about 9 metres long). It's not
the world's greatest antenna, but works surprisingly well for its small
size.

It's not a DX antenna, though I do snag one every now and then.

Me too!

CW ragchewing's my game, and I seldom fail to complete a QSO.

My latest game has been working on a /really/ simple and cheap frequency
synthesiser and SSB generator that's not too critical in component values
and easy to align. It's entirely digital!

Also, the people you meet on CW tend to be much more friendly!

Yes CW is a gentlemans band.

Certainly is!

Bob

Also - I seldom run more than 10 Watts on any band (unless conditions are
really bad) and I seldom fail to complete a QSO!

Bob

Bob wrote:

have been widely tested against some really
serious, exotic receivers!

If you only tested your tube receiver against *some* receivers then
your claim about outperforming *all* SS receivers would be invalid.
'Absolute' statements will get you in trouble most of the time.

I haven't seen /any/ digital processor
that assists me in actually picking signals out of QRM.

*You* not having seen any doesn't mean there aren't any.

pseudo-selectivity given by digital filters with all their nasty artifacts)

Selectivity is not usually my problem. With close neighbors and a low
wire antenna, it's man made noise that is my problem. Digital does
well with this.

I'm happy for you if you're happy with your digital Rice Box

Yes we have hams here that are also 'Rice Box' prejudiced. Prejudice
for everything produced in Asia is silly these days.

AJ Lake wrote:

If you only tested your tube receiver against *some* receivers then
your claim about outperforming *all* SS receivers would be invalid.

I've tried them against the *very* *best* receivers available today, and
they win in /every/ respect. They're actually hybrid receivers - I happily
use semiconductors where they're more appropriate (like in synchronous
demodulators, audio filters, audio amplifiers, local oscillators and so
on), but the really crucial parts - the RF amplifier, first mixer, IF
amplifiers and product detectors all use bottles.

There's one crucial parameter that's carefully omitted by most
manufacturers, which is the behaviour of their receivers in the presence of
strong adjacent frequency interference. The intermodulation, de-sensing
and other disasters inherent with semiconductor designs mean that I'll get
better results /every/ time.

I've designed /commercial/ solid-state receivers, and there's just *no*
*way* to get results as good as can still be obtained from valves in
crucial parts of them!

I haven't seen /any/ digital processor
that assists me in actually picking signals out of QRM.

*You* not having seen any doesn't mean there aren't any.

I've tried most of the stuff on the market, and /none/ of it can really
enhance a truly good receiver. They /might/ compensate for the obvious
shortcomings of some of the more average receivers!

pseudo-selectivity given by digital filters with all their nasty
artifacts)

Selectivity is not usually my problem. With close neighbors and a low
wire antenna, it's man made noise that is my problem. Digital does
well with this.

I'm in the happy situation that I don't suffer from too much of that,
despite living in a city (London). There are some really effective
noise-cancelling methods that have been published over the years - one
approach I used successfully in my old QTH was the counterpoise method that
was published years ago in RADCOM.

I'm happy for you if you're happy with your digital Rice Box

Yes we have hams here that are also 'Rice Box' prejudiced.

I'm not prejudiced at all - as soon as Far East Asia produces something even
half as good as I can build, I'll save time and effort and buy them! In
the interim, I'll continue with what I consider to be the real essence of
our hobby, and build the gear myself!

Prejudice for everything produced in Asia is silly these days.

Not at all - they /still/ can't make a good mobile phone! 8-)

Bob

"Bob" wrote in message
...
AJ Lake wrote:

If you only tested your tube receiver against *some* receivers then
your claim about outperforming *all* SS receivers would be invalid.

I've tried them against the *very* *best* receivers available today, and
they win in /every/ respect. They're actually hybrid receivers - I
happily
use semiconductors where they're more appropriate (like in synchronous
demodulators, audio filters, audio amplifiers, local oscillators and so
on), but the really crucial parts - the RF amplifier, first mixer, IF
amplifiers and product detectors all use bottles.

There's one crucial parameter that's carefully omitted by most
manufacturers, which is the behaviour of their receivers in the presence
of
strong adjacent frequency interference. The intermodulation, de-sensing
and other disasters inherent with semiconductor designs mean that I'll get
better results /every/ time.

I've designed /commercial/ solid-state receivers, and there's just *no*
*way* to get results as good as can still be obtained from valves in
crucial parts of them!

I haven't seen /any/ digital processor
that assists me in actually picking signals out of QRM.

*You* not having seen any doesn't mean there aren't any.

I've tried most of the stuff on the market, and /none/ of it can really
enhance a truly good receiver. They /might/ compensate for the obvious
shortcomings of some of the more average receivers!

pseudo-selectivity given by digital filters with all their nasty
artifacts)

Selectivity is not usually my problem. With close neighbors and a low
wire antenna, it's man made noise that is my problem. Digital does
well with this.

I'm in the happy situation that I don't suffer from too much of that,
despite living in a city (London). There are some really effective
noise-cancelling methods that have been published over the years - one
approach I used successfully in my old QTH was the counterpoise method
that
was published years ago in RADCOM.

I'm happy for you if you're happy with your digital Rice Box

Yes we have hams here that are also 'Rice Box' prejudiced.

I'm not prejudiced at all - as soon as Far East Asia produces something
even
half as good as I can build, I'll save time and effort and buy them! In
the interim, I'll continue with what I consider to be the real essence of
our hobby, and build the gear myself!

Prejudice for everything produced in Asia is silly these days.

Not at all - they /still/ can't make a good mobile phone! 8-)

Bob

The biggest issue is manufacturing costs. DSP can do a few neat tricks, but
most of those were doable with analog circuits. DSP also adds to the noise
floor. What they are really doing is saving money on quality physical
components like filtering. I had my TS2000 right next to my TS830 and the
830 sounded so much better I almost took the 2000 back. There seemed to be
some high frequency noise that I really couldn't hear but I could sense it
and it gave me a headache after a while. It actually FELT noisy. It wasn't
until I hooked it up to my SP230 that I honestly couldn't tell the
difference in the audio and performance of the 830 and all was well. BUT
the TS830 had better adjacent frequency performance because of the 8 pole
crystal filters. I would still have that radio but I had to move and made
the choice for general coverage. I still have a TS130, and I use that at
Field day to swap out those new high dollar big shot radios that can't hack
the signal overload. It seems the TS130 uses Bandpass filters in the front
end, injection and exciter stages in addition to the 8 pole crystal filters.

There are RF tubes that can do up to 10 meters with plenty of gain and much
better overload capabilities than what's out there now. It might cost a
fortune to use that quality of filtering in a general coverage receiver, but
you COULD build a really first class hybrid that blows away what's out
there.

JB wrote:

There are RF tubes that can do up to 10 meters with plenty of gain and
much better overload capabilities than what's out there now. It might
cost a fortune to use that quality of filtering in a general coverage
receiver, but you COULD build a really first class hybrid that blows away
what's out there.

I did, and it didn't "cost a fortune". I got the crystal filters at a
Rally, I had many of the other components in the junk boxes, and I just had
to buy a few valves and some coil formers. I built the cases myself, and
the internal module boxes are just soldered up PCB material. I found the
reduction drive in a junked HRO, and bought the tuning capacitors very
cheaply. Frequency indication and relative signal strength are shown on an
LCD display.

Bob

Bob wrote:

I've designed /commercial/ solid-state receivers, and there's just *no*
*way* to get results as good as can still be obtained from valves in
crucial parts of them!

The rest of the transceiver industry (other than you) apparently
thinks tube embedded HF transceivers are quite obsolete for a wide
variety of reasons. Else they would be manufacturing and selling them.
Even ham magazines print mostly solid state articles using modern
solid state parts, which is right since hams should learn to use
modern technology. When they do print a tube article it's usually
described as nostalgia.

I'm not prejudiced at all -

You used the term "Rice Box" to describe your dislike of a whole range
of several hundred ham tranceivers. Different manufacturers. Different
models. Pure prejudice. Logically you should judge equipment on its
individual merits, not by the race of the people who made it.

I'll continue with what I consider to be the real essence of
our hobby, and build the gear myself!

Building is but *one* facet of the hobby. Professional engineer hams
capable of designing and building transceivers are a but very very
tiny part of the hobby...

Not at all - they [Asians] /still/ can't make a good mobile phone! 8-)

As I said prejudiced...

AJ Lake wrote:



The rest of the transceiver industry (other than you) apparently
thinks tube embedded HF transceivers are quite obsolete for a wide
variety of reasons. Else they would be manufacturing and selling them.
Even ham magazines print mostly solid state articles using modern
solid state parts, which is right since hams should learn to use
modern technology. When they do print a tube article it's usually
described as nostalgia.

Except the Russians. They were still using tube gear in their military
back in the mid 80s. Not susecptible to EMP (electromagnetic pulse)
from a nuke going off. They may STILL be using tubes...I'm out of the
loop since leaving the military in the late 80s...

Probably one reason there aren't more tube projects in QST, etc. is that
nobody is left who wants to learn an "obsolete" technology and the old
timers aren't going to bother writing about them because all they would
hear is bitching about how someone wrote an article on old technology
and wasted the pages in QST, etc. Just a guess.

Scott
N0EDV

On Sep 22, 8:32�pm, Scott wrote:
AJ Lake wrote:

The rest of the transceiver industry (other than you) apparently
thinks tube embedded HF transceivers are quite obsolete
for a wide
variety of reasons. Else they would be manufacturing
and selling them.

There are several reasons you don't see much manufactured tube gear,
such as a "modern" version of the TS-520S.

The first reason is cost. Getting tubes and tube-type parts made in
the quantities needed would be more expensive than using solid-state.
Manufacturers can't use parts found at hamfests/rallys/on eBay, and
gearing up to have stuff made custom is expensive and chancy. The
complexity of the rig in ways such as needing both high and low
voltage supplies adds to the cost, too.

The second reason is size.

The third and most important reason is that tubes have become electro-
politically incorrect. Admitting that an old technology can do
something - anything - better than a new one just rubs people the
wrong way. Putting a 7360 in the front end of a "modern" transceiver
would be an admission that there has been a better solution around for
decades, and a lot of folks don't want to admit that.

As a case in point, look at the Elecraft K2. When it was introduced
back in 1999, it blew away much more expensive rigs in many
performance criteria. Yet its hardware design is much simpler than
almost anything else on the market that comes close to its
performance. Worse, it turns the usual marketing ideas upside down in
that the basic rig is QRP and CW only *kit*, with 100W, SSB and many
other features as add-on options.

The conventional wisdom of 1999 said there was no market for such a
rig. But with almost no advertising over 6000 have been sold. And the
product line has grown in several directions since 1999, including the
K3, which has sold over 1500 units.

Even ham magazines print mostly solid state articles
using modern solid state parts,

How many complete multiband multimode transceiver projects have you
seen in US ham magazines in the past 10 or 20 years?

which is right since hams should learn to use
modern technology.

But who decides what is "modern"?

Is SSB "modern"? It was first used on the air in the 1920s, first used
by hams in the early 1930s, and has been commonly used by hams for 60-
odd years. Almost no other service uses SSB anymore.

Is AM "modern"? It was first used on the air in 1900, and by 1906 was
being heard across the Atlantic. It was common by the 1920s.

How about FM? It's only a couple decades newer than AM. Repeaters were
in common use in the land mobile services in the 1950s.

RTTY dates back to WW2, and although the mechanical teleprinters have
been replaced by computers the coding and FSK methods used are
basically unchanged for half a century plus.

Most of the technologies we hams use have long been abandoned by other
services, or are simply kept alive because of the large installed base
of users - which is slowly dwindling.

When they do print a tube article it's usually
described as nostalgia.

You mean history.

Except the Russians. �They were still using tube gear in their
military
back in the mid 80s. �Not susecptible to EMP (electromagnetic
pulse)
from a nuke going off. �They may STILL be using tubes...I'm out of the loop since leaving the military in the late 80s...

EMP was one reason, but there were others. A big one was that they had
the industrial capacity to make high quality tubes in huge numbers,
but not semiconductors, so the solid-state was reserved for where
nothing else would work.

Probably one reason there aren't more tube projects in QST, etc. is that
nobody is left who wants to learn an "obsolete" technology and
the old
timers aren't going to bother writing about them because all they
would
hear is bitching about how someone wrote an article on old
technology
and wasted the pages in QST, etc. �Just a guess.

Not exactly.

QST is a general-purpose magazine; the technical stuff largely goes to
QEX., which was created just for that purpose because the QST staff
got and keeps getting complaints that QST is "too technical" (!).

Way back in 1989 a magazine called "Electric Radio" appeared, and is
still going strong. It's a small mag that specializes in hollow-state
gear, but there's plenty of interest and homebrewing going on.

Most of all, the internet has made it possible to put far more info
out there than could fit in a magazine, without the cost and bother of
printing and postage. Even I have a webpage (google my call) with a
picture and description of my shack and rig. The resources out there
are incredible; the main problem is getting through it all!

73 de Jim, N2EY