John,

Thanks for the excellent assessment of current receivers available to DXers!

The fact that we are not seeing new, traditional communications receivers
come along once or twice a year as we used to is a sad commentary on the
hobby decline. I believe that more and more, DXers will need to content
themselves with quality used gear (in the traditional sense of radios with
knobs), unless they go the route of transceivers as you mentioned. I used to
own a Yaesu FT-900 and an ICOM IC-756Pro for receive-only use, and they are
fine performers. I had various reasons for selling them, but now am resigned
to operating computer-driven SDR radios for the foreseeable future if I want
cutting-edge performance.

The advances in communications equipment will be in the SDR devices, not
labor- and parts-intensive analog receivers bristling with knobs. Like you
and most others, I prefer knobs to tweak, but the unique features and hotrod
performance of radios like my SDR-1000 make up for the lack of the tactile
feel of quality knobs, buttons, etc. when operating a receiver. I do use a
Contour Shuttle Pro and a Griffin Powermate knob when controlling the
SDR-1000, but they are a token nod to traditional receiver controls.

You mentioned the E1's usefulness with long antennas. I've been very
impressed with this ability, too, but only when keeping the "DX"
preamplifier turned OFF. My E1 is more prone to overload and spurious images
with big antennas if the preamp is enabled. If extra gain is needed (usually
it isn't), I found that a quality external preamp works better, something
like a Wellbrook preamp or Kiwa, which use the very stout
"negative-feedback" design. When I owned AR7030s, they had the same trouble
with the stock, internal preamp. Performance was always better with a good
external preamp, one that had better dynamic range & IP3.

Bjarne Mjelde's review of the Eton E1 is very thorough in this regard. He
describes his experiences hooking up long antennas to it, along with other
comments and information about the E1. His review is he
http://www.kongsfjord.no/bm/The%20Eton%20E1%20Story.pdf

73!

Guy Atkins
Puyallup, WA
www.sdr-1000.blogspot.com



"John Plimmer" wrote in message
...
Passport does some nice reviews of serious radio's, better than I read in
most mags that seem too keen not to upset their advertisers who supply
them with loan radio's.

I had some e-mails from Larry Magne and he explained that market research
had shown that the main interest for readers was in the $50 to $150
portable radio range, and that there was only a handful of those like
myself interested in the more expensive tabletops.

With only a few top end radio's now available now that Drake has gone off
the scene, here's my comment on what's left:
SNIP