"Bob Dobbs" wrote in message
news:49506df3.2259656@chupacabra...
Brenda Ann wrote:

Mind you, I have a couple new radios: An Eton E1XM and a Degen DE1123,
plus
a Grundig Satellit 650 Professional (last of the true Grundig big
portables)
and a couple ham rigs with GC receivers. For pulling out the DX, the SX-25
beats them all...

Since I'm not privy to the population of your antenna farm, I can only
speculate as to why an old Halliscratcher would beat the newer solid
state rigs. Maybe something to do with impedance and/or coupling?
In my case either of the HAM rigs generally out perform the other
receivers, especially in the presence of QRN. On a quiet occasion it
could very well be different, but those times are frustratingly rare.
Do you use a marker generator to calibrate to the approximate target
freq, or just tune for whatever shows up wherever? Back in my hollow
state days I thought the little XTAL marker box was the neatest thing on
the table, don't know what I would have thought to have seen a digital
display.


Haven't any antenna farm. I used to have a 5BTV clone, but sold it to a
friend when I let my local ham license lapse. I have a single random wire
antenna, which often isn't as good as just a short piece of wire hanging off
the back of the radio. My QTH has, much of the time, S7 to 10 over S9 of
QRM. The only place I might be able to go on the peninsula where this
wouldn't be the case MIGHT be the southwest coast.... Korean power
distribution systems are perhaps among the very worst in the industrialized
world. They use no neutral, and no ground, at least not for any of the
drops.. To look at their local level feeders, all you see is a single heavy
wire with the other side of the feed connected to an uninsulated wire that
runs along the tops of the poles, upon which there is a metal sleeve, and no
insulators. Perhaps 40%, perhaps more, of the load is fluorescent lighting,
which puts the nastiest waveforms on the mains, and radiates for perhaps a
Km or two away from the HT feeders, which criss-cross the country like a
spider web. Small wonder most of the KBS MW stations run upwards from a
megawatt during daytime hours..

Under these conditions, the hollow state gear performs better. This may be
in part because of better decoupling, or whatever.. but I get better
quality, more listenable signals on my tube radios than any of the SS
stuff... with one exception.. a stupid little $10 palm sized 9 band POS can
hear the big boys better than any of them.. due totally, I am sure, to the
fact it's almost completely deaf, so it's got a noise floor somewhere in the
sub basement.