Universal Radio has listed a new portable, The G3 Voyageur. About the
same as G5 with one BIG difference. It has Synchranous Detection !!
Lets hope it is a viable form of this useful feature. So many other
attempts at this feature have come up dry. The E1 works great, as does
the Drake R8B. The Icom IC-75 was a flopperoo in this department.
I'm totally happy with my new Grundig Satellit 750 - great tabletop/
portable, especially with a good outdoor antenna.
But I need a small portable for travel, and when on the fly, so will
wait until new year when Universal says the new G3 will be availble.
No price listed yet. http://universal-radio.com/
Use menu to navigate, on opening page.
Good Listening to All from SW4ever...

SW4ever wrote:
Universal Radio has listed a new portable, The G3 Voyageur. About the
same as G5 with one BIG difference. It has Synchranous Detection !!
Lets hope it is a viable form of this useful feature. So many other
attempts at this feature have come up dry. The E1 works great, as does
the Drake R8B. The Icom IC-75 was a flopperoo in this department.
I'm totally happy with my new Grundig Satellit 750 - great tabletop/
portable, especially with a good outdoor antenna.
But I need a small portable for travel, and when on the fly, so will
wait until new year when Universal says the new G3 will be availble.
No price listed yet. http://universal-radio.com/
Use menu to navigate, on opening page.
Good Listening to All from SW4ever...

Eton management gets it about as well as any CE manufacturer (since
Sony's heyday).

It's been fascinating watching the evolution of this receiver. It
started off as the Degen 1103, a radio that really impressed me when I
first acquired one about four years ago. Very sensitive, extremely low
noise floor, and surprisingly good audio from a very tiny box. But the
ergonomics, particularly the need to go into the software menu to
change volume levels and the display window wasted on a fake analog
dial, was a turn-off. I know a lot of folks knock Eton (hard not to
scoff at their marketing of the E!!), but I think they did a great job
of listening to complaints made against the 1103 and rectified them
pretty well when they released the E5/G5. Essentially the the E5 was a
1103 with a much better display and volume controls. In my
estimation, I think the E5 was quickly giving the Sony 7600GR a real
race for the label of Best Subcompact Portable. Side-by-side tests
between my E5 and my 7600G led me to believe they were pretty
equivalent receivers. I even took a challenge from a member of the
Sony Yahoo Group and bought a GR model Sony. After extensive
comparison, I had to agree that the 7600GR was a slightly better
receiver, and it mainly came down to the selectable sync. I can't wait
to see how Eton has implemented the sync on the G3! If done as least
as well as the Sony 7600 series, this might become the better choice -
more sensitive, lower noise floor, better audio and smaller size.

Does anyone know if the G3's sync capabilities are sideband-
selectable? I can't tell from the ads I've seen....

Mike
Louisville, KY

On Dec 21, 10:51�am, SW4ever wrote:
Universal Radio has listed a new portable, The G3 Voyageur. About the
same as G5 with one BIG difference. It has Synchranous Detection !!
Lets hope it is a viable form of this useful feature. So many other
attempts at this feature have come up dry. The E1 works great, as does
the Drake R8B. The Icom IC-75 was a flopperoo in this department.
I'm totally happy with my new Grundig Satellit 750 - great tabletop/
portable, especially with a good outdoor antenna.
But I need a small portable for travel, and when on the fly, so will
wait until new year when Universal says the new G3 will be availble.
No price listed yet. �http://universal-radio.com/
Use menu to navigate, on opening page.
Good Listening to All from SW4ever...

On Dec 22, 1:16*am, Bob Dobbs wrote:

Only later did I subscribe to this group and observe such a collection
of disgruntled owners, if they were indeed owners and not just sour
grape whiners.
I think Roy (Hussein) Fisk has one and he never complains about it.

I recently got back into listening to SW radio. It seems every new
unit that comes out gets torn to shreds while all the old units were
glorious works of perfection, but I'm inclined to believe it's people
being perhaps over-analyzing. It seems the more expensive the portable
SW unit (e1, satellit 750 etc) the more they are getting torn up in
reviews. I don't know.

I only got one SW now, a new Grundig G6. The only complaint I got
against that unit is the aircraft band is useless and full of images
from FM, especially compared to my police scanners. Otherwise, I think
for 99 bucks (and now on sale for 79 bucks), it's a darn good little
unit.

If I could find one in a brick and mortar store, I would like to buy
the Satellit 750, or at least see it in person.

"SC Dxing" wrote in message
...

I recently got back into listening to SW radio. It seems every new
unit that comes out gets torn to shreds while all the old units were
glorious works of perfection, but I'm inclined to believe it's people
being perhaps over-analyzing.

The problem is the quality control (or lack of it) on the newer radios.
Older ones, even ones from only as far back as the 70's and early 80's, had
much better build quality and service life. The ones that used buttons, used
tactile switches, the good mechanical kind that could even be replaced when
they failed, as opposed to cheap buttons with carbon on the underside to
make contact with PC board traces underneath. The components were of a
better grade, in general, as well.

Go back further, to the old tube boatanchors, and the build quality gets
much much better. Sure, they didn't have synchronous tuning or PLL's, but
they were built to last (many are already over 60 years old and perform
better in many ways than modern radios) and had real tuned circuits in them
instead of a broadband front end, a noisy PLL, and a ceramic filter feeding
a single stage high gain IC IF amp. I'll put my old Hallicrafters SX-25 up
against most any new radio station for station.

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...

In article
,
SC Dxing wrote:

On Dec 22, 1:16*am, Bob Dobbs wrote:

Only later did I subscribe to this group and observe such a collection
of disgruntled owners, if they were indeed owners and not just sour
grape whiners.
I think Roy (Hussein) Fisk has one and he never complains about it.

I recently got back into listening to SW radio. It seems every new
unit that comes out gets torn to shreds while all the old units were
glorious works of perfection, but I'm inclined to believe it's people
being perhaps over-analyzing. It seems the more expensive the portable
SW unit (e1, satellit 750 etc) the more they are getting torn up in
reviews. I don't know.

I only got one SW now, a new Grundig G6. The only complaint I got
against that unit is the aircraft band is useless and full of images
from FM, especially compared to my police scanners. Otherwise, I think
for 99 bucks (and now on sale for 79 bucks), it's a darn good little
unit.

If I could find one in a brick and mortar store, I would like to buy
the Satellit 750, or at least see it in person.

There have been just a few radios that people only have minor quibbles
with so the new models get compared to them and the slaughter begins. An
example is Drake sync detection. If the radio does not have synchronous
detection that's a complaint. If it does have sync then does it work as
good as the R8 series does?

Basically people are conditioned to expect electronics to keep advancing
and improvements in one make are expected to show up in a new models of
other makes.

So as time goes on people become more demanding and easier to disappoint.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

Telamon wrote:

In article
,
SC Dxing wrote:

On Dec 22, 1:16 am, Bob Dobbs wrote:

Only later did I subscribe to this group and observe such a collection
of disgruntled owners, if they were indeed owners and not just sour
grape whiners.
I think Roy (Hussein) Fisk has one and he never complains about it.

I recently got back into listening to SW radio. It seems every new
unit that comes out gets torn to shreds while all the old units were
glorious works of perfection, but I'm inclined to believe it's people
being perhaps over-analyzing. It seems the more expensive the portable
SW unit (e1, satellit 750 etc) the more they are getting torn up in
reviews. I don't know.

I only got one SW now, a new Grundig G6. The only complaint I got
against that unit is the aircraft band is useless and full of images
from FM, especially compared to my police scanners. Otherwise, I think
for 99 bucks (and now on sale for 79 bucks), it's a darn good little
unit.

If I could find one in a brick and mortar store, I would like to buy
the Satellit 750, or at least see it in person.

There have been just a few radios that people only have minor quibbles
with so the new models get compared to them and the slaughter begins. An
example is Drake sync detection. If the radio does not have synchronous
detection that's a complaint. If it does have sync then does it work as
good as the R8 series does?

Basically people are conditioned to expect electronics to keep advancing
and improvements in one make are expected to show up in a new models of
other makes.

So as time goes on people become more demanding and easier to disappoint.

I'm wondering if a new description should be applied to many of these new
radios? Call them 'partables' vs. 'portables' as they are so easy to part with.

"dxAce" wrote in message
...
I'm wondering if a new description should be applied to many of these new
radios? Call them 'partables' vs. 'portables' as they are so easy to part
with.



Good zing, Steve. Importables would be good, too.. since that's what all of
them are.

Brenda Ann wrote:

"dxAce" wrote in message
...
I'm wondering if a new description should be applied to many of these new
radios? Call them 'partables' vs. 'portables' as they are so easy to part
with.



Good zing, Steve. Importables would be good, too.. since that's what all of
them are.

Thinking of imports, has anyone seen a good 'hands on' review of the Kneisner +
Doering KWZ 50?

"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.