On Mar 7, 3:00*pm, dave wrote:
On 03/07/2011 11:12 AM, BDK wrote:



In om,
says...

On 03/06/2011 10:45 PM, BDK wrote:
In om,
says...

On 03/06/2011 11:55 AM, BDK wrote:
In om,
says...

They look way better than they perform.

I beg to differ. That one in particular was fanastic on SSB and RTTY
modes.

She's got a great personality. I hear the audio is muffled. And it's
full of extinct parts.

You had to have the right speaker on an external amp, and on SSB, it
wasn't bad at all anyway. As a non program listener, I couldn't care
less about the wooly audio. My friend had other receivers if he wanted
to listen to that AM stuff, and so do I. You would be shocked at some of
the parts I got for mine recently, without resorting to cannibalization
of another 515. I just made a few phone calls. Other receivers have long
come and gone, but my 515 and 525 stay around. I bought my 515 in 1984,
and my present 525 in 1989. My R5000, R71a's, Drake R7A and R8A, and
several ham rigs have all gone away. Some, like the R8A annoyed me due
to the el cheapo encoder failing and horrible ergonomics, along with
generally disappointing me, performance wise, others, like the R5000,
just didn't grab me, and the fact it ran insanely hot on AC power, made
it go away. It didn't have the bouncing keypad yet, but I knew it was
coming.

I run my receivers on a decent quality PC UPS, and have surge protectors
on all the antenna lines coming in. The radios get their inputs shorted
when I'm not listening. With those precautions, the main worry I have is
electrolytic caps failing. All the problems my 515 has ever had were
cold solder joint or interconnect caused, and it's been problem free for
about the last 20 years. The 525 has a dimming display, but it can be
"rejuvinated" by simply leaving it on for a while. It doesn't affect
anything anyway.

It's a beautiful radio, very macho. I run my radios on an Astron power
supply, made for 2 way radios.

Wooly. I like that.

Wooly was what the first reviewer called it, if I remember correctly. On
an external amp, on an old speaker I found in my basement when I moved
into this house, it's pretty good. Best audio of any of my present stuff
is:

1. Hammarlund HQ-100 modded to the point of insanity, it sounds great.
2. Kenwood TS-850SAT very nice all around, sounds crappy on the
internal, but on an outboard speaker, it sounds almost as good as the
HQ.
3. Homebrewed SW reciever I bought at a garage sale after the old ham
who built it died. Not enough power output, but it sounds really good on
headphones.
4. Allied SX-190, after the speaker was replaced, it dried up from old
age.
5. NRD-525, Kiwa ultimate rejection mod, 500hz and 1KHZ filters added.
6. NRD-515, Gilfer mods, added filters and the arrestor diodes clipped.
That alone improved the audio a little.
7. A couple of crappy AM only multiband portables. Bad at everything.

I'm too poor to have a big collection (or power up boatanchors). I have
the K3, an R75, the Drake SW2, a Lowe HF-150 (with Keypad and serial
cable), an RF-B45, an Eton E10, a Yachtboy 300, and a Sangean ATS-606P
that I've misplaced somewhere. The Panasonic has the best audio. Oh
yeah, I have a National NC-125 and a Hallicrafters stereo hifi
receiver/shortwave out on the patio. I also only have a very few
scanners. I have left a trail of Trutone, Zenith, Hallicrafters,
Blaupunkt, Grundig, RCA, Realistic, etc. behind me. Not to mention 2
R-390As and a dual channel version of the RA-17.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

How much deadweight was in that RA-17 ? I had a single version and
even that was way too much to carry from place to place !