"Alan J Giddings" wrote in message
om...
I too have a similar experience. I decided to sell the table top and
keep my Sony SW7600G. For what I want from a SW receiver (general
listening to over seas SW broadcasts) then a small portable will do. I
have "up-graded" to a Sony SW77 and that is all I'll ever need.
Coupled with Sony's AN-LP1 antenna I can hear most of the stations
listed in "Passport to World Radio" that come close to the UK. I
also own the ATS909/DX-398 and a brand new Degen/Kaito 1102 (a real
beaut). SSB is not of much use to me as I find little interest in
listening to a couple guys talk about co-ax cable etc (no offence
intended). I wouldn't mind having one of those huge Grundig Satelite
800 receivers to see what all the fuss is about but I'd never again
shell out nearly a £1000 on equipment that was wasted on a general
listener like myself. I own two old Russian (Soviet era) SW radios
that are better than any of my new stuff even though they are all over
30 years old. They do need re-tuning every 15 mins as they drift but
the sound quality is lovely. Keep the little Yachtboy, find the most
distant signal you can hear, sell the table top and go visit the far
off place with the money you make...
Regards,
Alan

I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet. Can anyone tell me how I KNOW when
my Yaesu FRG100 was manufactured. A few earlier posts suggested the Kiwa
filters IF I had an older model (pre 95). I'd like to find this out since I
bought it off of EBay. Thanks.

Hi

I'd suggest the Kiwa filters regardless, but especially if you have
the older version. I have the newer version, which uses filters
labelled as LF-H2S and LF-H6S. You can open up the case to check
whether these are present in yours. I believe older versions contained
Murata CFW455H and CFW455I filters, and these had inferior ultimate
rejection and shape factors. My receiver was purchased new in early
2002, and the manual still showed the Muratas on the schematic, but
the receiver came stock with the LF-H series filters, which are pretty
good. The only real problem is that AM wide is too wide for SWLing.
The stock narrow is good, however.

Passport's White Paper gives the following measurements for the
earlier (pre 11/93)and revised versions:

Early:
(shape factor, -6dB/-60dB)

Wide AM: 7.6/17.9 KHz {1:2.4}
Narrow AM: 6.9/17.2 KHz {1:2.5}
Ulta Narrow AM/SSB 2.6:3.7 KHz {1:1.4}

Revised:

Wide AM: 9.1/15.3 KHz {1:1.7}
Narrow AM: 4.5/7.7 KHz {1:1.7}
Ulta Narrow AM/SSB: 2.6/4.3KHz {1:1.4}

Passport measures the newer filters as having an ultimate rejection of
70dB+, whereas I believe Radio Netherlands review tested the older
version as having U.R. of around 50dB, which is poor.

The SB filter is the same in both, so this was probably a sample to
sample variation, but you should be able to tell if you have an
improved version or not by switching between the AM wide and narrow
positions. If the difference is marked, you probably have a newer
version. The AM wide sounds nice on a clear signal, whereas the AM
narrow sounds a bit muffled. (Hint: get the Kiwa audio mod as this
helps big time).

If you have the older version, the two bandwidths sound virtually the
same, or so I'm told. If you have the newer version, I'd definitely
recommend replacing the AM wide filter as it lets in too much splatter
and annoying hets. The Kiwa narrow is also better than the stock
narrow, but the difference is small.

Hope this helps

Andy