I've been a SWLer for at least 20 years, have a Ph.D. in EE, have 20+
years of
experience in the telecomm industry (uwave, sats, cellular, UWB...) and
have taught
grad/undergrad comm courses at various U.S. universities.

I agree with another poster that the SW8/R8B sync. detectors are among
the best ever incorporated
into SWL gear. My previous comment about sync. doesn't mean that one
cannot achieve similar
signall quality without it (e.g., using PBT, but how many portables or
low-cost tabletops have PBT
these days?), but the convenience of being able to select sidebands in
sync mode is a big plus.

RK