Dear Les,

Obviously you are a collector of that model. My comment was meant for
those people who are buying a modern radio for daily use. Frankly, old
tube "boat-anchors," well-designed in their day though they may have
been, are not for most users today much as a 1959 Cadillac convertible,
"fancy" and advanced as it was then (and, even now, unbeatable in a
Fourth-of-July parade), would not be suitable for most drivers today.
And today's single-conversion radios, analog OR digital, are a waste of
money when you consider the price for good dual-conversion SW radios,
some of which even feature dual bandwidths and SSB reception. You can
select from a number of models selling for less than $100.00.

I too have an old "boat-anchor," a Lafayette Model HE-10, its
associated speaker the HE-11, and a pair of vintage crystal headphones.
I trot this out a few times a year just for old times' sake. It's nice
to see the tubes light up and to use the wonderful knobs with their
gorgeous flywheel effect (something sadly lacking on today's
receivers).

But there's absolutely no way I would ever go back to a
single-conversion receiver (with its images that even the best
single-conversion receiver cannot eliminate) nor would I go back to any
radio that does not have a synchronous detection circuit (and thus have
to suffer with selective fading distortion). If I'm not incorrect, the
Hallicrafters SX-62 models, like many radios of that time, cannot even
receive SSB and, though they may (I'm not sure) feature a crystal
calibrator, you still cannot tell exactly the frequency to which you're
tuned. And, like all analog-tuned receivers, to a greater or lesser
extent, they drift.

While, for a collector such as yourself, these limitations won't be
important, for most people today they most certainly would be. If one
is spending $150.00, a Sony ICF-SW7600GR (which features a sync
circuit) and a suitable antenna in absolute terms will run rings around
the Hallicrafters, audio quality excepted.

By the way, years ago, I always thought that Hallicrafters radios were
really good ones, right up there with Hammarlund models (though, like
everything else, "shy" of the Collinses). They were well-designed and
very rugged. In their respective classes, they were also the
best-looking SW radios on the market at that time.

Best,

Joe