The original content has been moved to
Thank you.
Have a nice ham radio day.
Recent Comments
v44kf on God is good all the time … v44kf on … it want fixing as… v44kf on it is not ur business v44kf on a so it a go v44kf on more stuipidness
… some of us can't call it as we see it, even if our very life depended on it. In all things give God thanks, glory, honor and praise, be strong, please call it as you see it.
Keeth France - V44KF: "Speak Now ... or Forever Hold Your Peace" 
In light of the latest Receiver Test Data table [15 February 2008] produced by Bob Sherwood of Sherwood Engineering, http://www.sherweng.com/table.html I may have to change the caption to "Old Rigs Can\’t Die", because they seen to have some design, components or something that the modern and recent receivers of today may be missing.
With a DRNS, Dynamic Range Narrow Spaced of 80dB @ 2kHz given as the minimum spec for a receiver to cope with the prevailing band conditions of QRM, linear amplifiers, and the lids who will tune up on top of your frequency, only 12 about receivers re capable and half of them were made before the year 2000, to wit, Icom IC-765, Atlas 350-XL, Kenwood TS-830, Elecraft K2, Ten-Tec Omni 6+ and Yaesu 901-DM, in that order. Of course the other receivers in class one, are, in order, Electraft K3, Flex 5000A, Ten-Tec Orion 2, Ten-Tec Orion, Ten-Tec Omni 7, and Icom IC-7800.
I will just list some of the receivers, in order continuing from the top, as they fall below the minimum specs, and these range from DRNS 79 dB down to DRNS 56 dB.. Ten-Tec Corsair, Icom IC-720A, Kenwood TS-820S, Kenwood TS-850, Yaesu FT-1000 MP MkV Field, Ten-Tec Omni 5, Atlas 210/215, Icom IC-756 Pro 3, Icom IC-756 Pro 2, Drake TR-7, Heath SB-104, Icom 706 MK2G, Ten-Tec Omni-B, Icom IC-730-781, Kenwood TS-9S, Icom IC-701, Icom 756 Pro, Icom IC-761, Kenwood TS-870S, Yaesu FT-1000 D, Kenwood TS-430S, Yaeu FT-1000 MP, Signal One CX-11A, Kenwood TS-180s, Icom IC-735, Collins KWM-380, Icom IC-751, Icom 7000, Yaesu Ft-2000, Kenwood TS-520, Yaesu FT-One, Yaesu FT-980, , Yaesu FT-101E, Yaesu FT-757. These are all great receivers but you will have a problem when you want to listen to a weak station and another station, especially local, is in our face 2 kHz away. Now armed with this kind of knowledge you can elect to improve your receiver and maybe get it to perform almost like the 10K models without the 10K price, the bells and the whistles.
Don\’t be alarmed by the number of older rigs which have refused to die. There are a few white and green papers out which clearly explain why this happens. But what this can translate into is what you may wish to consider the next time you feel the urge to add another receiver to the station line up. Many of the TV science fiction movies depict us going back to the old and obsolete equipment for survival after the great high tech war. Maybe we are already living some aspects of the fallout from that time warp but we just do not comprehend that yet.
I will not debate the quality of the older receivers, suffice to say that their prices have been going up for some time now, and most of them are being given collection status as they can now be fully refurbished with brand new parts. The move is on, and the choice is yours. For my part I am going to collect a couple of the top old models and see if I can get them over the edge with better DRNS specs than the IC-756 Pro 3 and the FT-2000 and to rub shoulders with the IC-7800, Orion and Elecraft. I think I can do that for under 200 bucks each.