Hi Mike, I was "volunteered" by Pat G4GVW as I suggested the AOR 7030 to
him, but I think you know my opinions on that well. Both ours are fitted
with Rockell-Collins 300Hz filters. I generally dont find the noise blanker
which is available on the "Plus" version useful on 136kHz. It could be I
have the "Wrong kind of noise" (with apologies to BR, Railtrack, and whoever
runs trains now)
I have also used a Lowe HF150 to good effect, this tunes down to 30kHz. The
problems are no RF gain control, no AGC OFF switch, no ability to
electronically lock the tuning knob and only a 2.1kHz filter with no option
to fit others, however the IDM performance is much better than rigs costing
a lot more. I used it successfully in my early "SWL" (or should it be "LWL"
!!) days with a good audio filter....probably before Jim became active!! He
would cause havoc with the AGC here.
I believe from Finbar that the Lowe HF225, which can be fitted with a narrow
filter, is very good (and Finbar is a REAL operator, unlike me!)
The Trio/Kenwood R1000 only really tunes down to 200kHz and rolls off
rapidly below that. It is possible to feed a signal into a test-point after
the RF octave filters, and disable the BC IF attenuator, but the performance
is not good and it has no provision for IF CW filter, or AGC OFF. The noise
blanker never seemed any good for anything except car ignition to me. Tuning
resolution is 1kHz. I have used it with a converter but the FT101ZD with
narrow filter was much better in that mode.
I believe there are several Racal RA1792s around in use (Brian has a couple,
and I think Andy uses one)
I would like to be able to report on an AR88LF (I dont have one now) but I
would have to go into weight-training first!!
Cheers de Alan G3NYK
[email protected]
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