Hi folks.

I had a number of comments on these old receivers.  Well, old is a relative
term, I guess.

Anyway, for Henry, regarding your drift problem on the Kenwood R-1000, 10
Hz drift would be pretty good.  I suspect you meant 100Hz, and that would
have been pretty typical of general coverage receivers of the day unless
you got into some pretty big money.  Regarding the noisy MHz ranges, there
were three issues with the receiver in general that would pop up after a
few years.  First of all, the contacts on that switch had a tendency to
oxidize a bit and become noisy.  Second, they used a diode switching scheme
to switch in different band pass filters in the front end, and I had one of
those diodes get noisy after a few years.  It was a real bear to find,
too.  Finally, the four position switch that they used for the variable RF
Attenuator was pretty cheesy and got pretty cruddy after a couple of
years.  I have seen this problem on every Kenwood R-1000 and R-2000 I've
ever worked with.  Opening up the radio and using contact cleaner to clean
these switches only works for a short time.

On my receiver, I didn't find the drift any worse than any other receiver
that I used from that time period, though newer receivers have certainly
gotten much better.  But, comparing this receiver against the two old
Halicrafters receivers that I had (the S-20R and the S-108) and against the
Panasonic RF4900 [another receiver to avoid], and the Realistic DX-300
which is probably the worst receiver I've ever owned, the Kenwood R-1000
was pretty good.  It was sensitive, reasonably selective, and fairly free
of images.  One comment that I have to make about the R-1000 is that
Kenwood made some changes in the design after the first production
run.  The first run had some problems, and 73 Magazine actually ran an
article on cleaning up some of these problems.  One thing that I do recall
is that Kenwood did not get the AGC constants right on this receiver, and
the AGC was too slow, which could be a real annoyance during the
thunderstorm season.


Regarding the comments on the Wadley Loop Synthesized radios, I've only
owned two radios that used that technology--the Yaesu FRG-7 and the
Realistic DX-300.  I didn't think the Yaesu was a particularly bad
receiver, although I would echo the comments about the front end
overload.  I would sometimes compensate for this by slightly off-tuning the
preselector to provide a smaller amount of attenuation than I would have
gotten by switching in the attenuator.  I did find the Yaesu to have some
noticeable drift, but I expected that and didn't consider it to be a big deal.

Regarding the Realistic DX-300, that receiver actually had a lot of
similarities with the FRG-7.  I think the design principles were the same,
but Yaesu did a better job of designing their front-end.  The DX-300 also
used a red 5 digit LED display to show the frequency rather than the analog
dial, and the preselector had two more ranges to allow the DX-300 to go
down to 10khz.  I never heard anything below 100KHz on this receiver.  The
overload and intermod problem was much worse on the DX-300, especially if
you tried to use the wire antenna terminal, which made the receiver
essentially uunusable.  I rigged up a little cable with a PL-259 on one end
and an aligator clip on the other end and ran the wire antennas in through
the UHF connector which allowed one to use the RF Attenuator, but the
receiver was still pretty bad.  I only kept mine for 7 months which was
probably about 6 months and three weeks too long!  I might have tried a
Realstic DX-302 which was another Wadley loop receiver, but Radio Shack
gave me such a hard time when I tried to take the DX-300 back after the
first 24 hours of operation that it was a long time before I tried another
Radio Shack shortwave receiver.

Regarding the Lowe HF-150, it is a nicer receiver than any of these rigs
that we've been discussing.  I wish I still had mine, but I sold it when I
was trying to get money together to put down on the house purchase.

While I still like my Drake R-8A and my Icom R-71A a little better (lots
more bells and whistles), I was nonetheless very impressed with the Lowe
HF-150 receiver.  I found it to be remarkably gutsie for such a small
package, and it seems to have a pretty good front end on it.  It would be
interesting to try this one for mobile SWLing.  I did use both the
Realistic DX-300 and the Kenwood R-1000 receivers mobile.  Mobile SWLing
worked out pretty well for me--all I did was steal the 102 inch CB whip
from my father's CB, and the receivers seemed to play pretty well over
their entire tuning range with it.

Well, enough nostalgia, I guess.  Shortwave radio was my first passion, and
through it I discovered amateur radio.  So, I'm always interested in SW
receivers.  It's ironic.  My mother was working for one of the local chain
stores in the area, and almost bought a Zenith Trans-Oceanic receiver for
me when I was in Junior High school, but just wasn't sure I would have any
interest in it. Mom!!!

Ok, I'm all right now!  73, de Lou K2LKK






Louis (Kim) Kline, A.R.S.  K2LKK
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Work Tel.  (585) 697-5753