Hi.

Too bad you didn't catch me when I had my Drake R8A up for sale.  That 
would've done the job in fine shape, as would the Drake R8B.  Another good 
candidate would be the Icom R75.  You might prefer the Icom because it has 
a speech board and a very nice DSP unit.  The Drakes are only available on 
the used market, but there are still new Icom R75 receivers out there.  It 
takes the UT102 speech synthesizer, and last I knew, Icom was giving the 
UT106 DSP unit away with the receiver.  It only has 6 KHz and 2.4 KHz 
filters in it, so you'll probably want to buy the 3.3 KHz filter for narrow 
AM and one of the CW filters, and maybe a narrow SSB filter.  Be prepared 
for sticker shock on the filters--the radio itself is substantially less 
expensive than the R71A, but the accessories make up the difference in a hurry.

Receiver performance is close to that of the R71A,; I think the strong 
signal characteristics of the R71A are a little better, but the Icom R75 
does a respectable job.  Also, plan on getting some kind of external 
speaker as the built in is pretty poor.  Icom just doesn't seem to know how 
to put a good speaker in a radio.  That was one thing I liked about the 
Drake--the audio sounded like a million bucks on it.

73, de Lou K2LKK



At 03:25 PM 8/1/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>         I am looking for a communications receiver to replace my
>aging ICR71 which I have had for about 22 years of generally
>great service on HF. I run separate transmit and receive so I
>only need to worry about receiver quality in this decision.
>
>         What I have in mind is something with generally the same
>capabilities as the ICR71 with hopefully a serial interface that
>I can use with a computer.
>
>         I have a Uniden BC780 scanner which I can fully control
>with the exception of things like volume and squelch from a
>Linux computer. The serial commands are turse, but not hard to
>master.
>
>         It would be nice to have that same capability on HF.
>Also, if the HF receiver had that serial interface, it wouldn't
>matter so much if it had an on-board speech output since the
>computer could read the information one needed and its speech
>synthesizer would tell you what frequency was being heard.
>
>         I seem to remember the ICR71 was around 600 Dollars so I
>am figuring on needing to spend something similar.  I think
>every 20 to 25 years, it's time for a newer receiver.
>
>         The R71 is still working, but getting really strange
>glitches in its behavior, probably due to electrolytic
>capacitors reaching the end of their lives.
>
>         Any suggestions are appreciated.
>
>Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK
>Systems Engineer
>OSU Information Technology Department Network Operations Group
>
>
>
>--
>No virus found in this incoming message.
>Checked by AVG Free Edition.
>Version: 7.5.476 / Virus Database: 269.11.2/931 - Release Date: 8/1/2007 
>4:53 PM

Louis Kim Kline
A.R.S. K2LKK
Home e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work e-mail:  [log in to unmask]
Work Telephone:  (585) 697-5753