Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
Subject: New American Made SHORTWAVE available
From: flash@lopez.marquette.MI.US (Gary Bourgois,Hamshack)
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 12:39:42 EST
Organization: Great White North/UPLink

Well they DID it.  Chuck Harder's group has beat out the GROVE boys, and have
started advertising their new AMERICAN ELECTROLA receiver.  They say that 500
of them will be shipped in December.  I am hoping Larry Magne or someone else
of his calibre gets one and can give us the REAL scoop.  The ELECTROLA is
designed for CONSUMERS, Not DIE HARD SWLS (the market GROVE claims with their
SW-100).

Harder's receiver boasts a wood cabinet and digital tuning.  It has a feature
that tunes away all that shortwave noise (I don't think it is ECSS though).
He says it also has a large full range speaker.

A radio in a WOOD CASE?  Well personally this is kind of cute, a giant step
backwards as is the name itself.

So what is INSIDE that wood case.  With all his talk about BUY AMERICAN I
would hate to think that the radio had the guts of a sangean or something.

At $199.95, for a desk top receiver, you can't expect much.  I am anxiously
awaiting a review.  No.  I won't be the FIRST on my block to buy one.

I also won't be buying one of those GROVE SW-100's either.  Did you see where
they are reniging on the DELIVERY DATE again?  Now we hear that one of their
design engineers has been taken ill, which means they can't make the winter
delivery, and now are saying it will be SUMMER before the SW-100 rolls off
the line.

I have to tell you, I have been skeptical from the get go on the GROVE
receiver.  My spies in dayton reported seeing the BOX, but it did not light
up.  The excuse they were given was that the main chip was not ready.  Right.

I got into a discussion with Bill Grove on the Genie network regarding the
fact that their whiz bang receiver did not have an RF gain control.  I tried
to explain as best as I could that the RF GAIN is one of the knobs I use most
often (And I am sure you DIE HARD SWLS on the net will back me up on this).
Most NEWBIES just turn their RF gain all the way up so they can hear
EVERYTHING as loud as possible.  EVERYTHING including NOISE.  No matter how I
tried to convince him, Grove said the receiver does not NEED an RF gain
control.  I even told him how to prove to himself how valuable the knob is,
since he has a TS-440 the same as I do.  Last summer I sent him to his shack,
complete with instructions to tune the 75 meter band for a signal that was
coming in at S8 or so, and adjusting the RF gain control so the S meter
rested just above S8, then to suddenly turn it full and see the difference.
75 meters is a good place to do this experiment.  WIth the gain full, the
static crashes make the voice uninteligible.  WIth the gain set to just where
the AGC starts working the signals LEAP out from the noise.

Just last week Kristin Kaye told me she used this same method while tuning
SSB pirates on the NRD 525 and she was amazed at how effective it was, and
that she would have never thought so.

To leave the RF gain control shows that the designers of the GROVE receiver
are NOT really familiar with Shortwave reception.  I got excuse after excuse.
One of the things Grove told me was that they did not have an RF gain control
because the receiver is so sensitive it does not need an RF amplifier.  How's
that?  OK design innovation I can buy it.  How about then an IF gain control?
Some means of VARIABLE (Not SWITCHED) Signal gain adjustment to taylor the
reception to the EXACT conditions of the moment (Which change with Line
noise, atmospheric conditions and how many computers you are running)...

Grove told me that I live in an unusual place, with all my various noise
sources and that the receiver works very well in Brasstown.  Right.  Let's
all move there.  Most of the world lives in a sea of man-generated noise, and
an RF gain control is a MUST.

They just kept blowing off my suggestion that a simple one dollar part would
make the receiver work 1000 times better.

I am not at all surprised that the receiver is vaporware.  I know vaporware,
I have produced it myself in my youth.  It is easy to make a nice box with
pretty buttons and even put some circuit boards inside.  Ignore the REAL
receiver behind the curtain that is connected to the speaker.

Does anyone out there think an RF gain control is just a frill?

Is anyone going to buy the GROVE receiver, or the AMERICAN ELECTROLA?

Should I toss my Kenwood in the dumper now, or should I wait for the reviews.

Note Smiley ----->

--
    /   Gary Bourgois, WB8EOH, The Birdwatcher: Marquette Michigan  USA   \
   ([-o ~ Tune FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE!  S3/21 6.2. Fridays from 9-midnight ~ o-])
    \  Now a snazzy new DOMAIN address!  flash@lopez.marquette.MI.US      /
        GEnie: SIGNALS   FAX: (906) 228-7477    GWN BBS: (906) 228-4399