From: dstine@cisco.com (David Stine)
Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave
Subject: Re: New American Made SHORTWAVE available
Date: 11 Nov 92 10:53:42 GMT
Organization: BitBashers, Ltd.
NNTP-Posting-Host: regal.cisco.com

In article <Sreye-qH3@lopez.marquette.MI.US> flash@lopez.marquette.MI.US (Gary Bourgois,Hamshack) writes:
[...]
>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.

Well, it is nice that it has a full range speaker. More stationary radios
could use a "real" speaker. Remember the days when receivers had their
speakers in a seperate enclosure and they were from 8 to 10 inches in
diameter?

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

If the inside of the wood case is shielded, this need not be a problem.

>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.

Well, that depends on how clever they were. I suppose if you're using some of
the newer off-the-shelf IF/mixer chips, you could put together a decent
receiver and for $200 and still make a profit. I can't say one way or the
other without seeing the design, tho.

>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?

Well, if the first mixer is sensitive enough, I 'spose you could do without
an RF stage. Esp. if the receiver isn't designed for weak-signal work. A decent
antenna will get lots of energy out of the air on 49m.

> 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)...

I've had both IF gain and RF gain controls in a comm receiver. I'll take RF
gain if I have to choose one over the other and both if I can have my cake &
eat it too. The upshot is that there are times you simply want less gain up
front; you have more than enough signal, so why swamp the successive stages
with high signal levels and thereby make the mixer by-products higher, the
filtering harder, etc, etc, etc.

>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.

Not to mention the static, as you mentioned above. This is what used to drive
me to my utter limits when I was a kid working late-night 80m CW. There were
times the static would get so bad in NJ in August that it could rip your ears
off. It isn't you who is living in an unusual place. I think the yahoo to whom
you're talking is living in a dream.

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

Not moi. Essential equipment. Not optional.

dsa
Newsgroups: rec.radio.shortwave