Drake R4C wins
Over the years I have had a variety of communications equipment. Some of the gear was all tube type, other gear was all solid state. There has always been some controversy regarding performance when tube gear is compared to solid state. Tube gear is supposed to have a much better signal to noise ratio when compared to solid state.
Currently I can play with three rigs. One is an ICOM 737, one is a Kenwood TS-120, and the last is a Drake C-line. The 737 is the more capable of the three and thus, it gets used almost without consideration to the other equipment. At least that has been the situation here for the better part of the last few years.
Ham activity here has been reduced somewhat to weekends and evenings. The only sure activity is on 75 meters on Sunday mornings where I have been keeping a schedule for the last 20 years. This evening I decided to change out antennas and fire up the Drake C-line on 75 meters. At the same time I also fired up the old 737 on the same band for comparison but had to use the 40 meter dipole as the antenna.
The first thing I noticed was that the S-meter was messed up again. Well I don’t ever remember an S-meter that was able to provide better copy, so I ignored it. I left the R4C on while I continued to work on the new mythtv installation on the computer.
It was getting into early evening and 75 meter activity was beginning to pick up. Signals were starting to come in, some with a fair amount of strength. I continued monitoring the band for about three hours and noticed how remarkably quiet the band was. That rushing, frying, noise I had become accustomed to on the 737 was much subdued.
I don’t have the equipment to measure the difference in performance, but my ears tell me there is a significant advantage to receiving signals on the Drake R4C. Now I am happy about not selling the Drake C-line after all.
January 16th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
I also find the R4C one of the better receivers. The only one better has been the FT 1000MP MKV. Other receivers on the table, HRO-50, SP600, R390A, Drake 2B, plus lessor ones.
The R4C is fun to use, works great. I have done most of the Sherwood mods to mine. Detector and power supply mods are very important. I did not do the IF gain one.
Stan ak0b