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One Radio To Rule Them All

Paul Blundell
 

Hi all.

If you could design and build your ultimate "DXing" radio, which fits in the broad ultralight rules of size and cost, what would this look like and what features would you include or remove?

I have my own ideas bit I would love to see what others come up with first.

Paul
John Bishop
 


Hello Paul ...

Good question!

How about a two tube, regenerative receiver; first tube is a buffer and RF amplifier, second is the regenerative detector. If not tubes, then an FET front end with a BJT back end.

Antenna could be an inductively coupled or maybe even a directly attached FSL.

An analogue receiver like this adds the excitement of not being exactly sure to what you are tuned!

... John

On 2/22/2022 8:40 AM, Paul Blundell wrote:

Hi all.

If you could design and build your ultimate "DXing" radio, which fits in the broad ultralight rules of size and cost, what would this look like and what features would you include or remove?

I have my own ideas bit I would love to see what others come up with first.

Paul
Martin Courcel
 

Hi everyone,

That's a big question. Well we all know that there is no ideal receiver, and there will probably never be. Yet, come to think of it, there are quite a number of changes I would wish to see implemented in future receivers.

Also there are things I could very well do without as I find them completey useless, such as having more memories per band than there are channels, as was the case with some receivers in the past.

Generally speaking, having more than say 100 memories I find useless. If you can remember that many memory positions, then you can also remember the frequencies directly. So why bother with memories. Also I have never used ATS, I can't see the point.

Now to what I would like to see implemented.

An ultralight receiver is meant to be carried along when you travel. The trouble is none of the models on the market feature ALL bands. For instance I have an ultralight receiver with LW/MW/SW/FM but it lacks the band I listen to most: DAB+. I have another one that features FM and DAB+, but it has no MW, no LW and no SW. So I always have to carry along both.

I would also wish these receivers to feature decent synchronous detection. My PL-330 has it but when you use it the background noise is much higher than in plain AM mode and it tends to lose lock when the carrier gets weaker. A good sync should keep on injecting a carrier even when the real carrier blanks out completely.

On AM I would also wish to have continuously variable bandwidth, rather than a few selectable values, the widest of which is totally useless on some sets. I really don't  know what I can do with the 9kHz bandwidth on the PL-330 for example.

Finally I would wish the audio to go down much lower, so that in ECSSB mode you could easily find the zero beat position, which is not the case with most ultralight sets.

Comments welcome.

Martin Courcel
Paris - France

Le 22/02/2022 à 14:40, Paul Blundell a écrit :

Hi all.

If you could design and build your ultimate "DXing" radio, which fits in the broad ultralight rules of size and cost, what would this look like and what features would you include or remove?

I have my own ideas bit I would love to see what others come up with first.

Paul
Paul Blundell
 

Thanks for all the replies.

My main features would be:
- An autostore feature that can run on a time schedule.
- A builtin recorder which saves the date, time and frequency in the file name
- External aerial connection
- Airband coverage with scanning of these frequencies.

Paul

On Wed, Feb 23, 2022 at 5:04 AM Martin Courcel <courcel@...> wrote:

Hi everyone,

That's a big question. Well we all know that there is no ideal receiver, and there will probably never be. Yet, come to think of it, there are quite a number of changes I would wish to see implemented in future receivers.

Also there are things I could very well do without as I find them completey useless, such as having more memories per band than there are channels, as was the case with some receivers in the past.

Generally speaking, having more than say 100 memories I find useless. If you can remember that many memory positions, then you can also remember the frequencies directly. So why bother with memories. Also I have never used ATS, I can't see the point.

Now to what I would like to see implemented.

An ultralight receiver is meant to be carried along when you travel. The trouble is none of the models on the market feature ALL bands. For instance I have an ultralight receiver with LW/MW/SW/FM but it lacks the band I listen to most: DAB+. I have another one that features FM and DAB+, but it has no MW, no LW and no SW. So I always have to carry along both.

I would also wish these receivers to feature decent synchronous detection. My PL-330 has it but when you use it the background noise is much higher than in plain AM mode and it tends to lose lock when the carrier gets weaker. A good sync should keep on injecting a carrier even when the real carrier blanks out completely.

On AM I would also wish to have continuously variable bandwidth, rather than a few selectable values, the widest of which is totally useless on some sets. I really don't  know what I can do with the 9kHz bandwidth on the PL-330 for example.

Finally I would wish the audio to go down much lower, so that in ECSSB mode you could easily find the zero beat position, which is not the case with most ultralight sets.

Comments welcome.

Martin Courcel
Paris - France

Le 22/02/2022 à 14:40, Paul Blundell a écrit :
Hi all.

If you could design and build your ultimate "DXing" radio, which fits in the broad ultralight rules of size and cost, what would this look like and what features would you include or remove?

I have my own ideas bit I would love to see what others come up with first.

Paul



--
Paul
Issac Quincey
 

The only thing I need is the best possible rejection of the mess that is the EM spectrum these days in almost all domestic areas. I would also love to be able to turn off the backlight and not have to reset some options all the time, almost have a default start up.

Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.


------- Original Message -------
On Wednesday, February 23rd, 2022 at 5:04 AM, Martin Courcel <courcel@...> wrote:

Hi everyone,

That's a big question. Well we all know that there is no ideal receiver, and there will probably never be. Yet, come to think of it, there are quite a number of changes I would wish to see implemented in future receivers.

Also there are things I could very well do without as I find them completey useless, such as having more memories per band than there are channels, as was the case with some receivers in the past.

Generally speaking, having more than say 100 memories I find useless. If you can remember that many memory positions, then you can also remember the frequencies directly. So why bother with memories. Also I have never used ATS, I can't see the point.

Now to what I would like to see implemented.

An ultralight receiver is meant to be carried along when you travel. The trouble is none of the models on the market feature ALL bands. For instance I have an ultralight receiver with LW/MW/SW/FM but it lacks the band I listen to most: DAB+. I have another one that features FM and DAB+, but it has no MW, no LW and no SW. So I always have to carry along both.

I would also wish these receivers to feature decent synchronous detection. My PL-330 has it but when you use it the background noise is much higher than in plain AM mode and it tends to lose lock when the carrier gets weaker. A good sync should keep on injecting a carrier even when the real carrier blanks out completely.

On AM I would also wish to have continuously variable bandwidth, rather than a few selectable values, the widest of which is totally useless on some sets. I really don't know what I can do with the 9kHz bandwidth on the PL-330 for example.

Finally I would wish the audio to go down much lower, so that in ECSSB mode you could easily find the zero beat position, which is not the case with most ultralight sets.

Comments welcome.

Martin Courcel
Paris - France

Le 22/02/2022 à 14:40, Paul Blundell a écrit :
Hi all.

If you could design and build your ultimate "DXing" radio, which fits in the broad ultralight rules of size and cost, what would this look like and what features would you include or remove?

I have my own ideas bit I would love to see what others come up with first.

Paul
Jock Elliott
 

John,

I like your idea; analogue adds to the feeling of "exploring the unknown."

Cheers, Jock
John Bishop
 


Jock ...

Thank you!

My DX'ing started with a one tube, regenerative, back in the '50s. Had two coils -- one for the AM broadcast band, the other for shortwave. Listened to all the Cold War rhetoric from all the countries on this side of and behind the Iron Curtain; as well as, all the AM power houses in the US and Mexico.

On 2/24/2022 8:18 AM, Jock Elliott wrote:

John,

I like your idea; analogue adds to the feeling of "exploring the unknown."

Cheers, Jock

FenDrifter
 

Hi Jock
I love your reference to exploring the unknown, the trouble is, when you’ve found what you’re looking for, you don’t know what it is! I have an old Panasonic RF-B11 which pulls in stations like crazy on medium wave, but because I don’t know their precise frequency I can’t find what they are, I’m sure this probably rings a lot of bells with some members. 

Drifter
John Bishop
 

 
Drifter ...

I've been thinking about your comment "when you’ve found what you’re looking for, you don’t know what it is". Back in the '50s with the 1 tube regen, I'd listen patiently till I heard a call sign or a comment that would give me a hint as to what I was listening (often the programming was a good listen).  Today, with a simple receiver like that, I'd loosely couple a freq meter to the circuit to get at least an approximate freq fix.

... John
 
On 2/24/2022 11:03 AM, FenDrifter via groups.io wrote:

Hi Jock
I love your reference to exploring the unknown, the trouble is, when you’ve found what you’re looking for, you don’t know what it is! I have an old Panasonic RF-B11 which pulls in stations like crazy on medium wave, but because I don’t know their precise frequency I can’t find what they are, I’m sure this probably rings a lot of bells with some members. 

Drifter
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