"Does price buy performance or satisfaction in an HF transceiver?" - now on YouTube

When I look at new radios in online stores, my wife usually says - don't suffer and buy yourself one ...

However, when we once bought a house, I chose it from the point of view of the possibility of installing an antenna. She didn't argue either. Whoever makes money decides how to spend it. Smart woman, so she's still with me)

 

I have yet to have a SSB QSO with my TS-430S that didn't get a compliment on the audio and the sound equipment I must have. Uh, you mean a radio just slightly younger than me and a Kenwood hand mic? Thanks!

 

i buy what i like.
and im a penny pinching,tightwad,chisler at ham fests,, i shop for gas and food deals so i can afford to throw excess money around when a new toy comes around.
gotta have a radio "fix" every year or two...
its been 2 + so...
ill give 1500 for a 991a with a 7300 display...

 

I think I'll paint a few red stripes on my radio and see if the girls come a runnin......I mean stripes make cars faster right? Should make my radio better....

 

I'm so cheap that I look and drool over radios and never can decide to buy one even when I have the funds, fortunately the wife isn't like me.

She bought me a kenwood ts690s back in 1992 then a FT100D MOBILE IN 1999 and most recently a K3S/ amp and antenna tuner back in 2017.

I still have her and all of these radios, they are certainly all keepers.

 

I used a well-tuned Heathkit HW-101 for a few years along with an outboard audio DSP box. Next to it was a Yaesu FT-991. In may ways, the HW-101 outperformed the FT-991 on HF. Quieter RX to my ears, better TX audio and more consistent RF output. As basic as it gets but more fun to me. So I decided to upgrade - got myself a nice Hammarlund HQ-140-X, along with a HeathKit DX-40.

Generally, price did buy performance in the days when those radios were made. Even in those days one could buy varying degrees of performance & satisfaction based on money spent. Low end? Buy a Heathkit AR3 and a DX-20. High End? Collins gold dust twins. Not much different now, really. Today, maybe even better performance per dollar due to advances in technology. What are considered low end rigs today are for the most part actually decent performers. High end rigs are more of same with added conveniences.

I wonder - when will we reach a point where greater performance isn't possible? The pinnacle of radio? How much better can receivers and transmitters be made to perform? Maybe we're there already?

 

I bought a Flex 6300 five years ago, opened the box, set it in the shack, put the cd in the pc. It installed itself on Windows 8.1. Plugged the rig into the network port, plugged in power speakers, and it was running five minutes after the UPS guy left. It still works exactly as it did on day #1, not a hint of a problem. Windows never crashes, never.
I don't know if this is significant or not, but I don't do unnecessary software upgrades, to Windows or Flex. It just works; most reliable radio I have ever owned in 57 years.
One thing to consider regarding reliability - the "pure sdr rigs" have almost no hardware controls. Compare to a Kenwood 990! Only control on a 6300 is the on-off button. No other pots, controls, displays, push buttons; it is truly a black box appliance.
Sure, someone is going to say it can't work without a pc. Right. But I already have a pc with plenty of spare cpu power going unused, and a beautiful monitor. Why duplicate it in a transceiver with a puny little spectrum display that you need a magnifying glass to see and have no flexibility to control? 6300 has linear display from -140 to almost 0 dbm, completely configurable (span and vertical sensitivity), dual receivers, dual panadapters. No options are even available for it other than an antenna tuner. It is a no brainer. I don't even know what a dll is.

 

Absolutely. If my £400 rig brings up the regular comment on 12m from the US, "you're the only station I'm hearing", then I am not sure what the reasonable argument for paying £1300 - the new 'typical entry price' for a decent rig - is. I can't say that, on the flip (RX) side, I've found any difficulty in hearing anyone, over and above much of anyone else.

 

The answer to this depends on what the user actually wants.

I mean, you can't practically take a £3000, £5000, or more rig to the beach in a backpack, even if it technically has the best performance. Apart from anything else, it would be ludicrously cumbersome. It would consume far too much power on RX.

So a £300 QRP kit/built kit type of rig in this situation is going to meet all reasonable performance expectations, and will additionally benefit from 4-ele Yagi-like performance from just a 1/3 wave vertical from a seaside location. Moreover, a cheap rig in a quiet RFI placewhilst portable is going to do better than an excellent receiver in the kind of noisy environments so many of us actually occupy.

So I do think this analysis, whilst very interesting and done in good faith, does rather look at the world from the vantage point of someone who is intent on operating from a home-based location, who has ample power available, a high-end PC to operate it, and lucky enough to enjoy a quiet RFI environment.

 

With rare exceptions, this is not a 'transceiver' issue, but a 'receiver' one. No modern rig is more than incrementally better on TX than other rigs, even ones 1/5th the price. Its all receive: rejection; sensitivity; phase noise; diversity; and so on..

 

Outstanding presentation. Cost benefit ratio is often overlooked by many who look for cheapest, most expensive, biggest QST ad, simplest, most complex, etc. And while eham reviews are interesting(I admit to being addicted), they are very subjective(I love the quote" they open the box, sniff smell the new radio smell and give it a 5), it takes experience to retrieve actually helpful information. I saw the NCJ article and you are right, they didn't do justice to your graphics. In addition, your personal presentation adds much to the appreciation of the 'take away'. I too am n ot an 'Early Adopter' of new models, letting others 'Beta Test' for me. Thanks again.

Dave K3FHP

 

I can vouch for Windows reliability despite what some folks experience. I ran a remote repeater 24/7 for years on Windows XP with no software failures whatsoever. But that computer was dedicated and not connected to the internet.

Good point regarding SDR radios and lack of hardware controls - I've brought this up on other forums. With no switches, potentiometers, encoders, etc. to wear out they are certainly more reliable overall.....

 

Here's another point of view: The SDR is merely a computer accessory, it is not a complete radio. What happens to your SDR when its proprietary software is no longer maintained by the company that created it, and that software won't run on a future version of Windows? Your SDR is now a paperweight/doorstop. Modern, high quality switches, potentiometers, encoders, etc., have a very high MTBF. There are many "hardware" rigs that are 30 years and older that still function. My guess is that current SDR rigs will be inoperable long before they are that old. The hardware may still function, but there won't be any readily available software to operate it.

 

Yes.

 

Such is true but it really shouldn't be a problem if the SDR software is no longer supported so long as it still runs on some version of an operating system, even if old. Win XP was way outdated when I ran a repeater with it and it ran fine. So a person could use the SDR along with a dedicated, closed (i.e. no internet) computer and maintain a working system.

Very true about many old hardware rigs still functioning - my Hammarlund receiver & Heathkit transmitter are still going strong!