The AM Forum

I am still fairly amazed with the performance of my old trusty Kenwood TS440. Works head-over-heels better as a fine receiver compared to my Flex SDR1000. Sensitivity of the the SDR is all over the place.
The Kenwood solid across all Ham bands.
I would not use the Flex SDR for DX SSB. Good ole buzzard AM and full fidelity audio is the only thing going for the Flex, unless there are some set-up issues. I am using an Edirol soundcard into a firewire input to the 'puter. Latest 2.3.5 Flex software.
I do not have any excess money, but what transceiver would be noticeably better than my TS 440 that would not break the bank in the used market?
Thanks
Fred

Depending on who you ask, that can be all over the place ($500, $1K, $2K, etc.). You need to be more specific. Lots of great used radios out there if you can find one that hasn't been diddled with.

I had a TS 430 once upon a time and loved it until I got another radio, an Icom 756 Pro.  It works just as well and has good audio like the Kenwood.  Lately I have been playing with an Icom 7800 and it is not  any better than the 756 Pro on AM to my ear and according to on the air reports.

At one time I had a Yaesu Ft 1000D and before that the Field version.  They did a good job on AM as well as SSB too, just too many features like the 7800 unless you chase DX.
If you watch, you can find the Pro for a fairly reasonable price and you could sell your Flex to fund it.

I think all the new stuff sounds like garbage except for the better SDR's like the flex 5000 and up, QS1R, etc.
The solid state ssb rigs all sound noisy and distorted and have bad AM filters.
20 watts out does not impress me at all.

I have tried all sorts of radios, and home brew does it for me, with an SDR for a band scope/all mode receiver.

Old tube stuff: bad filters, bad freq resolution or stability, poor reliability, large and heavy.
Solid state ham rigs: bad filters, noise, crappy 70 MHz first IF, loads of hiss, 20 crappy sounding watts out on AM.

You can get some rigs to sound very good with lots of mods and outboard audio, the FT102, some kenwoods, even some icom's with a lot of work.

The flex 5000 was good, only 20 watts TX but you could get them to sound ok and the RX was quite good.
If I was going the plastic box route I think I would get one of the new cheap flex radios over ethernet.

For other modes mostly, maybe an Elecraft K3 or KX3.

http://www.sherweng.com/table.html


 

Thanks for interesting replies. Aand N2DTS, I liked your summary of radios over the years.
The chart from Sherwood was the one piece of info I have been looking for a long time.
Bookmarked it now.
My range of money would possibly be around $800.00....... and not a fancy rig with zillions of features.
Fred

I too am in in the market for a new (to me) HF transceiver that will do a decent job on AM as well as SSB.

It sure would be nice to have one radio that would do it all & not weight 100s of pounds.

Opinions seem to be all over the board.

One highly respected ham, W8JI, likes the TenTec Orion & the Yaesu FT1000D. http://www.w8ji.com/amplitude_modulation.htm

You can overcome the low output to some extent with an amplifier as long as its not run too hot.

The Icom 756 Pro also sounds good when the audio is processed & the ALC is defeated.
 http://www.w1aex.com/756AM/756AM.htm

My FT-1000D is my favorite "plastic radio".  I got lucky and found one in beautiful condition with original box on ebay for $299 because receive didn't work after it had been sent out to install the one narrow CW filter that wasn't stock in the D unit.  I found an AGC line to the RF stage was never reconnected and that returned it to full service.  It has a nice sounding receiver and is solidly built.

For AM transmit there is a significant error in the manual, it tells you to use the RF power to set the carrier level for AM.  The RF power control is a power limiter control and set up this way you will have horrible audio on AM because the fast acting limiter will limit upward modulation.  Correct setup for AM is to set the power limit control to full and use the carrier control (drive) to set the carrier level at not more than 1/4 of full rated output.  Adjusted this way the FT-1000D will be fine for AM.  Set it up for CW the same way, the RF power control will limit and cause clicks on CW since it will clip the waveform so again use the drive control to set on CW to the desired output level.

The only real weakness (shared with several other Yaesu units) is the internal blower is pretty chintzy.  I took mine apart and lubed the bearings to cure the dragging blower/wandering blower speed problem and it has been fine for over two years now but at some point it will probably need new better quality bearings fit to this assembly.

The FT-1000D Sounds pretty fair with only bypassing the 455 filter and feeding audio to the stage before the balanced mudulator. The audio gear driving needs a pretty low source impedance.

Bypassing the filter makes the receive a little too broad for low band AM but it's too narrow for tx. Diode switching around the filter would be better but lazyness and surface mount........

Inexpensive SDR dongle plugs right into first I.F. out port and gives all the features except an AGC that doesn't seem to need manual level adjustment between bands.

Thanks even more,,,guys
A lot of good thoughts about the 756 Pro and FT 1000.
Q9E........ man,,,,you found a nice radio that was "defective".
I could not be that lucky........dunno

I uncovered some creepy things about my Flex SDR 1000 that I assumed was part of "life" with an SDR. There have always been little birdies and whistles here and there and 40M was the worst. I got brave and started to take that system apart and removed the isolation transformers that were on the receive audio lines to the sound card and the birdies and whistles are gone!!! Nice clean noise floor. The radio "hears" fine now at -110dBm from my sig gen. Before that level signal was buried in these birdies. Someone mentioned a few years ago; to completely isolate the Flex radio from electrically touching anything in regards to the computer, because of the noise environment inside of a computer. hmmmm

I'm gonna bet that, if I find the external PS for that Edirol sound card, that the noise floor will go down even more!! Any sensitive audio device that uses a computer power supply is going to lose out with increased noise.

Now my Flex radio is becoming my friend. I'll have to get the Shuttle Pro working again so that I have that dial performance for switching bands and changing frequency quickly. I do not like "mousing around".
I would still prefer, for bouncing around the bands for DX, to have a plastic radio. I love my TS440 for its simplicity.
Fred

Continuing on with the plastic radio thread, and my findings with Flex radio performance, that I thought was par for the course, has turned up something newer.
The sound card is the heart of most SDR's. The better the card and lower internal noise, the more you hear. You will "get by" with a typical motherboard sound card, but you will never experience Nirvanna without using a high end external sound card. Those I/Q signals are really complicated buggers.
I have the Edirol FA66 sound card, which is external to the 'puter. Supposedly a very high-end sound card for some extra RX bandwidth. You can see a wider swath of spectrum for RX. Transmit audio should not be extreme critical.
I was getting DC power from the FireWire connection (USB powered). That is really noisy computer USB power. Noise floor in the SDR was always -120 something and various birdies and images. Sensitivity changed band to band.
I changed the power source to the external supplied PS to the sound card and flipped the switch from BUS which was computer USB power to the external PS. Noise floor dropped almost -10dB from the -120 something. Now there is even less "internal " noise and a big drop in birdies and images.
That's the story from MOPRADIO.
I'll consider the plastic radios for SSB and DX chasing, but the Flex SDR may have a new beginning at the QTH. Kinda like being "Born Again"
Fred
 

Good going Fred.

I have heard the newer Flex radios do not require external sound cards, it is my understanding that they spend a lot of time on customer service with those problems.  It is also my understanding that the newer Flex has all the computer interface built in.

Fred, can you explain this? The Firewire and USB are two different types of interfaces and with different plugs.

When I had my SDR-1000, I used an external Presonus audio box which worked very well.

The Flex 5000 (discontinued), and the current Flex 3000 and 1500 don't require an external sound card but do require a robust computer.  The 5000 and 3000 require a Firewire interface to the computer and the 1500 requires a USB interface to the computer. The newer 6000 series has more processing power on board requiring less processing strain on the computer. The interface to the computer is an Ethernet connection. External sound cards haven't been required on the Flex equipment other then the SDR-1000(which is almost a 12 year old design(Win 98/ME and XP era).

I've owned the plastic radios: 
TS430-S,
Alinco DX-70,
Icom IC-780 MKII,
Icom IC-735

for AM reception The TS430 is great but the Alinco has the best tone.

Never had a digital one, but I suspect the use satisfaction depends a lot on exactly how they are used.

Nice radio the Icom IC-780:

(http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/mtatsu0206/imgs/2/b/2b300754.jpg)

Can't go wrong with the FT-1000D. Get the second receiver option and you can do diversity. It's not a plastic radio though, mostly metal and weighs 50   pounds.    ;)

The FT-990 is very similar to the 1000 but only 100 watts output vice 200. I've seen these go for 700-800 dollars.

Thanks Steve and Pete. Radios with TV screens make me think of $5-7,000 NEW.
And the FT990 would be more suited for me with the standard barefoot power.

Pete, the Firewire is needed for the Edirol FA 66 sound card. External metal box with ins and outs, etc. I do not know if I am using  Firewire 400 or Firewire 800 for this sound card. Presonus seems to have a slight edge over the Edirol unit. Firewire is an Apple version for the USB port.
Fire wire 400 and 800 are a little slower or a little faster than USB 2.0.

The FA66 let me choose whether to get its power from the FireWire (BUS) or external PS which was included with the unit. The Firewire, BUS, power is good ole USB power from the computer. Typically dirty noisy DC power.
I can understand why the present day SDR may have advanced and got away from sound cards, with so many problems with radio hardware degradation from users going on the cheap and using standard motherboard sound cards and add-ons.
Fred

I get it; dirty power through the Firewire port which is on the same power bus as the USB port. The Presonus had outboard power only.

I saw a beautiful Kenwood TS-940s going for $700 today at a hamfest. Even included two extra CW filters, manual, box, and maybe a few other things.

Fred,

The TS-440 makes a FB SSB radio and AM radio. For the AM receive side changing out the Murata 455 filter on the IF board makes for really good results - no xtal filter in the AM hole. For transmit, W2VW seems to have it figured out.

An amplifier seems required though.

Fancier, newer rigs are fine...

Older radios may have problems that are hard to track down and you may not be able to get parts, something to keep in mind.
The icom 756 pro series were nice radios, like the band scope, stability, easy of use (controls), but performance is garbage, plenty of noise, poor 70 mhz first IF, I had no luck getting mine to sound good on AM but have heard good sounding ones.
For $800.00, you are not going to find anything newer that is worthwhile.

The TS440 and icom 735 type radios are really old now, hard to think of any solid state radio as old, but they are!
How many TV sets that old are still in use?

I myself would just save up and get a flex 6300 I think it is, really top notch performance with an ethernet interface and very easy on the computer, the radio does a lot of the work.
Just the RX is going to be WORLDS better then any older all mode radio.
Small light box and almost any computer and you are in business, at 20 watts out anyway.

I cheap computer and an sdr-ir works well for a receiver, and any 100 to 300 watt transmitter will work.

Need one small rig? Look at a Gonset G76, 70 watts out, plate modulated, nice receiver, shoe box size, rugged.
I had one and put an 8 watt audio IC chip in it for good RX audio fidelity.
Lots of mods for them, I heard one that sounded really good on the air.
2 screws and it slides out of its case, easy to work on!

There's more metal than plastic in that one!

I base my statement on volume. The FT-1000D has more plastic by volume than metal.

Try putting the radio parts in a graduated cylinder filled with water and see what happens. 

I really like the FT-1000D - have had one about 20 years and still use it as the main rig as a driver and ssb/cw platform.

The problem is, as the Huzman has found, is that some of the chips are no longer available and if the surface mount stuff goes south, we are out of luck.

I also have an HPSDR transmitter and receiver that is the main receiver and transmitter backup.

If I were to start from scratch with no rig, I would definitely go with an SDR like the Apache SDR or latest HPSDR Herpes transceiver rig, use a solid state 600 watt IPA and drive a BIG homebrew MOSFET linear. THEN use the predistortion software to make the entire chain into a -55dB 3rd order dream.  Instant bandswitching, no tuning and CLEAN.

The add-ons would be a plate modulated 4X1 or 48 pill class E rig for classic AM scorched earth military superiority.


T

Fred,

What is the issue with your Flex on SSB? Filtering or other transceiver architecture, on-board processing, PC processing?

Brad

Ebay is loaded with junked old plastic radios. Parts are just like going to a junkyard for a Chevy power steering pump. Takes a little know-how, zall.

You have a way with words Tom. I like the sound of that statement!

Rob W1AEX

Hi Brad
I think my issue is using a mouse to get around the GUI/ SDR screen. The TS440 is a band up/down button, dial the VFO,  and talk. 100W of reasonable SSB. My Flex has a Contour Shuttle Pro (like a super mouse with many programmable buttons) that I just now activated again.  I have to re-program the buttons on that unit so I can select bands and make VFO changes with the spring loaded dial. Volume up/down, bandwidth buttons, etc etc.
I will try to work more SSB DX with the Flex, now that the noise floor was cleaned up, by me removing the isolation transformers from the RX output of the hardware to the external sound card. More trash and noise and birdies were removed when I activated the external PS to the sound card.
There was another issue with obtaining 100 PEP in SSB. I will go through set-ups and mic levels. There are presets for SSB. I will check those out. The Flex has been optimized for AM and I never got it "dialed in" for SSB.
I did not realize the FT1000D was 20 yrs old. Already?
Fred

Actually, the FT-1000D entered the market in 1989.

Guess that makes it a boatanchor.  :D

It certainly qualifies by weight.  I do wish it had the adjustable step size/tuning speed of the 1000MP but otherwise I prefer the 1000D.

Hi All,

 I see that the FT-1000's still go for a kilobuck and up. Which "plastic" radios are worth consideration at say half a kilobuck?

Thanks, Roland

I wish they all had the automatic tuning rate increase as found in the TS-440.

Makes it an even better band cruiser.

Many owners don't even know they have this feature.

My 756 pro has that plus the ability to stack up to three frequencies on a band button.  It sure saves tuning time, then there is the tuning speed button to really speed things up.

Ft102 that has been "malcomized" is a good combo AM/SSB rig....

As OF said, the FT-102 is a good choice. It doesn't need to be Malcomized though and you'll likely find the pricer lower without all those mods.

The nice thing about the 102 is that it has tube finals, so you get the boat anchor experience of tuning up.  :)

Dave, just glommed on to a pair TS-440's this passed weekend. My first plastic all mode xciver. Could you elaborate on the variable tuning rate?? Sounds interesting!
Tnx
Terry N3GTE

Hi Terry,

     Back off the tuning dial drag according to the manual. Tune and note rate. Now fwap the dial with yer index finger to make it spin quickly. Note new tuning rate.

BTW it's safe to ring my doorbell now. Maxx the dog has gone SK.

73,
Dave

TNX OM
It's been a loooooooong time!!!!
'gte

For under a G-whiz, my money is on the TS-850. Excellent rx, and easy to directly feed the balanced modulator for hi-hi FB audio. Just use the data input in on the ACC3 connector and shazam, done.