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I have several old school tabletop receivers including Drake R8A and SW8, also
Palstar R30. All excellent radios and former workhorses for me. Basically
they collect dust now. Keeping them for now but will someday think of selling.
When you start using a good SDR such as Perseus or Elad, why would you ever go
back? Storing spectrum for later replay, obviously, is the "killer app" but
just in terms of receiver basics you get better filtering (via DSP) for
selectivity, as well as small-signal sensitivity and big-signal intermod /
overload immunity numbers at least competitive with the best Drake / AOR / NRD
(and, for that matter, Collins / Hammarlund / Hallicrafters) sets.
Interestingly, small portable radios, especially the newer crop with DSP
filtering features, also occupy a bigger slice of the overall DXing pie than
traditional tabletop receivers. You don't always want to drag a laptop + SDR
(or a tabletop set) everywhere. Hiking in the woods, flying, or going on a
cruise ship often demand simplicity and small receiving gear profile.
Portables are still useful.
Mark Connelly, WA1ION
South Yarmouth, MA
<<
Some opinions -
My Drake R8 went up in smoke 2 days ago -- the upside is: I am a qualified
electronics technician
with 30+ years experience with a workshop outfitted to work on anything
with transistors, tubes, integrated circuits, surface mount, etc...
I fixed it after ripping it apart - a very painful emotional process
because... It's my baby...
The first round of surgery did not fix the problem - but I pressed on after
vaguely recalling some troublesome area
mentioned in the forums.
Viola -- Drake R8 fixed and back on duty in time for the Fall 2018 DX
season.
Ironically, Jim Pruitt and I are creating an all - new Drake R8 user-group
based on the failing Yahoo user group -
failing in that Yahoo Groups are on their very last legs.
Seeing that all Drake receivers are an aging species, I plan on doubling
down on my technical knowledge in an effort
to support as many of them as possible.
Now -- on the issue of buying Drake receivers: They are all long in the
tooth and all of them are going to have some health issues - some sooner -
some later. I sold Drake R8 a month ago for a whopping $800 after giving it
a 4 hour restore. It's still needs some work to keep it happy over the next
few years and that will cost more money.
My point: Do NOT buy a Drake unless you have the skills to maintain it or
the contacts or technical know-how to overcome the obstacles of aging. When
I sold my extra Drake R8, I was painfully clear that it might last another
year, another month or another decade. Nobody really knows (short of
looking under the hood and taking multiple measurements...)
To the buyer - CRYSTAL clear that his radio that he just paid $800 for -
could last a day, a week, a month, a decade.
As the owner of a Drake R8, I have to say the emotional connection to
classic radios like these verges on the unhealthy...
which is why I felt like I was holding a very elderly dog in my arms as I
undertook emergency open heart surgery.
While I am not saying that you shouldn't rescue and old dog - maybe buying
a puppy might be preferable.
(as in a NEW radio or something from the 21st Century...)
On Sun, Aug 12, 2018 at 7:55 AM billy brooks <wwbro...@windstream.net>
wrote:
> Greetings ladies & gents. My drake is still available @ $700.00 + ship.
> Pix and video available to verify condition.
>
> 73's Bill brooks 724-627-5994
>
>
>
> --
Colin Newell - Editor and creator *of *Coffeecrew.com
<http://www.Coffeecrew.com> and DXer.ca <http://www.DXer.ca> -
VA7WWV | Twitter @CoffeeCrew | Victoria - Canada
>>
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