BBS: SWEDX Conference: SHORTWAVE Imported: 2/16/1993 To: ALL Num: 10379 Date: 2/13/1993 From: REID KELLY Re: Time: 11:56 am Subj: Drake R-8 Receiver Prvt: N Read: N Note: From Reid Kelly Awhile back I posted a review of the Drake R-8 Receiver and because Andy Sennit let us know that the guy over in Austrailia who was nice enough to do the review had missquoted information from the WRTH it will not be posted again. However I thought that you guys who might be interested in the R-8 and do not have the 1993 New WRTVH buyers guides cause you are either too cheap or to poor to buy one would enjoy having this one as a reference! I take no responsibility for the verification of this info at all! From: Doug Tygar Subject: Radio Netherlands - Drake R8 review Here is a transcription of a recent review from Radio Netherland's Media Network program reviewing the Drake R8 receiver. (In the past, Radio Netherlands has allowed people to reprint their reviews as long as proper credit is given). As you can see the, review was mixed. - - - - - - - - - - From Radio Netherland's Media Network 2330 UTC broadcast to North America, 19 September 1991 Jonathan Marks: Receiver test time now; I'm joined in the studio by Ginger Dasilva. In North America the arrival of the Drake R8, a couple of months back, was accompanied by a major advertising campaign. After all, Drake made a popular high-end communications receiver, the R7, back in the mid-80s, and then departed from the shortwave market to concentrate on satellite receivers. Now that they're back, the influence of the satellite business is obvious in the styling of the new R8 receiver. Despite what you see in the advert' photos, the receiver is easiest to use when tilted at a slight angle towards you, otherwise punching in the frequencies on the keypad turns out to be rather awkward. Ginger Dasilva: When you're designing a radio you have two options: either you can put a button on the front panel for every function, but that can lead to a radio looking somewhat like the cockpit of a jumbo jet; on the other hand, you can reduce the number of buttons by putting a number of functions under one key, and this is the approach Drake has taken with their R8. It simplifies the panel and can bring down the cost, but it can make the receiver fiddly to use. Take the mode button for instance: you can choose between AM, narrow-band FM, CW, RTTY, lower sideband, or upper sideband, in that order, but if you're listening to a station in upper sideband, and you want check the lower sideband, then you have to press the mode button five times. That's a nuisance. JM: The tuning steps are also related to the mode. If you select the AM mode, for instance, the tuning steps are automatically 100 Hz, and the display shows the frequency to the nearest 1 KHz. You can make this finer by a factor of ten if you want, so that the display shows frequency to the nearest 100 Hz; but if you touch that mode switch then the radio switches back to its 1 KHz default setting. And if you're listening to SSB, then the resolution is to the nearest 10 Hz, and the tuning steps are also 10 Hz too. Drake says they've done all this deliberately to make it easier for the user. You get a set with a wide choice of bandwidth filters, and the shape factor of all the filters is very good for the price. You get a choice of 6, 4, 2.3, 1.8, and 0.5 KHz; but if you keep changing the filter settings to reduce interference, you must remember to retune. GD: Normally, when you switch from a wider filter to a narrower filter, you expect the audio quality to drop. The intereference from nearby stations should also be reduced, and, at the same time, the sensitivity of the receiver should go up. When we switched to a narrower bandwidth filter on the R8, we found that the sensitivity went down instead, almost by a factor of three. That's because the adjustment of the passband tuning control is critical. So, to get the best results everytime you switch bandwidths, you need to keep adjusting the bandpass [sic] control. That takes some getting used to. And you need to do this because the passband tuning can't be switched out of the circuit. Coverage on this set starts at 100 KHz, so in Europe if you're interested in utility stuff below that, well, tough luck. In practice there's such a strong oscillator whistle at 100 KHz that it really starts at 110 KHz. The receiver has an RS-232 connector on the back of the reciever for computer control, but at present, there's no ready-made software available, in Europe at least, that can match the R8's protocols. JM: Drake has decided to make the R8 show the carrier frequency that it's tuned to on the display. When you're listening to broadcast stations, of course, that's exactly what you want. But if you tune in a Morse code station to the exact frequency of the carrier wave, you'll hear nothing at all. So you have to detune the signal by 500 or 800 Hz in order to get a tone. The same is true of radio teletype signals. Depending on the type of decoder you're using, you'll have to detune the signal by 2210 Hz to be able to read the ticks being sent over the air. Now, many other shortwave communications receivers give you the option of switching in that sort of compensation automatically. In this case, though, the utility enthusiast will have to remember to detune the set by 2210 Hz from the frequencies you'll find listed in publications by Klingenfuss, Grove, or Gilfer Associates. GD: Like most sets in the same price range, you don't need to worry about the R8's sensitivity. We measured signals of around 1.3 microvolts using the 6 Khz wide filter for shortwave broadcast listening, and the radio is just a little less sensitive on mediumwave. These are good figures. The preamplifier only works above 5 MHz, multiplying the sensitivity by two. The attenuator gives 10 dB damping. JM: The S-meter is more of a tuning indicator. Below S-5, the signal is shown slightly below real value. Above S-5, the readings are slightly too high. (Musical jingle about radios) JM: The Drake R8 has a built-in synchronous detector. It's marked as a single pushbutton on the front panel. If you simply tune in a weak or not very intelligible signal, and then push the sync button, in the hope that you'll suddenly get concert hall sound, you'll be sorely disappointed. First you must let the receiver lock onto the carrier of desired signal; that takes the set from one to three seconds. Having done that, you can then adjust the passband tuning control to reduce interference from strong unwanted stations above or below the frequence of the desired signal. Because the set is now locked onto the carrier, you won't notice any change of pitch, which is exactly what you want, but can't select to listen to either the upper or lower sideband of the signal. On the [Japan Radio] NRD-535, for instance, you can select upper or lower sideband, and reduce interference further with passband tuning. As a result, on the Drake R8, you don't get much improvement on weak signals with selective fading, using the sync. However there is a noticable drop in the distortion level, when you use the sync option. It drops to about 1%; that's a very good figure. And the set locks well onto even the weakest of signals. The notch filter in this set is actually an audio notch filter. That means that intermediate frequency stages and the automatical level control of the set can still be influence by a station very nearby in frequency, with a resulting distortion on the weak signal that you're trying to hear. GD: Drake says that the dynamic range is better than 90 dB. That's measured with a 500 Hz filter. If you listen to AM broadcast signals, using the 6 KHz filter, then the dynamic range is 80 dB. This is a good figure, slightly worse than the R5000 from Kenwood. The tone control is somewhat primitive; it simply boosts or cuts the bass by 6dB at 200 Hz, and we thought it could have done more. JM: The set is very stable indeed; to within 1 Hz per hour. You also have access to a 100 channel memory and breakover scan facilities. Now, in the United States, the set is just under $1000. In our opinion, the Drake R8 offers slightly less performance value than the Kenwood R5000, especially when it comes to ease of operation. For having said that, you're getting an excellent, complete package for that price. In Europe, the price is in the region of 3000 German marks, that's about $1600 US, or 1000 pounds sterling. That's about $250 [US] short of the NRD-535 of the Japan Radio Company. That extra price is because dealers have to pay insurance costs, import duty, and also make a profit. That, in our opinion, makes the Drake R8 somewhat too expensive here in this part of the world. * Origin: The CatWalk BBS Davie, Fl 305-370-3528 ZyXel 16.8K V.32 (1:369/8)