E-bay it. If you're a sync freak now, then you'll be a sync freak six months
down the road. If you leave the radio on all the time and align the radio, you
might or might not be able to make do with ECSS. I know that I use ECSS a lot
less than I would have used a sync detector, given the 20-Hz tuning steps on
the Palstar. I use it only when the fades are deep enough to make things
relatively unintelligible.

As for reception issues, grounding would be a cheap way to see if you want to
keep the radio. The AC adaptor provides a fair deal of ground but not as much
as you might want. Pound either a) one 10-foot ground rod or b) two hollow
10-foot copper pipes into the ground, wire the ground rod(s) to the ground post
on the Palstar, and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't work, hey,
you can still use that ground to ground your home stereo, or you can ground the
Superadio III that you might also consider for MW DX.

I've had little luck getting good MW DX from the low-impedance antenna jack on
the Palstar, at least not the right way. On most dipoles of sane length--I'm
talking from 126 feet down to the 30 feet that mine is at present, with lots of
stops in between--the Palstar sucks on MW unless I put only the center pin into
the connector. My best results have been with a) very long wires hooked up to
the high-impedance antenna jack, b) a Select-A-Tenna Hardwire Edition (to the
same jack), and c) about fifty feet of wire wrapped through a hula hoop (again,
to the same jack). All but b) require a good ground.

As for SW, I use the dipoles that I've always used, and they work much better
than for my other radios. However, I did get to run it at a relative's ham
shack, with a long dipole, a vertical, a short dipole, and a Windom at my
disposal; and the Palstar kept up with the rigs in his shack without problem.
I came home and felt that at least some of my setup was lacking, as usual.
That's what happens when a 11-year SWL goes and plays in a veteran ham
environment.

Michael (in central Florida)

Did a lot of side by side comparisons with my Sony SW77 portable. With Sony
AN-1 and AN-LP1 antennas it turned out that the Palstar R30CC was inferior
in both SW and MW DX. This was the case with both antennas in a noisy city
environment. In a quiet country setting it was a more even match but the
Palstar never beat the Sony. OTOH, the SW77 pulled in numerous stations that
were not listenable with the Palstar. I'm especially surprised about the MW
results because the Palstar is supposed to be a hot rig for that and the
SW77 is not. I really liked the Palstar on its own, but now I realize that
the receiver has serious shortcomings. For starters it really needs a sync
detector to be competitive at its price. Simplicity is not always an asset.

Now I wonder if the Palstar would even be worthy of a Sherwood SE-3 or
should I just ebay it right away. I guess I could always keep the SE-3 for
my other radios even if the Palstar failed with it.

Any opinions would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Margaret


PS. The SW77 is a darn good radio and the Passport is clueless!