RadioBanter - View Single Post - Remember the Sony ICF-68000W?

Roadie · August 14th 07, 04:38 PM posted to rec.radio.shortwave

On Aug 14, 12:38 am, BDK wrote:
In article . com,
says...

On Aug 13, 3:41 pm, BDK wrote:
In article .com,
says...

On Aug 11, 10:46 pm, BDK wrote:
In article . com,
says...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLvYfXh_ZH0

I really wanted one after reading all the stuff written about it when I
first got bit by the higher end SW bug, it really sounded great. I had
nothing even approaching it though, so it would have been a major step
up, equipment wise.

But I was severely disappointed in it when I actually used one the first
time, then even more so a few minutes later when I played with a JRC
NRD-515. At that moment, every desire I had for a 6800 "Orange" was
dead. It took me almost two years before I bought my NRD-525, and
another year after that before I finally got my NRD-515. I still have
it, but the 525 has been replaced with a much later, improved one.

On top of it not being all that great of a receiver, the 6800 is pretty
damn ugly.

Nice video though. Miles ahead of the NRD-535 ones.

BDK

It was a nice radio for it's time, and it ranked above the Panasonic
RF luggables in terms of performance but below a good tabletop. But
like the Panasonic units it is an outdated analog reveiver that relies
on fiddly tuning and a tacked on digital display. After 30 years the
many electro-mechanical contacts are likely to be less than reliable
in terms of performance.

I'm shocked at how much stuff from back then still works fine. I
recently, for no real reason, bought an old cassette deck to replace the
almost identical one I bought in 1971 and used for over 30 years. One of
the direct drive motors died on it, and I couldn't find a replacement
for anything close to a sane price, so I finally dumped it after a year
of looking. A few weeks later, there was a nasty looking, but 100%
working one at the local Goodwill store. Price was $10. Damn.

The one I bought recently looks brand new, just like mine did, and it
works great. Even all the bulbs still work. Not bad for 36 years young.

I recently fixed a Yaesu FRG7 that had died due to solder joints
cracking. They were really easy to find with a Jeweler's Loupe and I had
it fixed and 100% operational in less than one hour.

My own project radio is an old Allied SX190 that works, but not great,
on all bands, except for 9.4-10MHZ, it blasts in, to the point of
overloading. There's something really obscure wrong with it in the
preselector someplace that I haven't found yet.

BDK- Hide quoted text -

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It really depends on how it was used and stored. But I agree, some
radios can work like little 30 year old wonders and others can be a
real PITA because of noisy controls or band switches that only work at
one position 1/64 inch away from the detent.

I had great luck with a Realistic DX150B and speaker. A simple
realignment of the tuning dial resulted in a hot little radio for
$10.00 Same for a 1970 Panasonic RF5000b. OTOH a Kenwood R300 was a
lot of fun on the bands that worked but frustrating on the ones that
didn't.

I've emailed a couple of SX/AX-190 gurus and they seem to agree, since
my radio works like it's supposed to on the one band, it's almost
certainly the preselector, but I can't seem to find the problem. I
changed out all the old electrolytic caps to fix a bad hum problem, a
couple of the "styrol" caps and got it going well enough to barely pick
up stuff on every band, and then spent one night hitting every off
looking joint I could see, and it came alive on the 9.4-10MHZ band, but
remains semi deaf everywhere else. I kind of put if off to the side for
a while, but one of these nights I'll mess with it until I get it
working, and then it will go on the "look at a lot, don't use much"
shelf with my shockingly great modded to the max Hammarlund HQ-100.

BDK- Hide quoted text -

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That's a wierd one...