Steve wrote:
If you are able to dig into these and repair them, you'll
have one of the *best* SW setups around. IMO its certainly
worth the effort. For SW the R-390 is a better choice, but
the R-390A is still hard to beat.

I've also got a few SP-600's, as well as 51J3 and 51J4's.
The R-390 is better in all respects. SSB converters are in
big demand right now and are worth almost as much as
the R-390A's.

The audio on the 390A stinks... the 390 is better but still nothing I
would want to listen to strong shortwave stations on. The ringing of the
mechanical filters is not pleasant at all. But these things just pull
weak signals out of nothing.

I have compared one of the current Watkins-Johnson military surveillance
and intercept receivers with the 390A... the user interface on the WJ is
a lot better and the spectrum display on it is fabulous, but the 390A is
just as good at picking weak signals out of the grass.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."