On Jan 14, 12:20*am, bpnjensen wrote:
So, folks - When Drake decided to call it quits, did decent SS S-AM
die? *The Eton, a few Sony radios (and maybe some future JRC NRD?)
seem to be all that's left - or did I miss something? *Grundig no
longer seems interested (why not?) and Icom never really gave it the
effort it deserved. *For a fairly easy-to-implement innovation, it
does not seem to show up much...

Bruce Jensen

From a long term observation and analysis point of view, it might
seem that the days of constructing and selling traditional radio
reception machinery for the purpose of pure pleasure are almost
disappearing ... How sad! The last and few diehards,e.g. Eton did not
bring any more S-AM into the market lately ( which is still very much
alive,despite all odds! ) beside older models E1XM and G3. The once
very famous and innovative (not anymore) Sony has , for some reason
the tenacity to continue selling it's one and only current SW
portable- 7600GR (great little sidekick); it still includes the sync
detector,amazingly enough. The number 7600 must have some mysterious
significance -it appears to bring good luck in Japan (at least for
Sony).They have been using that model line for the last 27 years!!!
Drake is not interested in HF at this time,after suddenly dropping the
very decent 8-line. Both JRC and Icom have only astronomically-priced
receivers for the super rich buyers,like ...emirs , kings and
oligarhs. Our good old Harris RF is still here and has exceptional
products (rf505,rf550 which I use occasionally) ,but the current
models are either unaffordable or not available to the general public.
Ten-Tec has very good RX-XXX products, somewhat more modestly priced
than the three big aforementioned firms. What is Watkins - Johnson
called today? DRS,I believe .They got sold several times lately.
That's about it, folks.