[IRCA] Palstar receiver

["Craig Healy" <bubba@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I finally got the Palstar receiver I bought on eBay last month.  It's the
R30CC model with the two Collins filters.  I put it in the truck yesterday
and have been working with it.

First impression is that it's a good unit.  Much more selective and robust
than the Blaupunkt, which is to be expected.  Being able to tune in sub-KHz
units is also a big help.  Audio is routed through the Blaupunkt external
input, and then to the four truck speakers.  As others have mentioned, the
audio out of the Palstar is superb.

The antennas being used are a mixture.  The N-S antenna is a two foot copper
tube loop as previously described, untuned.  The E-W antenna is a 20" long,
1.5" diameter ferrite bar with five tuens of wire wound around the middle.
It's also untuned.  Both antennas have similar pickup characteristics, with
a slight edge to the ferrite bar.  A two-pole coax switch is used to choose
antennas.

At the moment, I have two DX Engineering RPA-1 preamps connected in series.
Each amp is listed as having 16db gain.  With this setup, frequencies with
no normal day signals such as 530, 1070 and 1620 have the S-meter on the low
peg.  No intermod.  The strongest local only goes to S9+30, so the radio
isn't being overloaded.

The normal daytime bandscan has the same basic stations as the home rig
which is an R8B.  Roughly the same S-meter readings across the band.  I'm
looking forward to my next after-dark road trip to give this a good test.
So far, the lack of a noise blanker hasn't been a problem.  And, I need to
be careful when I pull into AM transmitter sites.  Sometimes I'm parked
within 50' of a tower with 5kw in it.  Overload, anyone?

The radio can be powered off a bunch of AA batteries as well.  On my next
vacation, I"ll pack it up along with a ferrite antenna, and a coil/capacitor
to tune it.  Should work a bunch better than the Sony ICF-SW100S which is my
normal travel rig.

All in all, the first impressions are very positive.

Craig Healy
Providence, RI

_______________________________________________
IRCA mailing list
IRCA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://arizona.hard-core-dx.com/mailman/listinfo/irca

Opinions expressed in messages on this mailing list are those of the original contributors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the IRCA, its editors, publishing staff, or officers

For more information: http://www.ircaonline.org

To Post a message: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx