[IRCA] Inside an E6 + Review Comments

["John H. Bryant" <bjohnorcas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had hoped that a modified E6, with its reported SSB capability, 
could serve as a spotting receiver for my hotrodded E100 on my 
upcoming adventure to coastal Peru. I now don't think that I'll take 
it, but I did learn quite a few things while modifying the radio. 
I've uploaded five photos to the UltralightDX photo section. I'm not 
sure whether you have to be a member to access that site, or not. If 
you can look at it, the section will give you a peak at the inside of 
a G6 and let you bsee my antenna mod, as well.

http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/ultralightdx/photos/browse/f619

Opening the set is no problem at all... two screws on the back and 
one in the battery compartment. What you get is a clamshell, 
connected together by a ribbon cable.  The upper board with the 
display and control circuitry (and speaker) stays with the top and 
the main board with the input/output jacks to one side, stays with 
the bottom.  I think that the main board is held in by those 
input/output jacks on one side and a single screw on the other.  I'm 
pretty sure that the plastic fitting where the ribbon cable meets the 
main board is NOT a pin plug, but just a hard-wire solder fitting to 
permanently attach the two boards together. I also would not be 
surprised if the main board is also glued in the back part of the 
case.  What I'm hinting at is my opinion that doing a filter change 
on this radio would be a NIGHTMARE....  so would any other mods to 
the main board.

Putting an antenna pickup coil on the ferrite bar was a bit of an 
adventure. The bar was held in with three blobs of hot glue which 
came out quite easily, but prying the bar up so that it could be 
worked on was really tough.  It turns out that there is a blob of 
really tough glue under each end of the bar, too.  I'd guess that 
anyone would have about a 50-50 chance of breaking the bar rather 
than getting it out. I finally raised one end far enough to put the 
pickup coil around the bar.  Since I could not get to the back side 
of the main board to attach the coil leads to the existing antenna 
jack, I used a continuity tester and found metal tabs on the outside 
of the jack that would connect to the two parts of the antenna plug 
(tip and braid).... after tacking the two leads to the antenna jack, 
it was just a matter of buttoning things up.

I tested the new antenna input arrangement immediately.... sitting in 
my shack between two computers, the radio, barefoot, was wall-to-wall 
buzzes, burps and just a few stations, badly QRMed. I plugged in the 
outside antenna and things cleared immediately.... the "swamping 
effect" was alive and well and I could feed MW signals directly to 
the G6 from outside.  Success!!!

REVIEW COMMENTS
What I did not note in my brief look yesterday afternoon was signs of 
massive amounts of overloading.  I should have been looking for this, 
given Colin Newell's comments in his current review on dxer.ca about 
the 6 being too sensitive for use in urban areas. I really looked 
forward to testing the G6 this morning at dawn, with plenty of Asian 
split frequency stations, some that would be running S-8 or so. Man 
was I shocked and disappointed!!!!  First, there was quite massive 
overloading on MW.  It was so bad that the SSB detection basically 
wouldn't work.... the 10 kHz splits were pretty well smeared together 
and I don't know what else was going on...  The radio was not at all 
happy connected to the giant 70' x 100' Super Loop.  I had hoped to 
at least hear 774 and 1566 with the G6, since both were in the middle 
between 10 kHz stations and each was running S-8 or so when I 
tried.... there was nary a trace, even though there did seem to be a 
slight "gap" between each pair of 10 kHz. stations. All that I can 
figure is the massive amounts of RF coming in from the big loop was 
simply desensitizing the radio.  In any case, attaching a major 
outside antenna to the G6 for MW should only be attempted in the far 
Out Back, like Grayland, where there are no nearby stations.  I'm not 
at all sure how it would behave there, even.  I should add the front 
end was overwhelmed and there were ghostly and not so ghostly MW 
signals at least as high as 10 MHz on shortwave.Its really clear why 
the designers restricted the MW band to the small ferrite bar and not 
an outside antenna.

I suspect that the SW part of the radio would work OK on an outside 
antenna, without the ferrite bar loop that I added.... which, of 
course, is feeding massive MW signals to the front end.  I'll try 
that after I take the added MW loop out of the antenna circuit.

My biggest disappointment was the SSB capabilities of the radio.  I 
suppose that it is true that the G6 circuit will demodulate signals 
transmitted in SSB, though I did not look around on the ham bands for 
a SSB signal to try it out and I'm not sure.  It is true that you can 
zero-beat an MW AM signal using the slow tuning and true that you 
will understand the audio.  HOWEVER, I'll bet my entire pension that 
you are still listening to both side bands.... it ain't SINGLE SIDE 
BAND at all! Those of you old enough to remember DXing before SSB 
will no doubt recall listening to an AM signal with the BFO on. If 
you tuned to the center of an AM signal and then zero-beat (centered) 
the BFO over it, you could tune up and down the band hearing a 
descending whistle until you hit the center of a signal, and then the 
whistle would go right back up as you tuned past. Well, imagine that 
BFO fixed on the center of the AM frequency and unable to be tuned 
independently from the main tuning of the radio..... What do you 
have, then???   You have a frequency or carrier marker, but you are 
not able to select one side band or the other to listen to, to dodge 
adjacent channel slop, or dodge IBOC or whatever.  So the usefulness 
of the mislabeled G6 "SSB" is quite limited for an international MW 
DXer and non-existent for those who DX on domestic frequencies.

There are other limitations to the "SSB" detection system offered on 
the G6.  The "SSB" detection is clearly intended to be used with the 
slow tuning rate, which actually feels like slow analog tuning. It 
takes almost four full rotations of the knob to go one kHz. That's 
fine for clarifying a signal and none too slow, at that.  However, 
its useless for slow band scanning in "SSB" to detect international 
carriers.  You can use "SSB" in the fast tuning mode (a 1 kHz tuning 
step, when in "SSB.") That capability, if everything else worked as 
an international MWaver would wish, would be marginally useful.  The 
optimum tuning step would be 0.1 kHz, but the full kHz would be 
somewhat useful. Of course, the design of those other things actually 
work against its use as an international DX machine.

The "SSB" capability has one further nasty habit: When in Fast tuning 
mode (what you would use for Int. MW) the BFO seems offset about 300 
Hertz to produce a garbled growl. I think that is so that you will 
know that you are in "SSB." You can then switch to Slow tuning and 
clarify..... HOWEVER, when you switch back to Fast tuning, it jumps 
back to the 300 Hertz growl!!!  It does that every time.  Unless my 
unit is defective, it is simply another example of the engineers 
dumbing down a circuit for the "convenience" of unsophisticated users. Grrrrr!

CONCLUSION
Since I've verbally stood on this radio and jumped up and down, I 
need to remind myself that these sets WERE NOT DESIGNED FOR 
DXing!!!  We are absolutely misusing these receivers from the 
designers' point of view. As Colin implied in his dxer.ca review, the 
G6 could be a really good set for the suburban or, especially rural 
person (too sensitive for many urban uses) who wished to program 
listen on shortwave or, even MW. Its a nice little radio with a 
superb strength meter and LCD for its size and pretty reasonable 
audio quality. That is exactly what the Eton/Grundig designers were 
challenged to provide, I would guess.

For the Domestic MW DXer, the plusses are 1 kHz resolution and the 
sensitivity (outside urban areas) and the minuses are a useless SSB 
capability (for DXing) and fairly wide selectivity. For the 
International MW DXer, the G6 is one of John Madden's four-drumstick 
TURKEYS. It is one of life's little ironies that the "SSB capability" 
that disqualifies this radio as an official Ultralight radio is so 
useless for DXing MW.

There went $100 right down the drain!

John B.
Orcas Island, WA, USA
Rcvrs: WiNRADiO 313e, Eton e1, Ultralights
Antennas: Two 70' x 100' Conti Super Loops, West and Northwest
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