The ARRL labs reports are certainly good as far as they go. But the bare
numbers don't go far enough.
Steve's suggestion of trying to copy CW through an artificial QRM generator
would help but I would rather see a slice of 20 Meters on WW weekend recorded
and then played back to provide the background - and a canned message to be
played for copying at various signal levels and freqencies. Grade the test
rig on how weak a signal can be copied "under" a 250 microvolt signal, and
how close a 1.0 microvolt signal can be and still be copied.
Any serious distortion in a reciever degrades copy ability, I would like to
see a standardized test of copy ability with diminishing signal strengths.
All the way to what ever the recievers noise floor is supposed to be. If you
can copy a quarter microvolt signal the reciever is pretty clean.
And I would also like to know how well a rig will play in close proximity to
another rig. A MultiMulti test, if you will. Something like a couple of 20 M
dipoles, parallel, 100 feet apart, and two rigs, one operating CW on 14.025
and the other SSB at 14.175. If there one rig can't hear the other, give it
a 10. If you can tell its operating but it's not bothersome, a 9. Etc., etc..
These are essentially the tests I do on my own rigs, albeit I have to use
live signals and a 1 on 1 comparison.
73 Pete Allen AC5E
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