Topband: diversity rx

[Rudy Severns]

I read the great article on the Hallicrafters DD-1 diversity receiver.
Apparently they did not have agc systems fast enough to respond to CW
and they had to do some strange stuff to get CW diversity reception.

It is my understanding that the AGC in each channel is the main tool
for voting between signals.  I would think that modern AGC systems
would be suitable for CW.  Is that correct??

It's fairly clear how AGC voting would work if the signals are
reasonably strong but for very weak signals, right at the noise
threshold,  I think the AGC is mostly driven by the noise which
wouldn't help much to select between two weak signals just in or above
the noise.  Is even possible to implement diversity combining in that
situation?  Is there some other method?

Of course you can run one channel into each ear and let the brain do
the diversity.

73, Rudy N6LF