Topband: CONTEST OBSERVATION

[Bill Tippett]

W4EF:
 >On the RX side, I can now say unequivocally that the FT-847
is not a contest grade receiver (not even close). The one I used
suffered from horrendous filter blowby and all kinds of phantom
signals. It's works fine for casual operating, but it doesn't really
hold up when the band gets full of very strong signals.

         Mike, this should be no surprise after looking at
page 28 of ARRL's Expanded Test Report:

http://www2.arrl.org/members-only/prodrev/pdf/lab/ft-847.pdf

The innermost data points of both graphs are for 1 kHz spacing:

IMD = 66 dB
BDR = 84 dB

For comparison, Orion has IMD = 84 dB and BDR = 118 dB
at 1 kHz, both of which can be improved another ~10 dB at
1 kHz spacings by adding the $80 Inrad 762 filter.

         Moral:  "Numbers don't lie...some advertisers do."

                                 73,  Bill  W4ZV