Radios Used for DX Here

Icom R-75 used for General Listening, as Amateur Aux Receiver and for Six Meters. Has 250 Hz filters in both 9 MHz and 455 kHz IF's for sharp, sharp cw selectivity! I use it for DX-ing the amateur bands and for use alongside the transceiver in DX pileups and contests.


 



Yaesu FT-757-GX used for Amateur- has 300 Hz cw filter and narrow SSB filters

Drake 2B used as backup Amateur aux receiver. Has 2BQ Q multiplier. Great for pulling signals out of QRM. Crystalled for some SWBC and Utility Bands, too.  Still as good as when I got it in 1966!

Hallicrafters SX-96 for BCB DX and casual listening. Still very good for SW DX! Wonderful audio on external speaker and even good for listening to amateur SSB and CW as well as utility stuff.

 





Icom 251A for two meter FM, SSB and CW.  Its an oldie but a goodie, but still has very useable sensitivity. The little rig on top is the 20 meter QRP rig that I take into the field and that recently made the trip to Galveston Beach.

 

MacKay 3001 LF receiver used for NDB DX. Tunes from 30 kHz to 600 kHz and spent most of its life on an ore carrying ship. If you look closely, you can still see the ship's call letters on the card under the speaker. I could not bring myself to remove it!!


I am sure that many who read various DX blogs wonder just what giant installations with fancy, expensive gear is used to log all that good stuff mentioned in the postings.  I thought I would share what is used here in the shack in Central Texas.  Most of this gear I have had a number of years and can say that I have never had a brand new piece of gear in over fifty years of listening and hamming.  Most of it was obtained very inexpensively or through trading or, in some cases, through salvaging gear that others had given up as not repairable.  Not shown are three other radios put on the desk " as needed" and include a Hammurland HQ-170 used mostly for 160 meter amateur cw work and a Hallicrafters SX-111 also used for amateur backup. I traded for it for purely sentimental reasons: the ham who helped me learn cw had one and at the time ( I was 11 or 12 years old) it seemed like the be-all, end-all of receivers.  In its day ( early sixties) it may well have been!  It still works well and with the WWV tuning position also covers 30 meters, which did not exist as a ham band when it was built! There is also a military surplus BC-342 that can be brought in for backup work on 160 and 80 meter amateur frequencies.  Its just fun to use.  Antennas include an 80 meter sloper up 45 feet, tuneable for all bands,  a ground plane for 20 meters, a "random" whip vertical ( about 30 feet high), 3-element yagi for six meters, 11 element yagi for two meters ( both horizontally polarized), a ten element yagi for FM broadcast and a 44 element yagi for UHF TV. I also have a home made three foot tuned loop for LF/MF. My late father  helped build it as well as the desk the radios sit on. There is also a good sized pile of aluminum tubing and other hardware stacked along the back fence for temporary special antennas or portable work and a large stash of wire and coax and other assorted stuff.  Just good stuff to have. If anyone would like to share equipment or antenna pictures, drop a note to "comments" and I will pass along an email address to send them.  I would also like to hear about your adventures.  Sometimes the stories are better than just lists of loggings!  73 and good DX!!