SSB Advice Needed

[Nice N Easy]

FIrst let me admit that I am a total know nothing about any thing to do with HF radio. The HF is the most technical term I know. I would like to get a receiver, to listen to some of the sail nets out there. Eventually will probably end up getting a good transceiver, but for now, just interested in a decent receiver. What is the recommended, most bang for the buck unit. I want a digital readout, no major antenna mounting problems, and decent sound quality. Is there any benefit to buying used vs a new receiver. Any and all recommendations are appreaciated.

[btrayfors]

The cheap Degens (or other brand name) found on eBay for about $70-80 new are pretty good for the money.

Unfortunately, a really good SSB receiver ain't cheap. Expect to pay just about as much as you'd pay for a transceiver. And, since virtually all transceivers have pretty good broad band receivers, why would you do that?

For entry level stuff -- and it sounds like that's where you are at the moment -- the cheap Chinese receiver will do just fine. You'll learn a lot and, after awhile, toss it in a drawer for backup and buy a decent transceiver.

Bill
WA6CCA

[Wotname]

What Bill said and don't expect to use the words sound quality and HF in the same sentence.

Regardless of the design quality of the receiver, most times the signal will have been degraded by atmospheric conditions a long time before it even gets to your receiver.

[sv_makai]

I would recommend a transciever right off. In our experince a moderate to cheap reciever isn't always optimal in reception depending on location and propagation. We left for the caribe with a sony yachtsman reciever ($90) and it work fairly well but found many times because of conditions we just could not get good reception. When preplanning a jump this wasn't to much of a big deal but once we started getting closing to making a move being able to get weather was important.

After an issue while traveling with another boat we decided that 2 way was needed not only for emergency, but it was great for the ability to call for a relay or repeat of weather.

We found and installed an icom 700 with manual tuner for 300USD. Some other cruisers were upgrading so they could run a pactor modem easily. It was the best investment not only for safety, weather, but keeping in contact with others out on the water.

As Bill mentioned above good receivers are almost as expensive as transceiver. Look around there are reasonable deals to be had.