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You can
write your own review of the Collins KWM-380.
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N2FQ
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Rating: 5/5
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May 9, 2012 09:50
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Excellent
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Sorry to have sold mine years ago, I have been fortunate
to pick one up recently. Easy to operate, similar performance
to my Orion and it's military grade. No band changing, super
receiver, razor sharp filters and love that PBT.
Fernando N2FQ/6
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KX7P
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 1, 2010 16:17
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CLASSIC PERFORMER
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The KWM-380 is a classic performing HF radio with a classic radio look. It was built to last. Nothing cheap about this American made radio. It's not complicated to use. It has good size knobs and buttons on the front panel and a large digital frequency display. The receiver is great and compares well with many newer radios. It produced quality audio from the front mounted internal speaker, but I get better audio from a good external speaker. It has great transmit audio and I get many unsolicited complements on my audio.
The KWM 380 is a very expensive radio on the used market, but if you get one that has not been abused it should last the rest of your life.
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K4BWG
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 15, 2010 07:15
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One of the best HF rigs available
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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After owning may HF radios over the years, this one is still at the operating position. Yes you can get a higher performance rig today such as an Elecraft K2 or K3 (I own both) or other foreign made models with improved receiver dynamics, noise figures, etc. Bottom line for me though is the ease of operating, sound of the receiver, and overall pleasure of operating this radio. Some may not justify the cost of a used KWM-380, but to me it is worth every penny.
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VE1PJ
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Rating: 5/5
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Mar 9, 2006 12:48
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Great receiver
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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The receiver in the KWM380 can pull in signals clearly that are not copyable on a TS950SDX.
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M0KKW
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Rating: 5/5
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Dec 8, 2003 23:23
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Built to spec not a price
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Time owned: 3 to 6 months
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I bought my 380 with a synthesiser fault which I fixed for the cost of a CMOS chip (pennies) and am now thoroughly enjoying the rig.
The quality of construction and components used are excellent, and the ergonomics are superb. The recieve performance is, despite what I'd heard, very robust.I regularly use 40M for local working with a "cloudwarmer" quad and the European QRM can be a real headache with some rigs, but not the Collins.
My 380 lives with a TS850, JRC JST 100 and 125, and my old favourite FT7 and is now getting the most use of the lot alongside an Amp Supply LK450.
A very practical classic which will be going strong long after the ft1000s have fallen apart.
Bob M0KKW
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N2WL
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Rating: 5/5
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Jun 1, 2003 00:29
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Terriffic
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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I bought two when they were introduced. The keypad was brilliant. Get on the band and then qsy without reentering Mcs, the passband is unique, one control for moving the IF. The unit wasn't as tough as the 2A's, the synthesizer was noisy, you can make all sorts of dumb complaints but mine still work. No failures. Lets see,
$ 3000 new x 2 / 24 years works out to $ 250 per year. We guys with deep pockets buy radios the same way we buy cars and cameras and guns and planes. To last. One old timer told me when I was a kid buying cheap swr bridges to stop what I was doing and go buy a Bird. His feeling was that I was going to end up with a Bird anyway so why waste the money on all the junk in between. You guys miss the point arguing about the weakness or strength of the radio. If it works so you can communicate with another person then its doing its job. Tell you young pups this much. DX fellow says he listening .xyz and I can get to xyz with a 380 faster than you can with any radio you have.
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W9AC
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Rating: 3/5
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May 19, 2003 20:01
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An Influential Design
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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The Collins HF/KWM-380 transceivers changed the landscape of amateur radio. While the technology was revolutionary, its performance was not.
I owned two HF-380 transceivers and enjoyed them for several years until I could no longer justify the value/performance ratio. For a fraction of the market value of my two '380s, I was able to purchase several new top-of-the-line transceivers with performance that greatly exceeded that of the Collins.
If you're into the Collins mystique, it's probably a "must have" item. Otherwise, the market price simply does not justify its lack of basic performance and features.
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W0LPQ
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 28, 2002 09:27
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Great Radio!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I, like Pete, am biased. I still work for them. For those who "hate" the -380, you might check the Collins web site, www.collinsradio.org and read items on the reflector. The latest of which really puts a good spin on the design of this radio. Granted, there may have been somethings that could have been done differently, such as the ribbon cables, but for that point in time, there were not many choices for ribbon cables. In one design I worked on, we had a choice, one vendor, of ribbon cables. No one liked them, but that was our "choice"...in other words..there was none. I think that if you really compare this unit with others of the era, there is NO comparision! Even today, given DSP and the like, this radio STILL performs well. Granted, the price was high. But, when you try to compete with the Japanese radios, at US labor prices, what choice do you really have. That in itself killed the radio.
Great Radio. But, I have an M-2A and would not trade it for anything...and .. I mean .. anything.
73
Bill, W0LPQ
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AC5XP
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Rating: 4/5
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Jan 27, 2002 22:24
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Good but unworthy to the Collins heritage
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I had a KWM-380 5 years ago, bought it on rec.radio.swap . My expectations where quite high so when I finally got it it was somewhat of a disappointment, I expected more from Rockwell-Collins. My conclusion is that it is indeed a ham radio, NOT a professional/military grade radio like I originally believed (Yes I know there is an HF-380 as well but it is practically the same radio)
What I did not like: The synthesizer uses two frequency sources instead of one. Very "un-Collins" like. It would have been simple for Collins to design the synthesizer with only one master oscillator, like the 651S-1 receiver had (and the latter is MUCH older, from 1971!)
The synthesizer also is quite phase-noisy, but all radios of those pre-DDS days had that problem.
Also, the variable IF shift does not have a pre-fixed position for USB and LSB. This I really disliked. In fact, Collins should not have given in to this "fashion" IF-shift feature, they should have designed the KWM-380 with one of their superb 500 KHz mechanical filters (or three, one for LSB, one for USB and one for AM like the 651S-1) instead of using a much higher (in frequency) crystal filter which they had to revert to for facilitating this weird and unnecessary IF shift feature.
Also, the pushbuttons on the front-panel were too close together to be comfortable.
What I also disliked was the fact that the circuit cards were not done like plug-in cards on a motherboard. The manual tries to give this a positive spin by stating that this makes service easier. But I feel this to be very un-Collins like (Cost reduction enforced by the new owner in those days, Rockwell?)
What I also disliked is that costs were saved by using those cheap connectors on the internal coax connections. Only for the PA connectors are real SMA connectors used, too bad this is not the case throughout the whole radio.
Also the used ribbon cables are un-Collins; why they used teflon cables throughout most of the radio but then stopped by using cheap ribbon cable we will never know.
The receiver performance was in fact worse than the earlier KWM2(A) radios. I actually considered to design a complete DDS synthesizer for this radio once, that really would have improved receiver performance due to phase-noise reduction. But I figured it would only lower the radio's value so I never did this. Actually, when a good bid came along I sold it again.
There were good points: On the majority it was built well, with high-quality components with the exception of the above cable and connectors.
Last but not least, it holds its value very well especially if it is in mint condition (like mine was)
But I always believed that this radio was unworthy to the Collins heritage, in both concept, over-all construction and performance.
But then, I am a perfectionist. I cannot deny that it is still an impressive radio.
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KE9OA
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 9, 2000 10:33
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A very good radio, with high potential
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Time owned: unknown months
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The KWM-380 is a good performer, but there are a couple of improvements that can be made, for those who are brave enough. The first thing one can do is replace the first mixer with a better one. As shipped from the factory, the unit uses a Mini-Circuits SRA-1H mixer. This mixer has a midband SSB conversion loss of around 6.2dB, a 1dB compression point of +10dBm, and a lower cutoff of 500KHz. The MDS of the KWM-380 is .15uV, when using this mixer.
Replacing the first mixer with a Mini-Circuits TAK-3H improves the MDS to .07uV. The TAK-3H has a midband SSB conversion loss or around 4.7dB, a 1dB compression point of +14dBm, and a lower cutoff of 40KHz. It is pin for pin compatable with the SRA-1H, and it is also a Level 17 mixer, which means that it also requires +17dBm, or 50mW of LO drive.
The second modification that one can perform it to bypass the receive high-pass filter. After performing this modification, receiver performance is maintained all the way down to 40KHz.
If you do these mods, make sure you label all of the cables that plug into the main board, since you need to remove the main board in order to do the changes. Also, you need to remove the cover from the first mixer area; this in itself isn't bad, but you do need a good soldering iron with plenty of reserve to remove the shield plate from under the mixer area.
If anybody has any question, feel free to e-mail me at n.gianakopoulos@worldnet.att.net, or pjgianak@collins.rockwell.com, and I can walk you through the particulars.
Pete Gianakopoulos
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
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