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| Reviews Summary for Drake R-8 VHF Converter |
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Reviews: 3
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Average rating: 3.7/5
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MSRP: $269.00
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Description: Add on board for Drake R-8 series of receivers. Allows all mode reception of 35-55 and 108-174 Mhz.
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More info: http://www.rldrake.com
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write your own review of the Drake R-8 VHF Converter.
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W9LBB
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Rating: 3/5
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Jan 1, 2005 22:14
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Another opinion...
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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When I bought my new R8, shortly after Drake introduced the rig, I decided that then and there I'd have the VHF converter too. I never regretted getting it, but there ARE things that are MUCH better for the serious VHF nut.
Overall performance is good, but IMHO not all that great. There are WAY too many internally generated "birdies" for my tastes, and the front end noise figure doesn't seem that good; in weak signal work, not only does my Icom R-7000 blow the R8 out of the water, but my trusty, tho now quite ancient Rat Shack PRO-2004 scanner does too!!!
Just the same tho... if you've got an R8 and a VHF converter comes your way at a reasonable price, I'd say GO FOR IT! It's far from the best VHF reciever out there, but it gets the job done for the casual listener.
73's,
Tom, W9LBB
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DAROBIN
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Rating: 4/5
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Dec 3, 2004 23:39
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Good addition
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I second the opinions of the first reviewer -- I too have stuck with the R8 over the years, and added the converter, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it is very sensitive -- not perhaps as much as my PRO2006, but it puts a whole new twist on using the R8...
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KE4MOB
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Rating: 4/5
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Nov 24, 2004 08:41
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Nice add on
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I originally bought my R8 back in 1992 and didn't get the converter then. I've wanted one on and off for the last 8 or so years, so when one came up on eBay, I was tickled when I actually won it.
Installation wasn't all that difficult. If you can put a board in a PC, you can probably do this. It takes a Phillips head screwdriver and maybe a small pair of pliers to pull cable and plug in wires. There's a total of 2 coax cable and 1 multistrand cable that needs to be routed and plugged in. The biggest difficulties came in trying to get the bracket and board aligned correctly so the assembly could be attached to the frame and in routing the stranded 6 conductor wire around the chassis. The instructions say to route it under the shield on the converter, but the only way I found to do this was to untwist the natural corkscrew lay of the cable so it would lay flat, and slide it back underneath the shield on the converter unit. Pay careful attention to clearances, as the cover fits very closely against some of the potential cable paths. At any rate, it took me about 30 minutes to completely install the unit--and I was being very careful. No soldering is required.
It seemed like that when I turned the radio on the first time after converter installation, it took a while for the CPU to correctly comprehend that the converter was there. After some truly bizarre display anomalies, everything settled down and the radio returned to its good-natured self.
Receiver performance seems much better than your average run-of-the-mill scanner (fewer birdies, more selective, more sensitive), but less than that of my Kenwood TR-7950 2M monobander (less sensitive) but then again, the 7950 won't receive out of band, either.
Squelch operation takes some getting used to. I found myself several times wondering why the RX was dead on an HF memory channel when I set the squelch while listening to a VHF channel!!
Other than that, the integration is pretty much seamless and the converter definitely has added value to my shack...I can now receive 2M SSB, RTTY, and CW.
Overall, a very worthwhile add-on to an already great radio.
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