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Reviews For: COLLINS 75A2

Category: Receivers: Amateur Radio

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Review Summary For : COLLINS 75A2
Reviews: 7MSRP: 440.00
Description:
Covers amateur radio bands 160, 80, 40, 20, 15, 11, and 10 meters. Double conversion permeability tuned. Selectivity 6 kHz for AM. Adjustable crystal filter and BFO for CW.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0074.9
WS7P Rating: 2019-10-30
I feel more like an original ham radio operator using the 75A-2 Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought my 75A-2 and Globe King 500C in 1989. Great set up for working the ham bands. I love the audio from the receiver and it's fun to turn knobs and make adjustments to the incoming audio. I've had mine disconnected the past few years and I hope to get them up and running again. You definitely have to have room in your ham shack to display and use this gear as it is large and heavy. You can own a $5k radio and fancy gadgets, but there won't be anything in your ham shack that shines original amateur radio like this equipment.
GM1FLQ Rating: 2009-01-02
Real ham radio Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I wonder how many of the current day ham rig offerings will still be working in 50 years - I estimate non.
Planning to build an AM station with my 75A2, the 75A2 is in perfect working order and I am working on the Tx which is an old British KW Vanguard.
Love the audio from the 75A2 and the feel of solid controls.
K0PJG Rating: 2009-01-01
Great AM rcvr Time Owned: more than 12 months.
My 75A-2 is a hand me down from my Elmer. It has been in my Shack for about ten years now. Paired with a 32V-3. You could not ask for a better AM station. The front end does overload on strong signals. Always did. Just looked at QST Jul 1955 article about some of those issues that cause the cross modulation/distortion. As has been said, I would not install a mechanical filter in this rcvr. I would like to improve the overload problem though. I discussed with W8OMV-Tom the problems last night with the rcvr , trying to do SKN on 80Mtr CW with a 5/4 wave doublet. He just laughed and said "way too much antenna for that rcvr" He suggests an attenuator as does the QST article. I suggested a low noise on the ground rcve only antenna, using the double extended Zepp for transmit. He said that might work.
I called up my friend down the road W4OP-Dale and he suggested the BFO injection may not be high enough. After reading the QST articles and listening to helpful folks, it might be easiest to use a low noise rcve antenna. Next would be the attenuator, or until I can save up enough radio bucks to send the A-2 to W3HM-Howard to be completly re-done, to include all of the mods listed in QST :))
W0OGH Rating: 2008-06-08
Beautiful AM receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I own one that i bought at an Estate sale a couple years back. I've had two of them now, the first one i sold years ago. Why? Kick me again. Lots of caps replaced in this unit and removed the haywired in product detector and solid state rectifier units putting them back to normal. Only problem i have with it is after a while in operation the AVC action gets real fast and choppy. Suspect another cap on the AGC line someplace. Otherwise, this one is staying here for use with the Viking II. What fine radios they made back then.
KA0JW Rating: 2005-05-08
Great AM reciever Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I just purchased this nice radio (Thats mine pictured above) and I really enjoy listening to it. I have paired it up with a Heathkit Apache and use it on 40 and 75 AM. My radio needed some caps replaced (mica bypass and some paper caps were bad),not bad for a radio thats 50 years old!
I will tell you that the radio is fairly easy to work on and there are plenty of resources on the web to help you. One of the best was: http://www.collinsradio.com/ plus there are many others. So if you have a chance to pickup one of these great old radios, dont hesitate!!
73s Jeff
W4PTO Rating: 2004-01-04
Great AM rx! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I had one follow me home several years ago. It was at a hamfest in Foothill, CA. I found this shabby 75-A2 (complete with some college frat sticker) with its power cord cut off and a large hole where the NBFM option should be. Several months later, after some alignment, repair, and repaint, she was back in fighting trim!

I teamed her up with first a Johnson Valiant then later a Collins 32-V2. Great AM rig! I would never put a 6 Kc mech filter in this unit. I believe that amplitude mod fidelity would be affected by a sharp skirted filter. In any event, I used it regularly during my 3870 kcs AM ops.
KA5N Rating: 2003-06-07
Great in its time! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought my 75A2 in 1962 and I have regretted selling it ever since. This is the receiver I used when I first got on SSB. QST had an article about adding a mechanical filter and a product detector which I did and this simple inexpensive change updated the 75A2. Great on CW with a razor sharp tunable crystal filter. This was the first receiver I owned where you could tell what frequency you were on and boy was the audio great. I have owned better working receivers but I loved this massive hunk of steel and aluminum.