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Reviews For: Ten-Tec RX-340

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Ten-Tec RX-340
Reviews: 21MSRP: 3950
Description:
DSP HF Receiver
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.tentec.com/rx340.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00214.9
K5DL Rating: 2018-05-29
Excellent receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I’ve owned this receiver for two years and I’m still amazed by its performance and the joy of using it. For years my Drake R8B was top dog as far as performance and all new radios I acquired were compared to the R8. Many came and went and the R8B stayed. Best recovered audio, best sound quality, best sync detector. Then came an opportunity to pick up the Ten-Tec RX-340. The testing began. The 340 edged out the R8B in recovered audio...pulling audio out of weak carriers when the Drake couldn’t. The 340 edged the R8B in sensitivity. Matched the Drakes sync detector which is legendary among shortwave receivers. Easily beats the Drake on ergonomics.

Sold the Drake a couple months later and have never regretted it.

If you get a chance to use or buy one don’t pass it up. Don’t be scared of Ten-Tec...still very much alive for a few products...the RX-340 being one of them. Still in production!
N2FQ Rating: 2016-03-08
Great Receiver Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I agree with most of the reviews. As KA9P wrote, the knobs
are cheap.
The other gripe that I have is the quality of the manual.
It looks like a copy of a copy and the images are awful.
The solution was to get the original PDF and have it printed
locally. Surprise to have such a mediocre manual at this price
class.

Still in all very satisfied with the performance and ease of use.

Sure would like to know what intension Ten Tec had with
those OPT-1 and OPT-2 buttons.

73
Fernando N2FQ
MIKEL Rating: 2016-03-06
Tried the WJ-8718 prefer this TenTec Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I've owned this receiver for the last 7 years. I've put this radio thru thru the paces. from general SWLing, to really tough DXing. After 30 years of collecting and using shortwave equipment, this is the best. If I was really hard pressed to find a shortcoming, frequency scanning speed might be judged to be a bit slow.
K8IDW Rating: 2016-02-19
Excellent Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Used these at work when I was a signals collection analyst with the FBI at Quantico. Sat at a console with 7 of these in front of me all day. Best receiver I've ever used at work. Used these on some of the ships/shore stations I was stationed on during my career as a Coast Guard Radioman. When everything is on the line and you are working a vessel on HF in distress 300 miles offshore this is the radio you'd want..
KA2KFB Rating: 2014-09-08
Buyer beware Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I purchased this radio back in July of this year. I have found several things I don't like about this receiver. First off don't use an active antenna with it or it will overload very easily on the AM broadcast band with many stations repeating due to harmonics. PBT is very sensitive, you need surgeons hands to return the control to zero. The arrows for the tuning steps are reversed, I.E. the left arrow increases the tuning steps while the right one decreases the steps. The manual says otherwise. The manual is a photocopy, for that kind of money it should have been printed. The manual on their website is different than one they set me even though they say otherwise. The biggest problem with the radio is that the 10KHZ tuning step reverts to 9KHZ when the radio is repowered up. A call to customer service seemed surprised this was happening and said software engineers will be notified of the issues but don't look for fix anytime soon. They also said there was nothing wrong with the radio and it was just a software glich. This is a SDR radio, therefore it has a problem. I contacted another reviewer on this page and he said he was given the same runaround 8 years ago and finally gave up. Over 8 years and still no fix? I would not recommend this product due to lack of customer support and repeatedly selling of a product with a known defects.
KC6RCM Rating: 2014-05-05
A listening instrument. Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I had never owned a premium receiver before purchasing the RX-340, but I still had high expectations regarding the level of performance to be expected. Having owned my unit now for over seven years, it has exceeded those expectations by a wide margin. I use it primarily for NDB DXing in the 200 to 500 KHz spectrum. Using an effective antenna system, it's amazing how many beacons I can hear in the winter months. Many of the beacons lie beneath other, stronger beacons that are located on the same frequency. With a little time and patience, they eventually get logged... a listening instrument at its finest.

If you're thinking about an HF receiver for serious Long, Medium, or Short Wave listening, you must give the RX-340 consideration.

K1FPV Rating: 2012-06-06
Second to None! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I was fortunate enough to get one used in the oak cabinet and matching speaker for a price well below the new Ten-Tec price. I haven't been disappointed yet!

Needless to say, as has been mentioned here previously, this is a MIL SPEC receiver with all the bells and whistles one could want. I've used it with a separate home-brew transmitter for CW work on the amateur bands and it is awesome for amateur use.

I also love SWLing in the VLF range and here is an area where it shines. The only area where I have to say it lacks is it could use some DSP noise reduction but I use a Timewave DSP-599zx with it for that. I also hooked up a DRM-1 Down-converter to the IF output for DRM reception and it does a good job there too, much like my RX-320D and RX-350D. Yes, I'm a Ten-Tec man also owning an Orion II, Jupiter, OMNI VII, a pair of Argonaut V's and a 526 (6N2). I have to tell you, you can't beat their good old make in the USA equipment!
AG6LI Rating: 2012-06-05
Awesome Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I've just paired my Ten-Tec Orion to an RX-340. The step up from the Orion receiver is remarkable. With the same antenna setup I'm pulling in a LOT more, and everything is a lot clearer. Awesome receiver.
KE7GSK Rating: 2010-04-14
Still in the Running Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
The RX340 is considered a MILSPEC receiver having been modeled after the Ten-Tec RX331 which has seen service in government circles throughout the world.

MILSPEC radios are expensive for many reasons but quality and reliability are at the top of the list. With consumer rigs, the manufacturers are looking to keep their prices down to keep sales up. Cheaper parts are one of the many ways they do this. MILSPEC radios are built to strict government standards and rarely does cost factor in. The government requires the radio be able to endure rough handling, severe weather temperatures, aircraft, shipboard and field use. Add to all that the fact that most times the rig will be operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for years. After all, we want the best for our troops, special agencies and agents.

I’ve owned the RX340 for the past four months, it replacing my Ten-Tec Orion. My QRZ page shows some of the rigs that accompany the RX340 and there are many no longer in the shack – Watkins-Johnson, Racal, AOR, and JRC to name a few, all worthy in their own right.

After reading everything I could on the RX340 I noted some areas of concern by a few reviewers (not here on Eham) and make some additional comments below:

S.A.M.

One reviewer, with admittingly limited amount of play time with the RX340, commented about how the S.A.M. feature frequently loses lock. The only time I’ve found the RX340 to lose lock was when very strong signals come within 3-5 kHz of the desired signal or deep fading entered the picture. I’m on the west coast so I rarely have problems with close-in strong signals but I would suggest those closer to Europe would experience it more than I.

In regards to deep fading and, as already mentioned by another reviewer below, the RX340 has a user programmable AGC feature so you can tailor the areas of Attack, Hang and Decay. So losing lock can be almost defeated if you just apply a longer Hang time.

My other suggestion is to purchase a Sherwood Engineering SE-3 Synchronous Detector. What you do when you marry the SE-3 to your RX340 is add modern technology to an already worthy rig thereby giving you unbeatable S.A.M. performance. So, by buying the SE-3 you have just fixed both the close-in strong signal and fade issues.

Notch/Noise Blanker

The manual notch works very well but I agree with some reviewers who stated they wish there was an automatic notch feature. The onboard manual notch is superb though and one need only provide a bit of time to isolate and eliminate an unwanted heterodyne. I have had time to compare the noise blanker of the RX340 to the Icom IC-7700 and the 7700 easily came out on top.

CW (Superb!)

One of the areas that the RX340 beat all of the other receivers I’ve owned, and at best rivals the Yaesu FT-1000D transceiver, is CW. Using the RX340’s special “Fast Filter Mode”, reducing the bandwidth filter down to say .250hz (goes down to .100hz by the way), scaling back the manual gain, and finally messing around a bit with the BFO to your preferred hearing taste, this rig easily isolates a CW signal to a point where there is hardly any background noise and the signal is clear as a bell and sharp to the ears. Even my technologically advanced Icom IC-7700 couldn’t hold a candle to the RX340 in this area.

Is it worth it?

I feel the answer is up to the individual. Again, I refer you to the first section of this article. I guess it comes down to how long you plan on keeping this rig and/or what your purpose is in having it. There are some pretty cool software applications for the RX340 ranging from inexpensive to pretty pricey. By the way, go ahead and price some other comparable MILSPEC radios and you’ll quickly realize the RX340 is a bargain.

Equally important to me is the reliability of Ten-Tec. They are one of the only radio manufacturers that continually buy and build parts for their radios, long after the radio itself is no longer built. Most commercial and government manufacturers stop making or buying parts right around the point the radios stop coming down the production line. You must count this as a huge plus in your decision.
W8IDL Rating: 2008-11-07
Superb! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have owned one Ten-Tec RX-340 for four years now, and my second one for two years. This is absolutely, positively a PREMIUM RECEIVER in every sense of the phrase. I sold off some of my Harris (RF-590) and W-J (various) receivers to buy these RX-340s, and have never looked back. The only thing I can add to the other reviews here is that Ten-Tec now offers an optional wood cabinet and matching speaker. I bought a set, and they are beautiful with professional workmanship. The speaker sounds great as well. If you're an HF recever nut (premium-rx reflector subscribers unite!), you can't miss with this impressive receiver.