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Reviews For: Drake R-4

Category: Receivers: Amateur Radio

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Review Summary For : Drake R-4
Reviews: 4MSRP: $495 in 1960
Description:
160-10m receiver with the ability to cover WARC and 500khz to 30mhz with additional crystals. can be run with T-4,T-4X,either as seperate or transive. a very sensitive receiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://www.wb4hfn.com/r-4
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0045
N4GW Rating: 2015-09-28
Excellent Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Just got one of these off of eBay in near mint condition and I am really enjoying it. I love that old tube analog audio especially on SSB. The filtering is great and the NB really works well. It came with the WARC band crystals as well. I was impressed by the sensitivity of the rig. I use a magnetic loop with the rig, so noise is almost non-existent. I can easily copy SSB conversations that don't even move the S-meter. This one is a keeper for sure. If you can find one at a great price, grab it, and enjoy that old tube sound
STEVEQ Rating: 2010-01-11
Great Receiver Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Very pleased with this receiver, adding it to my growing Drake collection. The filters for CW are outstanding as I am back in radio as a SWL after years away. I like the tone of the audio coming through my headset, very nice.

I switch back and forth from a random long wire to a dipole antenna and this Drake performs just find on both, but as you can imagine the simple long wire can get noisy at times.

Drake knew what they were doing when the built the "R" series. Now to get some extra xtals and see what comes in. Would buy this rig again, very pleased........ try one you will like it.
VE3CUI Rating: 2008-01-14
Where You Been To Now...?! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I just gave myself a set of Drake Twins this past Christmas (to serve as a back-up station to my "Rice Rockets"), and all I can say about the R-4 is "...WOW...!"

Where HAS this rig been hiding lo these past 38 years in my career as an Amateur...?

The audio on SSB has to be heard to be believed. It is just a superlative rig overall, and I especially like the fact that this is one outfit that I can actually service / repair all by myself, should the need ever arise.

~73!~ Eddy VE3CUI - VE3XZ (gswynar@durham.net)
WB7QXU Rating: 2005-10-28
sharp ears Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This old receiver has very sensitive ears and hears signals just as good as the Icom 756PROII w/o preamps. It has good selectivity for its age. I can tune out stronger signals with the notch filter and great passband tuning too. it has built in RC filters for 4.8AM, 2.4SSB, 1.2 CW RTTY, 400hz for CW. with extra crystals can receive 500khz-30mhz. Supper AM rececption, Nice pleased full quality audio no synthesizer noise from solid state radios. I am very impressed with this radio, I seldom use my PROII, this old rig is so much fun. It works great with the T-4x transmitter either split or tranceive. I prefer seperate, I just spot the xmitter.