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Reviews For: JRC JST-125

Category: Transceivers: HF Amateur HF+6M+VHF+UHF models - non QRP <5W

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Review Summary For : JRC JST-125
Reviews: 4MSRP: 900,00
Description:
HF General Coverage 100W Transceiver
Product is in production
More Info: http://www.rigpix.com/jrc/jrc_jst125.htm
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0044
I2VTB Rating: 2023-09-20
Solid costruction Time Owned: more than 12 months.
A solid Rig that I used for many years. I have also a Jst 245, a Drake 4b Line, a Drake TR7. Jst is a powerful and easy to use nice machine, with a professional 'rock' looking. Without any blower and with a big radiating back transmits quietly for hours, exceeding the 100 W data power.
If you compare it with the big brothers the weak point is the receiver front end, a "wide band" not tuned pass band. The tuned front end is the very best and incomparable feature of the big Jrc receivers as the 245 has, like the 525 535, 545. If you like to ear small stations emerging from the roof of silence you cannot use very big, wide band antennas, or you have to do that managing to have a preselector.
SP5MXF Rating: 2019-03-03
Old good JRC Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I bought JRC JST-100 5 years ago but this is not the JST-125 model as I see it is very similar, so they probably will have similar functionality. My experience with this radio is good, its advantage is that it has no fans so it is perfectly quiet, nothing noise, you can use it at night in a quiet room without loss of comfort, for me it is an important advantage, it is a radio intended mainly for long talks on the band, for ruminants rags. For DX man will not be good, for the contestman completely useless. The radio is very primitive and not very functional but made extremely solid. The power meter when it indicates 100W is actually 100 W, while the radio has a maximum power output of 130W, so there is some excess.
The main disadvantage of this radio is that when I change the band, the VFO frequency on the previous band will not be memorized. That is, by turning the knob on one band, we simultaneously spin on all bands, there is no VFO memory on other bands. I remember that it was the same in TS-440. This radio is a monument but very well-functioning, for everyday conversations, but it is not too much for any competition because it is not very functional.
Such an oldtimer as me

Thomas
sp5mxf.com
HAMWITHOUTANTENNA Rating: 2018-10-27
Old, but not bad at all Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
This is an interesting transceiver from the late 80s.

In its days it was probably considered an advanced design, featuring full HF coverage, a receiver with many effective QRM beating tools ( noise blanker, variable passband, notch filter ), and a remarkably clean output signal. The rig tunes in fully synthesized 10 Hz steps with excellent frequency stability and -accuracy. Split-band operation is possible, receive and transmit frequency can be set totally independently if desired. A simple modification removes all restrictions on the TX frequency coverage.

Further good points are: No cooling fan, above-average receiver with excellent AM performance, very good TX speech quality, and an RF speech processor. The tuning knob has a solid feel, front and back panel are aluminum castings. Accurate and complete circuit documentation is available in the net, the circuit boards are relatively easy to work on, no SMT components are used. The transceiver is controlled by a microprocessor (8085, 5 MHz) but there are no menus.

The rig has no serious weak points, but depending on your expectations it might give you some minor headaches. One is a S9 RX birdie at 9.155 MHz (PBT VCXO). The receiver ( and transmitter ) bandwidth in SSB mode is on the narrow side, since the signal passes through two IF filters (mechanical and crystal). This gives very steep selectivity, but doesn't quite fit into today's ESSB scenario. The transceiver has some frequency / mode memories which aren't easy to use.

Another potential issue is CW operation. The BFO is fixed at 800 Hz from the IF filter's center frequency, which gives a relatively high pitch, especially for older operators. The BFO is synthesized in 10 Hz steps, but there is no way to change the frequency offset ( this came only later in the JST-135 ). On the plus side, the rig provides space for a 600 Hz mechanical CW filter ("CW M") and a crystal filter ("CW N"). The original CW filters (455 kHz) are hard to find nowadays, but their performance is nothing short of excellent.

Compared to its successor, the JST-135, this rig looks and feels a bit older and less sophisticated. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can't compare to modern rigs, of course. This transceiver is from a different era, but still quite capable, and great fun to use.









SV9DRU Rating: 2010-09-30
Professional quality Time Owned: more than 12 months.
This is another JRC product which was made for the amateur market but with professional quality both in construction, circuitry detail and performance.
Has all the important Rx features (PBT, Notch, adjustable NB, narrow CW filters, ANALOG S-meter etc) and they all work extremely well.
Quiet, analog sound from 2.7Khz SSB filter. No DSP nonsense....enough said.
SOLID - heavy duty modular construction, every board in its tin compartment with separate analog PS.
SSB Tx excellent with a very effective compressor. What else can I say, the only disadvantage is it is VERY rare to find in the used market!

73,
Marinos, sv9dru / ki4gin