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Reviews For: Lafayette HA-800B

Category: Receivers: Amateur Radio

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Review Summary For : Lafayette HA-800B
Reviews: 2MSRP:
Description:
Amateur band solid state receiver
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0025
N4UE Rating: 2014-09-20
Darn, NOT again!! Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I don't know what's wrong with me. Either too much free time or not enough gray matter. (I think the latter)....
I found another 800B on the evil ePay. It was at a price I just couldn't resist. Great packer, too.
Anyway, I wanted one to do daily yeoman's duty here in the radio room, probably connected to a 6M converter to check propagation. I use my Icom 761 for that now. It is a fantastic radio.

My comments about my other 800B are here, but I just wanted to add this tidbit before you fall asleep or hit delete...

For any of you that have ever looked at, purchased, or tried to restore a Lafayette radio from the 60s, and were horrified to have the dial numbers fall off, don't worry. Can't happen on these models. First time it happened to me, that was enough. That old radio now has a digital dial.
The newest 800B had about the worst knobs and face I have ever seen. Fortunately, it is easily disassembled and cleaned. I don't think it would be possible for ANYONE (even me) to ruin the slide rule dial and it's numbers.... ha ha
Looked like the previous owner used it next to a deep fryer. At least it didn't rust!! ha ha
Although it's almost finished, I'm going to go through it and check all the caps with an ESR meter. Betting some are NG....



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Earlier 5-star review posted by N4UE on 2010-03-29

Those who read my reviews here know I have a certain passion for Lafayette radios. I have quite a few and if you check, I did reviews of the HA-600A, which is a single conversion, general coverage radio. Next, I did a review of the HA-800, which is a double conversion, ham band radio. I have several 800s, and they all have the same flaw. I was pretty disappointed with both of these radios for the same reason: The bandspread / fine tuning was a very small cap with a long piece of fat buss wire leading to the main tuning cap. This made the radios pretty difficult to tune and also made both quite unstable.

Enter the 800B. It is also a double conversion, ham band receiver. BUT, the 'calibration knob' above the main tuning, is actually a pot that shifts the band slightly right / left to coincide with the xtal calibrator. In addition, there is a "fine tuning" control (cap) placed on the lower panel to allow very small shifts as needed for tuning in SSB.

I found the 800B on ePay being sold by a nice, honest, non-radio lady. She admitted that she knew nothing about the radio except the lights came on (good start!). She said it had been in a box for 20+ years. I gotta say, she wasn't kidding. This radio was probably NEVER used. It is the cleanest, most pristine radio I have ever bought. The packing was awesone...

Oh yeah, the radio. I dusted it slightly and it fired right up. I was flat amazed at the sensitivity. I immediatly tuned in some 20M SSB and it stayed right on frequency. The radio had the 100 KHz xtal in it (with the p/n label taped to it, it was an option) and it took a slight 'wiggle' to get it working.

These are pretty nice radios and an order of magnitude better than the 600A and 800. These radios all look alike, but the 800B is outstanding.

All I need now is a nice HE-10....

ron
N4UE
WB0FDJ Rating: 2013-01-22
Not a bad old radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Picked up one of these a little while ago and I gotta say, it's not a bad receiver. Sure, it doesn't have a single bell or whistle but for what it is, it works well. Good sensitivity. Simple to operate like most of the old stuff. It actually "hears through" the crud I have here on 40 meters much better than I would have imagined. You have to ride the RF gain to keep from overloading the thing, (a good thing, quiets down the copy) but CW and SSB sound great on this. I'm glad I picked up this blast from the past. Wished I'd had this as a novice.