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Reviews For: National NC-121 General Coveage Receiver

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : National NC-121 General Coveage Receiver
Reviews: 1MSRP: 130.00
Description:
Four band general coverage receiver for novice and shortwave listener.
Product is not in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0013
KA8DLL Rating: 2010-07-06
Four band general coverage beginners deluxe receiver. Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
The National NC 121 is a general coverage radio that was intended for the beginning ham and shortwave listener. Its features are four band general coverage tuner, product detector, pitch control, S meter, peaking Q multiplier, two IF stages but no RF stage, power transformer, built in speaker and six tube design.
This radios is about the size of a shoe box. Produced from 63-66 for about $130.00. It is a very attractive radio with grouped controls.
This radio competed in a very dense field of beginner equipment such as Hallicrafters S 107, and S 118. The Gonset G33 and the G 43 also come to mind. Lafayette HA 700 and HE 10, Knight R100A and many Heathkits such as GR 54, GR 64, and maybe the HR 10.
At the beginners level most of these radios were more like shortwave radios that covered the ham bands than true communication receivers.
The NC 121 is fairly well calibrated but has a band spread dial with a 0-100 scale. This would necessitate a logging scale to have any hope of finding where you are in the ham bands. This was very common and could seen with the Hallicrafters S 107 and S 118 also.
The sensitivity of the NC 121 is generally very good up to at least 16 MHZs where it would have benefited from a RF stage which it didn't have. The sensitivity on the AM broadcast band is excellent.
The selectivity is fair to good. The Q multiplier doesn't work very well on the AM mode.SSB and CW effect is a little better with the control having the value perhaps of a tone control.
Stability is fair in the ham bands, not as good as Hallicrafters S 107 or the S 118.
SSB sound is pretty good but the RF gain control must be backed down on strong stations.
At $130.00 the NC 121 was pretty expensive for a beginners radio. The actual performance is at the Hallicrafters S 118 price of around $100.00.
For another $60.00 the beginner could had a Hammarlund HQ 100A or Hallicrafters S 130 which can still hold their own against todays receivers.
These beginner radios are fun to collect and usually don't sell for very much money. This excellent condition National was only $60.00. Much of the time they mostly meet their advertising claims and could of been used in the ham bands to make long distance contacts.