Wanting to listen to SSB, SW, Airband, and AM.
Just picked one up!
After a few days of use, here we go! (No, it doesn't hold a candle to my R75 or Icom 746-Pro.)
AIRBAND:
Obviously not a scanner. However, they have put some thought into it. The fast-vfo setting is at 25 khz! Somebody was paying attention. Slow is 1khz, and the up/down buttons are 100 khz. So, one could roll around in the fast-vfo mode, but for the most part, I just use it for various single-channel monitoring. The good thing is that the squelch works fine. Actually, the noise floor is so low, that you may not even need the squelch! A small amount of dead-air in the background isn't that annoying when the noise floor is pretty low.
I used an external Icom airband duck for the initial testing and all seems fine. With the built-in whip, you can get a bit more sensitivity by reducing the whip length by about 2 or 3 segments. Attenuation and rf gain work, but you can't do ECSS by going into ssb. AM only. Bandwidth is not adjustable and is fixed on airband. Sensitivity is ok, but not as good as a dedicated scanner. Easy fix is better external antenna, and possibly some attenuation.
VFO KNOB
My model was one of the latest with knurled aluminum knobs instead of grey plastic (were the earlier ones really plastic, or "brushed" aluminum - dunno' )
Mine was just a tad loose, so when I pulled the knob off, I *very gently* tightened the nut underneath. That tightened things up quite nicely. Then again, not as mechanically perfect as either of the Icom vfo knobs.
The VFO knob is pretty heavy with quite a bit of mass. As shipped, the radio is face-up. I wonder if that is to help prevent the large mass of the vfo knob from bending the encoder? At any rate, I'm treating the vfo knob gently by NOT using the finger-dimple, and only rotating from the edges, since there is a small amount of play. For whipping around the band, I use the fast-vfo instead of the dimple. And if I travel with it, I'm taking the vfo knob off just to play it safe and put it back on upon arrival. Also don't bang it down on the desk and have all that knob mass bend the encoder shaft.
The other knobs are knurled and have no finger-lobe like earlier models. Potentiometer action and feel is very smooth, even though underneath you can just tell that they won't be usable in 25 years.
But for now, the feel is good when operating.
TUNING:
Typical - USB use the 12-oclock position to start and for LSB use the 1-oclock position before making changes to the bfo. Normally I don't swing the bfo much, just for very light adjustments - I just use the main vfo knob if I get past about 1.5 khz away to get back on freq. Going from say 12 oclock to 1 clock is about 1.5 khz or so. The only time I do big excursions with the bfo is when I'm copying CW and just don't feel like resetting the main knob. Not a big deal. yeah, I'd like better resolution, but if that comes at the cost of stability, then so be it.
POWER:
Weird - comes with a wall-wart that has the center-pin NEGATIVE. This is the only one I've ever had that had it that way. Thing is, when using the wall-wart, I have very bad ac-line noise, so I operate from batteries. FANTASTIC! Power draw seems to be about 80-100 ma on receive, and so far with some new 5amp nimh rechargeable D-Cells, I've had this thing on for about 36 hours with the backlight the whole time. AND on the batteries very first training cycle! Nope, it doesn't recharge in the unit, so outboard charging only (or just non-rechargeable D's) System setup has an option to tell the radio if you are using alkaline or rechargeables, I guess to get the low-voltage circuit a bit more accurate. I'm still waiting for my first battery-bar to go away on the lcd. This thing seems to run on air.
Actually I've seen 11000 mah D cells (that's 11-thousand!), so battery power is definitely a big draw for me here.
SELECTIVITY
Very good, although I normally use NARROW all the time. However, I do use WIDE when I want to temporarily have more fidelity on SWBC, or for fidelity checks on amateur-operators AM mode, or even to listen to those that have excessively wide ssb audio. Normally I don't go for hi-fi on ssb, but at least I have the listening option. I was amazed that the narrow filter worked as well as it does. I was expecting it to be very broad, but it seems to be around 2.4 to maybe 2.7 khz wide? I'd love to see a spec.
FIDELITY:
Not bad for a plastic box! I like that they used a stereo jack, which means that you can press your normal stereo earbuds into service for comm use without having to track down an adapter. The bass and treble have enough of a slope to help turn the hifi headsets into comm quality. My favorites however are the Kenwood HS-6 lightweights or the Kenwood HS-5 over-ear headsets rather than use hifi earbuds.
LONGWAVE and MW:
I don't do much dx'ing on either one, but I did track down an NDB on longwave and the rotatable bar antenna on top did actually null for most stations. Some stations did NOT null, but most did, or at least you can null noise. Very handy to not have to rotate the whole radio. A nice addition is that there is an external jack for your own longwave / mw antenna right at the bar antenna for you AM dxer's out there. So that makes THREE antenna input jacks total.
What would have been great would have been if the bar antenna went up to 2 mhz, so I could use that for 160 meters instead of a wire which I don't really have the room for to do right on 160m. Maybe their next model...
BEEPING:
ACK! There is a constant beep whenever you pass through the various shortwave spectrum stop/start allocations. Sounds like a small kitchen microwave beep when your popcorn is ready and there is no system setting to turn it off. Once my batteries recharge, I'm going to find that piezo buzzer or whatever it is and crush it happily.
OPERATION:
If you want to play radio, this will provide it in spades, what with the small bfo adjustments, bass/treble, attenuation and rf-gain controls all going at the same time. Fun actually trying to coax the most out of this unit. Seriously though, it has the unexpected benefit of having you trying to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio, rather than just smashing the s-meter.
S-METER:
Put a piece of tape over it.
Unknown ballistics and calibration, doesn't deflect much above 10mhz on even strong ssb signals (at least on my unit). I could even forgive it for being so small, but it is also set-back about a half-inch from the faceplate, making it hard to see unless you are looking at the rig head-on. Good for character but not much else. That's a real pity as I LOVE analog meters.
STRONG-SIGNAL SSB Handling:
This is where it starts to fall down when you attach a modest HF antenna like my multiband vertical. Yes, you can use the attenuator and even ride the rf-gain control. In fact, I found it kind of fun to operate like I did years ago. In the face of very strong signals, think of the 750 as a manual-transmission auto.
Unless you just operate with the built in whip with everything on max-gain, expect to have a lot of fun protecting the front end at times. Not ALL the time, but some of the time. Does this make it unusable? Not for me - in fact I really needed the refresher to remind me to seek a good S/N *ratio* rather than just trying to bend the s-meter needle.
Reality-check - most of the demographic for this radio is probably going to use the whip or maybe a short wire, rather than attach it to a stacked yagi array. However, I do feel it could have done just a *little* bit better in this department. Kiwa anyone?
OVERALL:
A good budget radio that you could actually build a setup around. Yes, you can get more on the used market, or spend more for an even better receiver. BUT, the satellite 750 stands on it's own, and has enough nice features that perform admirably well *for what it is*, that makes it a keeper for me. Not my main rig to be sure, but something I'll have a use for a LOT when I don't want to lug around all the other stuff and keep it casual. I think it would make a GREAT starter radio (again, if you have to go new and not used) for someone just starting out trying to find their own listening niche. NDB's on longwave? MW dxing? SSB/CW HF amateur/utility? Airband ops? Homebrewing your own antennas?
Although it looks rugged, treat it gently and you'll get many years out of it for sure.
In fact, I think I'll be adding an outboard cw/ssb peak/notch filter to just put the bow on it. Fun!
