Frying A Shortwave Radio

[Harlock]

Does anyone know if it is possible to fry a shortwave radio receiver by transmitting on a HAM radio at close distances? Specifically, pumping out 1watt approximately 3 - 4 feet away from the shortwave receiver. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[elitedata]

not unless the were both connected to external antennas at a very close distance but that is very unlikely as well.
assuming by "HAM" you mean 2 meters/70CM ?

 

[Harlock]

Yes, that is correct, elitedata. It's a Baofeng 2m/70cm. Neither radio was connected to an external antenna. It should be noted that the shortwave radio is in the form of a eurorack synthesizer module. It is made by a company called Evaton Technologies. The radio is called the RF Nomad. Their manual does state that you should keep it away from transmitters, microwaves, and cellphones. Of course I saw this after the fact

I'm chatting with the designer currently via email, as we are in the music gear manufacturing business together, and I recently met him at a trade show, but wanted to get some other input on this possibility.

 

[elitedata]

you should be ok then.
1 watt from the BF isnt going to do damage to the SW receiver unless you put the antenna of the BF right up against the SW receiver and TX, then you might incure some front end damage to the SW receiver.
i know my BF when its close to my BCD996P2 (a foot or less), if i TX on VHF @ 1W with the stock antenna, i can hear RF noise through the BCD996P2 speaker amplifier though its not overly loud.
is the SW receiver working without issues ?

 

[Harlock]

I feel like shortly after I wasn't getting those sweet radio tones to come through, but it may have been just poor timing with poor reception because we had a series of strong storms blowing through the area.

 

[prcguy]

As others have mentioned you probably didn't hurt your SW receiver with a nearby 1w VHF transmitter. But you can damage SW receivers if they are close enough to a higher power HF transmitter.

I've done this several times, once with just 100w from a mobile HF station to a very close by military HF manpack with whip attached, it wiped out its first mixer since it doesn't have a front end preamp. I also damaged my Elecraft K3 having it plugged into a 10m antenna when I was running 1100w on another radio and antenna very close to the 10m antenna. Oops. That required a trip back to the factory to find a replace a diode I couldn't diagnose.
prcguy

 

[k9rzz]

[ Aside: Ahhh the beauty of vacuum tube receivers. Both transmitter and receiver would be connected to the same antenna with only a single pole, double throw (SPDT) swtich separating the two. I would listen to my own transmitted signal on the receiver (S meter pegged of course) by just turnining down the RF gain.

]

 

[prcguy]

Yea, tubes can be good. I also have a couple of modern solid state HF transceivers from Harris that are rated for up to 100w continuous into its receiver without any damage. I doubt if your tube receiver can handle that.
prcguy

[ Aside: Ahhh the beauty of vacuum tube receivers. Both transmitter and receiver would be connected to the same antenna with only a single pole, double throw (SPDT) swtich separating the two. I would listen to my own transmitted signal on the receiver (S meter pegged of course) by just turnining down the RF gain.

]

 

[ajeffri]

You should be fine, but I did kill a scanner with my 45 watt APRS rig this way...