[Boatanchors] Comarison?

[Drew P.]

On his receiver design, Carl wrote:

>...a double tuned manually controlled preselector. Saves trying to find the right components to get it all to track. I hate drive belts, gears and all that mechanical crap.

I like the way the mechanicals look and operate in the R-390A.  That sort of arrangement would be a nightmare for a home constructor to implement, however. If you don't mind a little carefully managed non-signal path silicon, how about an encoder on the PTO/LMO shaft feeding a microcontroller feeding a stepper motor to tune the front end?  Tracking is just a matter of tweaking values entered into a lookup table.

>Beam deflection mixers are vintage history and the only good one is getting real pricey.

So, what is so bad about the beam deflection tubes intended for color tv demodulator service versus the 7360?  Yes, the price of a 7360 is going stratospheric.  The 6ME8 and its ilk are cheap and abundant. That alone makes their use tempting.

>The lowest distortion audio that you can build ending up with PP 6V6's at a minimum.

What, no 2A3?  C'mon, ya gotta have a little audiophoolery!

>Bells and whistles:  Output for a digital readout...

That digital readout must, of course, use Nixies, or maybe even Decatrons, whose low upper frequency limit would be accommodated by use of some bizarre variant on a multi-modulus counter.  Mercury delay lines and Williamson tubes!  Bearskins and stone knives!

Kidding aside, I like the sound of your design and the expertise you lend to this forum, Carl.

Drew