by Kevin Strom, WB4AIO

HERE’S an mp3 of Paul, WA3VJB the other day on 7290 kHz as heard on my Racal RA6790/GM in its widest — 20 kHz — bandwidth.

Although my urban Charlottesville location adds some noise and my receive-only antenna is far from optimal, Paul’s Collins 300G still impresses with its round, dense, satisfying sound. It’s not often I get to use the 20 kHz filter. And it is great to hear a transmitter that I worked on many years ago (when it emitted 1 MHz waves instead of 7 MHz ones) on the air again and sounding better than ever.

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WA3VJB on 7290 – wide bandwidth on Racal RA6790/GM”]

And here’s another recent 7290 recording — this one of Joe, W3GMS.

Although a local plasma TV created some interference, the fantastic down-to-almost-DC frequency response of Joe’s rig (that makes any speaker sound better than an original Advent) comes through great in the Racal’s 20 kHz position.

[wpaudio url=”https://3950.net/recordings/W3GMS%207290%2020kHz%20bw%2020110321.mp3″ text=”W3GMS on 7290 – wide bandwidth on Racal RA6790/GM”]

The Racal’s synchrodyne AM detector is very interesting and reasonably high fidelity (as long as the AM station being received does not hit the 100% modulation baseline). I have modified the audio and AGC circuits in the Racal for better audio quality; they are a work in progress.