I stumbled upon this report on an interview that Bob Crane W8SX did with Bill Frost back in 2011. Bill had been Service Manager for Drake, and knew a lot about the 2-B. This interview is a reminder of the great info that Bob has brought to us over the years. Thanks Bob!
Especially interesting and useful were Bill's comments on crystal filters, the number of 2-Bs produced, and the rarity of the Q multiplier.
Check it out:
https://soldersmoke.blogspot.com/2011/05/w8sx-drake-interview.html
Some excellent information in that interview! It confirmed a few things and provided some helpful information. First, the quality of the design: Bill Frost's comment that the 2-B was "better than anything else for sale except Collins receivers" is likely true from my experience. The 2-B is built on a rock-solid design that's so good, the receiver is still very useful in ham shacks today.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that Drake hoped that the 2-C would be the replacement for the 2-B. Really? The 2-C is a fine receiver, but it isn't half of what the 2-B -- there's no passband tuning, which is a deal-breaker right there. The 2-C does, however, have a wider maximum bandwidth of 4.8 kHz (compared to 3.6 kHz on the 2-B), and a slightly narrower minimum bandwidth selection of 400 Hz, compared to 500 Hz on the 2-B. For SSB listening, the 2-C offers 2.4 kHz, compared to 2.1 kHz on the 2-B, which (theoretically anyway) would seem to provide a little bit more bandwidth for SSB signals.
On the Q-multipliers, there seem to be plenty of 2-BQ's out there, but the 2-CQ is indeed quite rare.
I am glad you saw this Steve. I too found it very interesting. For AM, I think the 2B is too narrow, UNLESS you opt to leave the product detector on, zero beat the carrier, and listen to just one of the sidebands. 73 Bill
DeleteAgreed. The narrower bandwidth of the 2-B is not AM-friendly. Aside from that, it's a terrific receiver. Something that would be very interesting to better understand is what drove Drake's engineering decisions. Could they have designed the 2-B with the AM bandwidth of the 2-A? And if not, why not? Was it cost, or something insurmountable in the basic design of the passband tuner and other circuits? These decisions were made behind the scenes and we can only guess.
DeleteThe Drake 2-B or not to be, that is the question!
ReplyDelete--Walter KA4KXX