OK, this will be the most talked about receiver of 1996. From early February when it should be generally available in the shops it will divide the civilised world into two groups of people. Those who hate it and those who love it. And those who love will go out and make a well deserved killing for the AOR subsidiary company based in the UK's midlands.
To save you reading the concluding lines at the end of this review before you go on (a habit that I have), let's give you the verdict now. The AR7030 appears well made, it is compact, it is very versatile, and it has some shortcomings. But as befits the general readership of this magazine, I have only really considered this receiver from the viewpoint of the serious shortwave listener and DX-er. And from that point of view, it is a great receiver, capable of pulling in catches with the best of the competition. And in the UK you can buy this baby complete, including tax, for under 800, which is less than half the current price of an NRD 535.
Having read the conclusion, you want to go on to read more now, don't you? I could spend ten pages listing the full specification and commenting about how I have experienced every feature. In keeping with my promised DXers perspective, I will try to tell you about what you will use most. For example there is a scanning facility which I will never use. Let's briefly talk relevant specifications:
Frequency range 0 - 32 MHz, Modes: AM, Synchronous AM, USB, LSB, CW, DATA NFM
Intercept point (IP3) +35dBm (no pre-amp)
Dynamic range >105dB (SSB,2.2 kHz filter)
sensitivity <0.3 V 10dB S/N SSB
selectivity >90dB @ 10kHz SSB mode
Let's simply talk our way through the receiver. There are two antenna inputs, switchable at the rear to accommodate long wire, 50 Ohm feeder and whip. The latter has a dedicated pre-amplifier. The signal then passes through a 0 to 40 dB attenuator, RF filtering, and a 10 dB RF amplifier. The signal is then converted to 45 MHz and then 455 kHz. Four IF filters are fitted as standard (2.2, 4.5, 7.0, 10.0 kHz) with facilities to incorporate a further two of the owner's choice. The avid short wave listener might look for something around 3kHz, the CW enthusiast would want less than 1kHz. There is no notch filter (pity) or noise blanker (thank goodness). There is a 5 kHz bandpass filter adjustment, (used to be known as IF shift).
There are 100 memories which save relevant settings as well as the frequency, there are two VFO's which each also hold separate volume and passband filter settings (very useful for parallel transmitter hunting.)
The receiver appears to be totally stable in use, deriving a master frequency from a TCXO oscillator. The receiver runs on 12 to 15 volts DC. The handbook states that specifications cannot be guaranteed when operating from 12 volts. A mains external power supply comes with the receiver. An internal rechargeable battery holds memory information on switch off. Clock, timer, tape-recorder switching, adjustable AF out, and curiously an IF out 455kHz facility is available (I wonder if it is possible to record 455kHz as video in a modified video recorder and later demodulate it. Great for all-night DXing. Anyone any thoughts?)
Two watts of audio are produced. Headphone socket at the front, speaker at the rear. The internal speaker is, well, OK for an internal speaker. There is a computer connection socket: the world in now waiting for the right pony-tailed hacker with an IQ of 200 and doesn't sleep to produce the software.
There is also what is referred to as a "remote keypad" which looks for all the world like the little infrared emitting thing that gets lost down the side of your settee and controls your video. This one rather grows on you. It contains nearly all of the receiver's function including tuning which is facilitated through adjustable steps. Volume, mode, pass-band tuning, tone and memories can be accessed also in the palm of your hand. I must admit already to lying in bed and hopping down the 31 mb in 5kHz steps looking for mid-evening Brazilians. I think this accessory is great for short wave listeners also who like to, say, use a computer while listening to (often in my case) an African music station as background music. At the moment I am listening to Galo Negro on 7090 which is just going from music to a political speech. I press in 5,0,4,7,kHz and go straight into a Francoise Hardy record from Togo. Frequencies can be entered either in kHz or MHz
Let's describe the most polemical aspect of the package - the receiver itself. It is smart, black, well finished and inviting. The unit is about 24 cms wide, 19 cms deep and 8 cms tall. As is the fashion, a bar comes down to act a front feet to enable the unit to look up at you. All information is displayed in black well-written figures and letters on a green screen of 9 by 1 cms. A contrast control for this is situated on the rear of the receiver. The large, firm-feeling tuning knob of five cms diameter is at the right of the front panel. Three small buttons are situated at finger tip convenience around the tuner; these allow (very) fast tuning, and shifting of mode. It is easy to tune with your right hand and also flick between USB and LSB.
All the other functions the receiver are accessed through six other press buttons and two rotary switches, which while presenting as potentiometers are continuous digital controls themselves.
One can assume general universal hysterical enthusiasm for the receiver, from most of what I have described so far. It is at this point that those of us who have had previous love affairs with "real" receivers such as Racals and Collins may begin to show some concerns.
It was probably with the passing of the last generation of high class valve receivers that the practice of having every facility before you also died. Large grey panels on thick steel, bristling with clunking rotary switches, potentiometers and silver toggle switches had an honest charm. The AR7030 is much less revealing. Lowe receivers have demonstrated that many facilities and good performance can be packaged in small boxes whose functions are accessed by depressing just a few buttons in the correct order. This is perhaps what the children of this computer age will insist on.
When I first switched on the AR7030, I spent a few minutes in puzzlement. It was like executing a new computer program. I had to find my way around a menu system, whose branches will lose the newcomer. It will take the well-written instruction book and the illustration of the menu-tree to explain the many functions of this receiver. But to be honest, I soon got the hand of the receiver, and did not have to face the ultimate humility feared by all computer and techo-buffs - reading the manual.
Certainly the receiver is complicated to use. I expect an owner will find new things on it for weeks after delivery. As I said, rather like owning a new piece of software. But I do not want to put the honest DXer off this machine. For DXing, it is easy to use. You can easily configure it to show on the screen just what you want. At this moment the display is showing pass-band setting, frequency, mode, tone and filter settings. This means that all these can be directly adjusted. The volume control does not share its function and is always accessible.
The CW (Morse) mode position is useful for the DXer because it is possible to configure the BFO shift for Morse reception. The default value is the usual 800Hz. If this is set at zero, the CW position effectively straddles the carrier on AM signals when it is switched in. It is then possible to exactly tune the incoming station by zero beating. This done, you then move to either the USB ore LSB setting for more comprehendible audio.
So, how does it perform? Is it just a computer-age transistor-six or do we send our Drakes and NRD's back to "Toys-R-Us" and call in at our AOR store?
The first thing that impressed me about this receiver is its quietness. When there is nothing on the band, nothing much comes through the speaker. The audio has a detailed quality which is hard to describe. Hearing a weak station with intrusive noise and interference is what DXers spend most of their time doing. The AR7030 gives the illusion that it is able to trap any signal that hits the antenna and demodulate it almost at FM quality. Interference and noise then imposes on this. If you listen hard, the intelligence contained in the signal seems to be ever present in the background.
In the summer, Martin Elbe came to see me, and brought with him (as he would) his NRD 525. We spent a lot of time, comparing this with my Drake R8E. While the Drake, I think, is unbeatable for power and bass quality on good signals, the NRD seemed to me to bring in just a little more detail, although I find the audio quality and accompanying hiss of NRD 525's and 535's fatiguing over long periods. To me the 7030 goes one step further and produces an even more detailed audio which is kinder on the ears. When I compare the AR7030 with the Drake R8E, I find similar sensitivity and flexibility, but on the R8E propagation disturbances have a much more destructive effect on the resulting audio. The AR7030 seems to shrug it off and thrust the music at you. Similarly when listening to a few Peruvian and Bolivian stations the other evening, I found the ID's on the AR7030 easier to hear.
I suppose my experience of the AR7030 must be directly linked with its claimed excellent dynamic range and adjacent signal rejection specification.
And what about the Synchonous AM? Well it is one of the best I have come across. When you switch it in, the receiver ponders, clicks, and the frequency display sometimes moves a bit as it seems to tune the receiver to lock on the its locally produced carrier. The end result seems good quality. The receiver locks on and seems to hold even the weakest AM signals. It wouldn't let go of Radio Tropico, Bolivia at 2300 UTC last night. I still prefer USB or LSB for serious DXing though.
To sum up, this is a real DX machine which may take a little time to get to know. But it is well worth the effort.
I would like to thank Richard Hillier, UK Sales Director of AOR for lending me a review sample of this receiver. The company can be contacted on e-mail at: info@aor.co.uk URL: http://www.demon.co.uk.aor or by phone on +44-1773-880788. The address is
AOR (UK) LTD, 4E East Mill, Bridgefoot, Belper, Derbyshire, DE56 2UA, England.
And what of the future of this set? The company company are planning a stereo wide-band FM option, an internal rechargeable battery and carrying case for portable use, and the possibility of upgrading the microprocessors to offer even more capabilities including alpha-text named memory channels. I would like to see this enterprising team consider making a separate add-on unit on the form of an affordable digital audio processor; as well as attempting to purify the audio further, it could go some way to address the lack of a conventional notch filter.