TRANSCEIVER PERFORMANCE LISTS !

[ BUYER BEWARE! ]

A list is sorted by just one criteria, but there are many factors which together determine the transceiver's overall performance - not just one measurement.

There are at least 3 lists (perhaps more) on the Internet which rank transceivers according to their DR3 performance.  

  • IMO, only one list (Rob Sherwood, NC0B) shows the transceivers in the correct rank (order). 
  • The 2nd list (Hans Reemus, PA1HR) shows the transceivers in the WRONG RANK.  The detailed information on his list is not wrong or bad, only the ranking order is wrong.  This will be explained below. 
  • The 3rd list (Tom Rauch, W8JI), can be viewed as sorted by DR3. I haven't studied this list as much as the other two, but it seems to correspond with the Sherwood list.  It has not been updated for a very long time and does not show  the newer transceivers.

Lists showing Transceiver rankings have their purpose,

but they are not all-telling.  

You can easily be deceived by a list.

 

As Rob Sherwood clearly points out in his presentations, 3rd order Dynamic Range is probably the most important single specification when measuring receiver performance; but it is NOT the whole story.

 

Obviously we have to choose something to rank them by, and ranking radios by DR3 is probably the best way to do it, but it can be very misleading!  

 

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Rob Sherwood tested most of the radios (and all of the ones near the top of his list) using the same test methodology for each radio, so the ranking shown on Rob Sherwood's list is a fair representation of receiver performance, but only as far as DR3 goes. 

 

There are many other poblems with modern transceivers that can be just as important as DR3 and in some cases even more important.

   

For more on this, see the page on Other Problems. 

 

Rob's List:  http://www.sherweng.com/table.html 

 

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The list currently posted by Hans Remeeus (PA1HR) on his web site shows transceiver ranked according to DR3 results measured in the ARRL lab.  This list dangerously misrepresents the real performance of the radios listed on it.  BEWARE !


This list shows the results of the ARRL lab tests for these radios.  The information is accurate . . . but,  the ARRL made significant changes to their testing methodology in 2007.  The test results of radios tested before that change must NOT be compared to radios tested after that change.  Hans warns about this at the top of his list, but most people overlook his warning!

 

It is important to understand that the ranking order shown on his page is NOT representative of the performance of the transceivers with respect to each other. The rest of his information is accurate, informative, and shown exactly as ARRL showed it in QST.  

 

Below the list Hans gives an explanation of the terminology used in the table shown.  

This is also very useful.

 

Hans' list:  http://www.remeeus.eu/hamradio/pa1hr/productreview.htm 

 

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Tom's list does not appear to have been updated for about 6 years. The latest transceiver shown seems to be the FT-2000.  His numbers are very close to those measured by Rob Sherwood.

 

Tom's list:  http://www.w8ji.com/receiver%20IM3%20sorted.htm 

 

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