Ten Tec RX-340

First Impressions.

W. Charles Alexander

W8WCA

Some personal background:

I have been interested in Shortwave Radio for the last 37 years (I am 47). My listening has been up and down through those years. I listen to both SW broadcast (mostly the tropical bands) and SW Utilities. I am no expert (or even close) in either. I am more of a casual DX’er, but have been getting back into SW a good bit lately.

This is NOT a technical review; I am not qualified for that. The Ten Tec Data Sheet is at http://www.tentec.com/rx340.htm or on my web site http://www.swl-ute.com/rx-340_data.htm.

I use a longwire antenna 58 feet long, 28 feet high at far end and 12 feet high at the end by my house. The lead is just wire and it goes to an antenna tuner in my room. Naturally all of my equipment is grounded.

‘Nuf said, now on to the good stuff.

When I received the RX-340, I thought I would have to spend all day reading the manual to operate equipment with such an elaborate arsenal of weapons to assist the DX’er in pulling out weak DX.

However! To my surprise that is not the case at all!

It was nearly "plug and play". (Well, except it works <g>)

-- This is one nice looking Receiver (IMHO), with a well laid out panel. --

Every function has its own button to adjust settings. They illuminate when engaged so you know which one you are changing. (The adjustment knob is labeled AUX Parameters). The Bandwidth, BFO, Passband, AGC, Notch, Squelch and Noise Blanker all operate this way.

Entering the frequency is very simple. You enter the numbers; then hit the Mhc or the Khc button. I find this great because I am used to Khc. Sometimes the Mhc is handy (like checking WWV -- Just hit 15 then Mhc).

There is a button, which toggles Attenuate-Normal-Preamp functions.

Arrow keys above the numeric keypad set the tuning steps. Adjustments can be made from 1 Hc to 1 Mhc. The display reads to 1 Hc.

The RX-340 has a "cool" tuning knob (especially for these new light weight ones). At its base, is a ring allowing the user to adjust the tension by holding the ring and turning the knob. I set it all the way down to allow movement to be as free as possible. It is a great size; about 2" and it has a good feel to it.

There are separate volume controls for the speaker and the earphones. This is a very handy feature.

NOW down to "Brass Tacks".

How well does all this cool stuff actually work?

First, it is a nice, quiet receiver. The audio is great. It is relatively good via the internal speaker, but I use Radio Shack Minimus 7 speakers on my equipment.

Most of the time I listen in USB/LSB when band scanning and sometimes will switch to AM or SAM (Synchronous AM) after I find a station. The SAM now works from 4 Khc and up. It displays S.A.M. when locked and SAM when not locked. I find it helps a lot, and you can select upper/lower or both sidebands. It seems to work better above 4 Khc than right at 4 Khc. It seems to loose lock a good bit of the time. If not set right, the AGC setting can also make it loose lock.

The IF Bandwidths are Awesome. What an excellent selection of bandwidths for voice and data both! They seem to have very great shape factors. While trying to ID a station on 4845.00 with 2.8 Khc, I had a lot of interference from a strong RTTY station on 4850.00 Khc. I simply switched to 2.6 and that took care of all signs of interference.

The Passband is another terrific feature and has a big effect in cutting unwanted noise. The Passband works in LSB, USB and AM modes. Leaving the Bandwidth at 2.8 Khc, and setting the Passband to –200 Hc could fix the interference also.

The AGC is one that will take me a while to learn to operate effectively. The 4 factory settings (Slow, Med, Fast and Programmable) are very good under different conditions. It surprises me how much difference they make in audio quality. The Prog AGC settings seem to make the background noise drop a good bit.

The Preamp appears to be excellent. At times, it is a big help with my minimal antenna setup.

Updates will be via Flash memory another terrific idea.

A few minuses: (ANY Receiver has some)

The notch does not work in AM, but Ten Tec plans to correct this.

There is a Noise Blanker button that does not work. It will be fixed by a "future software release".

No auto notch.

No Noise Reduction

Ending comments:

This is one Fantastic receiver. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea (in my case coffee), it certainly is for me. I had to sell all of my HF rigs, HF Receivers (even the HF-2050) and most of my UHF/VHF scanners to get the funds for it, but it was well worth it.

73 de Charlie

W. Charles Alexander

W8WCA