SB 303/Collins

[Glen Zook]

Since I just got rid of an SB-303 a couple of months
ago I'll comment.

The SB-303 has much more internally generated noise
than the Collins 75S1/75S2/and 75S3 series and the
SB-300 / SB-301.

It overloads from nearby transmissions (when one lives
in a suburb that has an average of one amateur every
four blocks, this is very important) very easily.

It is much harder to align than any of the Collins
S-Lines or the two mentioned Heath receivers.  The
heterodyne oscillator alignment is very critical, and
the fact that extender boards are necessary doesn't
help with any of the alignment.  The boards tend to
disappear when the receiver is obtained "second hand".

It tends to have more spurious received signals
("tweets") than the SB-300 / SB-301 and the Collins.

The stability is good, but not as good as the Collins.

The Heath filters are good, but not as good as the
Collins mechanical filters (this is true of all of the
Heath receivers).  The 400 Hz CW filter is better for
casual operations, but the 200 Hz filter in the
Collins (standard with the 75S3/75S3A option on the
75S3B/75S3C) can't be beat for really "digging" out a
signal that is completely covered by QRM.

The dial mechanism of any of the Heath receivers is
not as good as the Collins.

The fact that the Heath receivers cover 500 KHz at
each position of the bandswitch is an advantage over
the Collins S-Lines.

The Heath receivers cover all of 10 meters.  Even with
the 75S2, 75S3A, and 75S3C, this is impossible without
a slight modification.  The coverage of all of 10
meters is very handy, especially when used with
converters for VHF and UHF.

The "S" meter is worthless in terms of being a true
reading of signal strength.  It is very difficult to
set for 50 microvolts = "S-9".  When it is set there,
it does not read 6 dB for each "S" unit.  More like 2
or 3 dB.  Increasing signal by 10 dB often reads 40 dB
over S-9.  The Collins reads much much closer and the
SB-301 is better than the SB-303.

I owned the SB-301 / SB-401 combination from 1967
until about 1975 when I went to Collins.  About 2
years ago I got the SB-301, SB-303, and SB-401.  I
definitely like the SB-301 but have no real use for
the SB-303.

Glen, K9STH


--- Ray F <rayfri at NETWORLD.COM> wrote:
>  A lot has been said about the sb 300/400   301/401
> comparison to the
> Collins lineup.  What about an SB 303.... how's it
> compare to the
> Collins
> receivers?


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