IMPROVES THE SENSITIVITY OF ANY HF RECEIVER
CUSTOMER COMMENTS
Introductory Price $90.00
US Shipping $10.00
The ability of a radio receiver to receive weak signals is affected by two things, atmospheric and man made noise, and the noise figure of the receiver. Noise Figure is a technical term that represents the amount of the noise produced by the receiver, that the signal must overcome to be heard. The lower, the better.
Atmospheric noise is affected mostly by local weather and weather conditions at the location of the station you are trying to receive. It is very difficult to reduce this kind of noise. Man made noise refers to noise from electrical appliances, ignition noise from cars, florescent lights, and other things like that.
The noise figure of a receiver is determined by the first stage, usually the RF amplifier, or mixer stage. Noise figure is expressed in decibels, or db. Typical receivers have noise figures of 10 to 12 db which is not really very good. A receiver with a 12 db noise figure is acceptable when it is the atmospheric or man made noise that is limiting the ability to receive a weak station, but when noise is low, and it often is, a preamp can be beneficial. What causes receivers to have high noise figures is all of the circuitry between the antenna terminal and the first amplifier. There are tuned circuits, band pass filters, diode switches and other things that all introduce loss.
The BBP .5-30 Broadband Preamp has no lossy circuits that the signal must go through to reach the amplifier. It has a 2.5 to 3 db noise figure and 10 db of gain. That's more than 3 S units. When noise is low, signals that don't move the S meter and can barely be heard, become 100% readable. 10 db of gain is enough for a very noticeable improvement but not enough to cause overloading at most locations. It is effective from below the AM broadcast band up to 30MHz and above. The BBP has been tested on a Kenwood R-500 and a Icom R71A with excellent results. On older tube receivers, the improvement is exceptional.
Antenna and receiver connectors are UHF (SO-239) connectors. A wall wort plug-in power supply is included.