I've had R-71a. And I have an R8-A. Personally, I prefer the Drake.
It's quiet, the audio is quite good, and filters are well selected.
As far as digging out deep DX, you'll hear about the same signals on
either, with a decent antenna.
Does your R-71a have PBT?
Your question about R-71 vs R-2000....R-71 and R-2000 are about
equivalent receivers in their class. Some trivial advantages one way or
the other, but on the same antenna, they're about indistinguishable in
performance. The Kenwood does have better audio. And the R-71 better
ergonomics.
As far as comparing the two to the Drake, it's largely a matter of
taste. The design, the layout, the operation of the Drake fits some
operators' preferences better.
As far as resale value goes, however, R-71a, even with PBT, will run
less than your Drake. Some models by a considerable margin. They seem to
hold value better than the ICOM's or the Kenwoods. And Kenwood support
has been flagging on R-2000, lately. While support on the Drake is still
quite good.
If a choice had to be made, I'd sell the ICOM and keep the Drake.
You're right. The Drake looks like a home satellite TV receiver. That's because
at the time Drake was making only high end home satellite TV receivers. Their
days of making ham or SW radios were long over.
So they decided that your average SWL would want a radio that looked like
the rest of their audio equipment and was 100% remote controllable. It even
came with a remote control like a satellite receiver.
Ergonomicaly, it's either wonderful or terrible depending upon how you
feel a radio should feel. Either way inside is a top notch recevier.
Note that they made them for around 15 years in several variants.
In the US there was an R8, RA8 and R8B. There also was an R8E sold in
Europe (based on the original R8), although all of them work on 230
volts.
Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel g...@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM
I do multitasking. If that bothers you, file a complaint and I will start
ignoring it immediately.
>
> You're right. The Drake looks like a home satellite TV receiver. That's because
> at the time Drake was making only high end home satellite TV receivers. Their
> days of making ham or SW radios were long over.
>
> So they decided that your average SWL would want a radio that looked like
> the rest of their audio equipment and was 100% remote controllable. It even
> came with a remote control like a satellite receiver.
>
Not exactly. They make low-end professional cable headend equipment,
including modulators, IRDs, FM tuners, etc.
I owned both an ICOM R71A and a Drake R8 (at different times). The
Drake was better, especially because of it's synchronous AM detector
and decent audio. It's noise limiter was pretty good too.