Any Lowe HF-150 users willing to comment on their antennas?

[loul]

Over the years I've had (and still am  having) quite a bit of fun with the Lowe. So far, I haven't found anything better than a simple dipole with speaker cable to feed it, for SW reception.  Except, perhaps, a dipole with cutouts to match it for a particular frequency of interest. One challenge so far has been MW reception - which seems poor.  I'm wondering if there are any Lowe users (there must be thousands of them out there :-)  ) who have found an antenna that works well for it on MW.

[Josh]

A preselector would help greatly, especially the lower one goes in frequency.

[Pigmeat]

They used to come with a preselector and a preamp that fit in a custom made rack along with the receiver. I want to say the full kit was called the "Europa" line, but it's been nearly 20 years since I saw a pic of the set-up?

[Oliver]

Here the full setup.

Optional Equipment that was offered:
   
KPAD-1 Frequency Keyboard    
XLS-1 External Speaker
KPAD-2 same as KPAD-1 Frequeny Keyboard with Memory
MB-150 Mobile holder
IF-150 RS-232 Interface
SM-1 external S-Meter
PR-150 Preselektor
AP-150, Audio-Prozessor
RK-150, Rack for HF-150, AP150, PR150


A few more details on the HF-150 & HF-150E (EUROPA)

In 1991 Lowe decided to launch a smaller cheaper radio also designed by John Wilson and built in Matlock.  The resulting HF-150 catered for short wave listening enthusiasts on a budget.  The radio was initially launched at a price of £329.  On first appearances the HF150 seemed to be a cut down version of the HF-225 being smaller and without the signal meter and minus a few controls on the front panel, such as the tone control and the attenuator switch, which was moved to the rear panel.  The HF-150 is also a double conversion superheterodyne design, but lacks the RF bandpass filters of the HF-225, so while not quite having the large signal handling capabilities of the HF-225, the HF-150 was still a fine and wonderfully engineered and, again, a very fine sounding radio indeed.
  
 
Lowe HF-150

The HF-150 had an impressive solid extruded aluminium case, which offered great strength when using it out and about, the tuning knob was also a piece of solid machined aluminium and offered a very nice feel.  Despite its cut price, the HF-150 had the huge advantage of of a better AMS detector than the HF-225, offering Synchronous AM detection with selectable sidebands, something not available on the HF-225.  This helped guarantee stable reception of fading stations, eliminating the distortion apparent when using normal AM mode, especially if only one of the two sidebands was selected, known as ECSS, Exhalted Carrier Single Side Band.  The detector locks onto even the very weakest station, and the stability of the receiver was also a great boon when listening to SSB (single side band) transmissions.  The HF-150 also offered an unusual option of ASF, which is a 'hi-fi' setting of the synchronous AM detector, providing better high frequency audio response.

Lowe also produced a marine version for use on boats and yaghts in the form of the HF-150-M.  This was an HF-150 designed and built for the special demands of marine use and this set can be easily identified by its white casing.

The omission of a signal meter, for me, was easily overcome as an add-on unit can be easily and very cheaply made from a suitable meter available from Maplin and an inexpensive op-amp, see the signal meter page.  John Wilson of Lowe very kindly sent me the circuit diagram for the meter included in the HF-225 so that I could make my own meter.  To improve the strong signal handling of the HF-150, which is not quite as good as the HF-225 due to the lack of any real band-pass filtering, a home built Antenna Tuning Unit (ATU) is also easily and inexpensively added.  The ATU better matches a long wire aerial to the radio and offers a very worthwhile degree of additional selectivity (moderate filtering or pre-selection) in addition to a variable attenuator.  See the ATUs page .

To overcome the lack of front end band pass filtering in the HF-150 John Thorpe designed an add-on Pre-Selector, the PR-150.  Unfortunately the original PR-150 design was not a success since it utilised diodes in the circuitry and suffered problems with intermodulation products.  Lowe soon released a revised and much improved PR-150 design that overcame all of these problems and was certainly a worthwhile addition to your HF-150 radio.

A second add-on unit, the SP-150, was also released by Lowe and this offered a very flexible and high quality audio filter and useful signal meter.  

A higher specification HF-150 was later released named the HF-150 Europa.  This higher specification radio offered band-pass filtering similar to that offered in the HF-225, a back light for the frequency read-out and a black anodised aluminium case rather than the standard brown.  However it is claimed that in use the HF-150 Europa is not as good as the straight HF-150 because the additional front end filtering reduces the ultimate sensitivity of the radio from 0.4uV to 1.5uV.   Additionally while the I.F. (Intermediate Frequency) remained at 45 MHz and thus the 'second channel' or 'image' lies between 90.03 MHz and 120 MHz, depending on where the radio is tuned (i.e. across much of the v.h.f. Band II FM), because of compromised filtering performance employed in the "E" version this could result in breakthrough of wide-band FM signals if the listener's aerial picked up these frequencies.  For these reasons we would recommend that anyone looking to buy a Lowe HF-150 today should look for the standard (and superb) version of the HF-150, rather than the ulimately poorer performing Europa version.

More interesting info can be found at: http://www.mds975.co.uk/Content/lowe1.html

[loul]

The comments are appreciated - my personal view is that if one was to buy the Lowe preselector one may as well but another radio altogether with a better front end! I am in the process of building a MW preselector though, or rather, trying to make it work!