The worst UK FM rig ever?

[wheel bender]

I've just read through the pages on this thread. I've owned most of the radios mentioned. Firstly, on what planet does the fidelity 3000 look GOOD? I don't know about the other users on this forum but in the 80s when the channels were fuller and the bleed over was a problem. It was usualy weaker stations that were affected and when you turn your rf gain back on such stations they were lost along with the bleedover. The only thing that ever improved the received signal that was being affected by bleed over other than moving away from the channel, was to flick or turn the delta tune or clarifier away from the offending station. I must agree with ugs the midland 3001 and 4001 although sharing the the same board with the 2001 didn't suffer from the same amount of cross modulation and are very nice looking radios in my opinion. The murphy homebase came with what must be the smallest standard mic ever. A friend of mine swapped the board inside his murphy for a uniden/audioline one and he felt it was an improvement.
I can't pass judgment as I've not used the murphy homebase. But the person that did was a ham operator and a respected rig doctor. The worst radio i owned in the 80s was the harvard homebase. It was so bad that I only owned it for a couple of hours! Strangely enough I owned another recently and after I'd sent it to cubwolf for mid block it returned working excellently! There's a great truth in radios that used to be usless in the 80s can work very well today.....beauty is in the eye of the beholder....but most radios look amazing in the dark....

[Josh_Rogan]

Fidelity 3000 homebase, biggest pile of sh*t i ever owned with the cheapest & tackiest feel/design to it, i hated it that much i ran over it with my car just to make sure it was dead & to not let it fall into any other poor individuals hands.

Ah, but you forget the Fidelity 3000 mkV; very few of these around, they were professionally modified by the late 'Ron Nugget' of 'Plankstowe'. Ron was a genius, he made Stephen Hawking look like Dean Gaffney. The spec of these radios is awesome, DC - 40 GHz, BBC audio, 8 kW PEP, and best of all the special 'retro' button, which when activated allows you to converse with breakers in the year 1983 (I spoke to Ron himself on mine last night even though he passed away in 1998). The radio also features the special 'Rontec' regulator, 'pioneered' by Ron, and needed to provide the 1.21 Giga Watts required to activate 'retro mode'.

I love my Fidelity 3000 mkV.

Josh.

[Yeti]

Fidelity 3000 homebase, biggest pile of sh*t i ever owned with the cheapest & tackiest feel/design to it, i hated it that much i ran over it with my car just to make sure it was dead & to not let it fall into any other poor individuals hands.

Ah, but you forget the Fidelity 3000 mkV; very few of these around, they were professionally modified by the late 'Ron Nugget' of 'Plankstowe'. Ron was a genius, he made Stephen Hawking look like Dean Gaffney. The spec of these radios is awesome, DC - 40 GHz, BBC audio, 8 kW PEP, and best of all the special 'retro' button, which when activated allows you to converse with breakers in the year 1983 (I spoke to Ron himself on mine last night even though he passed away in 1998). The radio also features the special 'Rontec' regulator, 'pioneered' by Ron, and needed to provide the 1.21 Giga Watts required to activate 'retro mode'.

I love my Fidelity 3000 mkV.

Josh.

L.

M.

F.

A.

O.

[UGLY_BOB]

I believe these were available in kit form too, but had to be returned to Ron Nugget for final tuning, and insertion of the traditional toe-nail clipping (Ron knew, by using the set in reverse format to communicate into the future) that these sets would then become ridiculously sought after as fans of Rontec radios searched for any trace of the legendary Ron to try and clone their own Nugget.

[26CAB40]

In line with my new persona I want a mint Fidelity 3000.

[UGLY_BOB]

ROFL

[wheel bender]

I'm pretty sure that when I was trawling through ebay looking for musical instuments That I spotted an electronic organ which looked suspiciously like the fidelity homebase? It was even the same blue that most of them came in.....I'll tell you something, I'd like to get my hands on the hf set from the film 'Frequency'. I was surprised to see 'little chief ' playing a baddie in 'de ja vous'. Both very interesting time travel films..... I hope that Ron Nugget did more than a few of them so I might be able to speak to myself in 1983 and buy those nokia shares I turned down......
( I've got a feeling that the legend of Ron Nugget will live on).....Nice one Josh...
To extend the retro mod's range all you need to do is fit Ug's turner tu +2? Mic and you'll get straight to the sixties ....F.A.B Ugs!

[evans128]

breaker break, thanks for letting me in, what are my numbers mate do I sound ok on this one ? my mod ok yeah ? nice one, cheers breaker you got the bad penny this side personal Jay mobile in south yorkshire,

the worst rig ever? wow what a topic, in my opinion, it has to be the eurosonics, they were dreadfull things, but around that time I assume with the mass exodus over to fm the emphasis was on quantity rather than quality on the manufacturers part, hemce the cheap and tacky stuff they palmed us all off with.

the first 'so called' proper rig I ever used was a economy 40, in my parents then un decorated front room with a magmount stuck to my 10speed raleigh racer , I borrowed it from my mate just to get set up, he had just traded his first rig (a grandstand bluebird) and some cash for a sidebander (a lafayette 1200 fm) and a little mobile rig with a power pack and a magmount, so I borrowed that little set up which turned out to be the economy 40, it sort of worked a bit, and tided me over til my folks gave me some money for my 13th birthday and I bought my own rig, but to stop the economy 40 from buzzing loudly on tx you had to wrap the long piece of doorbell wire that exited it's casing at the bracket holes around your finger , niiiiiice lol. what a pile.

my first rig I bought second hand for a tenner from a local g4, he was a great guy, the rig was a little shogun,in mint condition in the box with its mic and bracket, plenty of stuff on it and some cool led's , I loved it to bit's , although looking back it was probably ****, lol, but it seemed to work ok, and I kept it up to being 18 or 19 when in a drunken stooper in the dark I wired it up wrong and grenaded it, I was heart broken, by then I had had sidebanders and stuff but always kept that little muppet rig no matter what.

the biggest problem I had was my folks, they really hated me being a 'good budgie' as my mum used to call me , so anything I tried to do regarding radio I was on my own, especially with aerials, when I asked for a 'big outside aerial' (stop laughing I was 13!!!lol) I asked for a gp, my mates had sigma 4's and stuff but I knew that wasn't going to happen for me and I thought they would go for the cheap ten quid gp, my **** dad turned up with a 'super d mk2 dipole' more heart break, I pretended to like it but inside I was gutted, it was so **** I would have got out better on a coat hanger, bastards. there was only my mate up the street could hear me.

and thats the story of my first and worst lol.

right mate, I'm on the side anyway , hanks for letting me in.

[northern35s]

my **** dad turned up with a 'super d mk2 dipole' more heart break, I pretended to like it but inside I was gutted

[Poggle]

In my humble opinion, the Communicators NI-440-DX withthe yellow signal meter was only slighly worse than the "new" version with the green and red signal meter...........Yellow meter one blew the 4 watt section within a few days leaving quarter watt only, green and red one did not BUT, still splattered 20 channels either side of the one you were on when you dekeyed with or without the roger bleeb switched on. It also recieved every other channel on one channel as well:)

One nice thing about them was the amount we got into the shop for repair.

Also, saw one for sale on dweebbey for £75.00 as it was a "Classic 1980's radio".

[wheel bender]

I remember a load of cbers in my area excitedly rushing to a rig doc's house with their well earned cash. The word was out that he had a lorry load of them for sale. The communicators had a great name in muppet land in 1984! but funnily enough not the mannor kestrel or planet 2000? Same radio no street cred. i went up sometime later and got my 148 off him for £55.

[Ashtec]

good on ya....................

[Ashtec]

I think the worst UK FM rig ever was the Audioline 341 i just never got on with it.
The incomeing sound was crap it poped when you changed the channel i just didnt like the dam think's i had one given to me not long ago and i had to get rid of it ...............
And i hate the look's of them.............

[26CAB40]

Harvard 'Good Buddy'.
One big slightly variable channel, I could hear people calling on the 19 on channel 31,
except they had bigger signal readings on 31 than they did on the 19 !!!

Jaws MK2 AM set, it got bleedover from the gnats farting in the garden...

Fidelity CB1000, don't get me started.

[Yeti]

I think the worst UK FM rig ever was the Audioline 341 i just never got on with it.
The incomeing sound was crap it poped when you changed the channel i just didnt like the dam think's i had one given to me not long ago and i had to get rid of it ...............
And i hate the look's of them.............

You can't be serious?