{"id":61854,"date":"2025-01-28T05:00:08","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T09:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=61854"},"modified":"2025-01-29T07:44:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T11:44:47","slug":"a-timeless-receiver-going-old-school-with-the-lowe-hf-150","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/a-timeless-receiver-going-old-school-with-the-lowe-hf-150\/","title":{"rendered":"A Timeless Receiver: Going Old School with the Lowe HF-150"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many thanks to SWLing Post<\/em> contributor Dale (W4OP), who shares the following guest post:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Going Old School: The Lowe HF-150<\/h1>\n

by Dale (W4OP)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lowe Electronics of Great Britain introduced their first shortwave receiver, designed by Jon Thorpe, in 1987: the model HF-125. The HF-125 was a 30 kHz to 30 MHz compact receiver with three filter bandwidths and AM\/SSB\/CW detection. As with all of the Lowe receivers, the HF-125 combined excellent build quality with no-nonsense operation. Options included a whip amplifier, keypad for direct frequency entry, and an AM synchronous detector. The diminutive receiver was an instant hit and was manufactured until 1989, when it was replaced by the HF-225. While slightly larger (9\u201d x 10\u201d x 4\u201d), the HF-225 included the built-in whip amplifier, but AM sync was still an option. The HF-225 had a long run from 1989 to 1997. The front panels of the HF-125 and HF-225 were very similar and easy to operate.<\/p>\n

There was also a \u201cprofessional\u201d version of the HF-225 called the HF-235. It was considerably longer than the HF-225 with rack handles, a front-facing speaker, keypad, and, I believe, a built-in 110\/220 VAC power supply.<\/p>\n

In 1991, Lowe, under the design of Thorpe, introduced the remarkable HF-150, the subject of this paper. Gone were the painted and bent metal enclosures, replaced by a beautiful anodized, extruded aluminum cabinet almost 1\/8\u201d thick. The HF-150 was also smaller (7.3\u201d x 3\u201d x 6.3\u201d) and lighter. While the keypad was still an option, the HF-150 now contained built-in batteries and a built-in charger.*<\/strong> When the HF-150 came out, rechargeable batteries were NiCad, and typical capacity was 1000mAh. The HF-150 typically draws 250mA, so the NiCads in the HF-150 might give you 4 hours of run time. Today, we have NiMH batteries that have a higher energy density than NiCad cells, and I routinely see 2800mAh. That means around 10\u201311 hours of run time on a single charge.<\/p>\n

In the HF-150, the whip preamp is built in, not an option. The whip and its preamp are equivalent to the short active antennas we often see in use today. This is a great feature and results in very good sensitivity from a very short antenna. A three-position slide switch on the rear panel allows for running from the active whip, a conventional antenna like a dipole, or a random wire. The slide switch also allows for introducing a -20dB attenuator to prevent overload. This was a condition often seen in Europe back in the day when there were so many high-power shortwave stations.<\/p>\n

Also on the rear panel is a socket for the optional keypad, a socket for an external speaker, and a socket for a recorder output. The two battery boxes house a total of 8 AA batteries.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The front panel could not be simpler or more elegant in its design. There are only 2 knobs\u2014AF Gain and Main Tuning\u2014and three momentary push buttons. The use of these three buttons is the magic in this receiver.<\/p>\n

The leftmost push button controls 60 memories. The main tuning knob cycles through the memories at about 25 memories per knob revolution.<\/p>\n

While in the memory mode, the center and right-hand push buttons allow for recalling the current memory or storing the current frequency, respectively.<\/p>\n

The rightmost push button changes the tuning speed to 100 kHz\/step and allows for very fast QSYing through the entire receiver range. The frequency display in fast mode shows only the MHz and 100 kHz positions.<\/p>\n

Press Fast again, and the display reverts back to displaying the 1 kHz least significant digit. The normal tuning rate depends upon the mode. In SSB, the steps are 8 Hz (1.6 kHz\/revolution). Normal AM and AM Narrow are 60 Hz (12 kHz per revolution). There are four AM sync modes:<\/p>\n