This is another of my more recent purchases and the second SP600 I have owned. My first was found sitting on the floor of a small ham radio shop in Essex. I'd only ever seen very small pictures of them in the old QST magazines kept in the technical library at Plessey's where I worked. I was immediately struck by the beauty of this receiver and borrowed the £90 needed to secure it's purchase. It was in wonderful condition and proved to be an excellent performer for many years until the purchase from John's Radio of a Ra17Mk2 saw the Hammarlund relegated to the standby position. The Racal's film scale allowed the receiver to be tuned to within a Kc/s of any spot frequency and this made the SP600 seem primative and the receiver was eventually sold off.

30years later and performance, ergonomics and specifications no longer matter to me. I no longer listen to the short waves but instead just collect the receivers that were around at the time when my world was a better place. I wanted another SP600JX to replace the one I'd sold and searched everywhere to get hold of one. They have always been plentiful in the States but the shipping charges made the purchase of one from there prohibitive. I eventually found one for sale on the Continent and paid what I thought was a good price for it.

The receiver is a JX-21 (S/N 19148) manufactured on the 13/02/53. It was originally purchased by the Dutch military for use on a meteor scatter project in the 6 meter band. In 1969 the receiver was released onto the amateur radio market and recently formed part of the Dutch special event station PI53WBR, set up to commemorate the 1953 Netherlands flood-disaster where 1835 people perished.

Condition wise, this receiver was complete and in a pretty good shape. The importaint things such as the chassis being corrosion free, the dial markings being intact and the receiver not having been 'got at', tweaked, modified or generally abused in any way. I only needed to fit a cable gland to the chassis for the mains lead, polish the front panel and respray the two dial escutcheons. I would like to thank my new friend, Jan Reijchler(PA0JCS), for taking the trouble to ship this receiver out to the UK for me.

• Circuit - 20 valve, double conversion above 7.4Mc/s
• 2xRF and 4xIF stages (3.995Mc/s and 455Kc/s)
• Frequency range - 0.54Mc/s to 54Mc/s in 6 bands
• Sensitivity - 0.75uV (cw) for 10dB S/N
• Phones - 600 - 8000 ohms
• Weight - 66lb Rack mounted, 87.5lb Table cabinet
• Supply - 90-270Vac, 50-60c/s, 130W
• Dimensions - 19"w x 10.5"h x 16.5"d