The Best HF Radios Ever Made? 

These are the 2001 Space-Odyssey Monoliths of the HF world. The Lowe HF250, which is extremely rare to come by these days, and the AOR AR7030. What beasts! What performance though! If, like me, you divide your time between touch-screening and knob-twiddling, you cannot kiss these stalwarts of the HF receiver world. I have had several of both receivers over the years, and I keep coming back to them. Head-to head, and just in my experience, the AOR has a slight edge, in terms of utility and data signals reception, while the Lowe HF250, and its predecessor models excel on the broadcast bands. But make no mistake – in these lofty heights of quality HF reception, performance-margins are tiny, and not noticeable to most. I don’t often say this, but it is true for these two: They don’t make ‘em like this anymore. Synchronous AM works like a dream in both, and I can hear the fleas cough in Australia on both. Yes, that is a ‘Germanism’, but you get the gist. Don’t miss out if you can acquire one of those. Out of this world. Give 'em a good aerial, though....