As we review Making It Up during the past year, let’s consider our use of modern diversity reception in 2022.

Every December, I look back at the top articles on my blog during the current year. Starting with a presentation on Cycle 25, I did a comprehensive look at the performance of modern diversity reception. You can watch this presentation on my You Tube channel. It was also featured on Baycon and QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo, among other venues.

So, I have written about diversity reception extensively over the past few years, and I won’t repeat it here. If this is new to you, just watch the video for explanations and demonstrations. You can see the three use cases listed above.

Instead, I will discuss what this technique has meant to me. First and foremost, I can usually reduce and often eliminate local RFI. You do this my combining two channels to subtract the noise for the desired signal. It works well for point sources, mostly switch mode power supplies in your neighbors house.

Second, using diversity reception in 2022 has rekindled my interest in medium wave DX, which was my original entry into the hobby. With two antennas, you can do some basic beamforming. With my wideband loop array, I can typically pick up two or more different stations on the same medium wave channel at night.

On shortwaves, I can usually get additional 3-6 dB of signal and a lower noise floor by adjusting the phasing between the two channels.

Diversity Reception in 2022 – Receivers

Unfortunately, only one ham transceiver provides true diversity capabilities at the present time. This is the ANAN 7000DLE MKII and its siblings. For SWL, you have two more great choices, including the very popular RSPduo as well as an Afedri. But there is a way around this – the NCC phaser from DX Engineering. You can use these devices with any single channel radio to get comparable results.

I hope you will try diversity reception next year, and let me know your results.