The price of this receiver has been set as it considers desirability and condition.

While this HF-150M is not our personal unit, we use one of these HF-150 receivers regularly and really appreciate it's compact size and great sensitivity on both the AM broadcast and shortwave bands.  Developed by the Lowe Company and radio engineer / designer John Thorpe, this radio was intended to be a top performer, compact, simple to use, and yet affordable.

The one thing we need to warn you against is judging the Lowe by it's simplified exterior.  The Lowe Company, with Thorpe's leading, really wanted a unit that did not look like anything else on the market, but also did not sacrifice performance in it's simplicity.  Think of it like this...a no frills muscle car up against a sporty looking car with all the pomp and flash.  If you want the latter, there are plenty of nice choices on Ebay and frankly, we have owned many of them.  However, if you want the muscle, then you need to consider the Lowe HF-150.  It is one of the most sensitive receivers that I have ever encountered and for it's size, the performance and features are outstanding.  If you look at the receiver, you can tell how well it is made...very little plastic, but instead using thick copper colored metal (or off-white on this "M" version) that is nicer looking than your standard grey or black found on most communications receivers.  We rarely hear of instances of this receiver ever needing repair despite it's popularity and use.

This simple looking radio actually has a lot of nice features.  It has a variable tuning rate so that the faster you turn the knob, the faster the radio senses the change and actually accelerates the tuning speed to assist.  It has a large display readout, 60 memory channels, a sensitivity / attenuator switch (on the rear), and a nice sounding internal speaker.  In fact, the Lowe HF-150 is one of the best sounding serious radios that we have owned as it has a full sounding speaker.  And if you don't find this satisfactory enough, you can attach an external speaker to the jack in the rear of the unit.  We have also taken a picture to show you how you can use rechargeable AA batteries with this radio.  Since you can easily place AA batteries inside, this is a great radio to take on that remote DX expedition.  Please note that we tested this receiver using lithium batteries that are NOT rechargeable.  Such batteries cannot be left in the receiver and then have the radio plugged into the the AC outlet without risk of damage to the receiver. These batteries are not included with the sale of the receiver.

We have saved the best feature of the Lowe for last...the built in synchronous detector.  According to many DXers, this is one of the very best sync detectors out there.  The purpose of the sync detector is to cut down on distortion caused by fading of signals which is annoying and can occur anytime, but especially during the change from daylight to evening hours.  Also, the sync is sideband selectable and this works to help cut out distortion from adjacent stations.  By using this sync in upper or lower sideband you are able to really eliminate a lot of interference often found on shortwave where broadcast stations are much closer than on standard AM or FM frequencies.

If you would like to do further reading of reviews and other useful information about this receiver, you may look at these links.  The first is from eHam that offers a good cross section of users with 17 users giving the HF-150 an average rating of 4.8 out of 5.0: