Radio with or without pre selector

[pentode]

Evening,
I've been thinking about getting a sw receiver and doing a bit of swl, I'm unsure weather I need a radio with a built in antenna tuner or not , do they make that much difference to receive ? What would you suggest , I only really want 1 box . My passion is with 11m free banding and I'm no novice to radio but swl is a new venture to me
Cheers

[ChrisCSL]

Evening,
I've been thinking about getting a sw receiver and doing a bit of swl, I'm unsure weather I need a radio with a built in antenna tuner or not , do they make that much difference to receive ? What would you suggest , I only really want 1 box . My passion is with 11m free banding and I'm no novice to radio but swl is a new venture to me
Cheers

An ATU is a nice final touch, but it won't make anything like as much difference as it does to a transmitter.

Instead I would buy a simple antenna switch, and then have two antennas. Make them two different designs and two different sizes. For example a loft dipole and a long wire. Then one will always work better than the other on a particular frequency/propogation mode.

[Admiral]

Pre-selectors are generally used in Wadley-loop radios, they are not a luxury but a built in requirement.

[crusty]

A good receiver shouldn't need a pre-selector, it will have adequate selectivity and built-in bandpass filtering. 'Good' is subjective though, and doesn't often come cheap. You need to say how much you're looking to spend to get any worthwhile feedback.

[ChrisCSL]

Or of course you can keep your money in your pocket - where it belongs - and SWL to your heart's delight here:

http://websdr.ewi.utwente.nl:8901/