I use this loop antenna to listen on all HF bands up to 30 MHz, and I reckon it has been one of my best buys so far. MSF on 60KHz absolutely romps in and it has extremely good noise rejection properties. Just as well, because around here, the wide-band 'hash' is over S9 all day and night if I use the vertical on receive. On the loop, the daytime noise is around S1 to S2, only getting to S6 when Mr 42" Plasma two doors away gets going! I've mounted the loop on a Maplin 'cheap as chips' rotator so I can null out troublesome noises, and if I use my QRM eliminator as well things get pretty good. My homebrew topband rig has separate RX and TX sockets, so there's no fancy switching to be done. If you think one of these might be the answer to your problems, it's the Wellbrook ALA1530. It's just over one metre in diameter and comes with its own PSU and interface box.

After trying many recievers and scanners over the years, I've finally(?) settled on this, the AOR AR5000. It's a beautifully designed piece of clobber and it does everything I ask of it without fuss. It covers 15KHz to 2600MHz in all modes and any step size from 1Hz to 500KHz. IF bandwidths are 3, 6,15, 30, 110 and 220 KHz and these too are selectable in any part of the spectrum. Auto-mode will do it all for you if you are not sure. There are five VFO's, all of which remember their last use and these are an excellent way of hopping around the bands, and of course there are loads of memories which store freq, mode etc and alpha tags can be attached if you want. This is one of the few scanners that has genuinely good SW performance. I do believe there is a new version. Hmmmm.....

Here's the new version of the QRM eliminator. It's very simple. The signal from the receive loop goes straight to a resistive combiner which feeds the output socket. The signal from the auxilliary antenna (a bit of wire) also goes to the combiner, but first it gets the following treatment: Tuning (green knob) - this peaks up the noise, and also allows a variable amount of phase shift to be applied. The noise signal is then split into 0 degrees and 180 degrees and these two are applied to opposite ends of the 'amplitude/reverse' pot (yellow). When this control is half way, the signals cancel and no noise signal gets through. Turning the knob one way increases the 'phase' signal, and the other way increases the 'antiphase' signal.  Then it's into the combiner to add or subtract from the main signal.  The switch in the middle is just on/off. It works a treat!

I've recently decided to improve my reception capability in the region above 1GHz. My antennas for this part of the spectrum constantly change as I listen for different things, but the feeders are always CT100, a satellite cable that is good to beyond 2GHz. However, once the signals get into the shack it's a different matter. I use an elderly 'Hatfield' antenna selector which seems OK up to around 1GHz, but above that it gets lossy. So I made this:

It's made from satellite bits that I picked up from a rally. Signals below 860MHz are filtered off and go off-board to the old Hatfield selector (which has other antennas routed through it) and then they come back to the big black switch (easily good to 2GHz) which switches between these signals and the  'over 860MHz' signals which come via the other half of the filter and the pre-amp. The more you think about it, the more confusing it gets, but it works. The few signals that I can hear at these frequencies are now much stronger. The photo shows the system diconnected from the varios co-axes - it's much more impressive when it's all plugged up!

You can't have too many scanners. I bought the Icom IC-R5 a couple of years ago to replace a previous model that was falling apart. It's a great little receiver that is well-built and sturdy. Coverage is 150KHz to 1310MHz in AM/FM/WFM modes and a selection of step sizes. It doesn't have a numerical keyboard, instead dividing its coverage into several bands which are selected with the 'band' button. From there, the rotary tuning control is whizzed until the wanted frequency arrives. To make the process faster, the 'function' key (on the side) can be held in to bring about 1MHz steps. Very easy indeed once you get used to it.
The Uniden 72 is er...different. Everything about it is cheap - low-quality plastics, fragile build quality etc, and it looks like something Fisher-Price might flog. However, it has a great feature called 'Close Call', which is a kind of combined frequency counter and automatic tuning device. What you do is this: lurk in a furtive and shady manner near the establishment you wish to listen to (depending on the power of their radios, you can lurk up to several hundred yards away...) and press the 'go' button. The 72 then looks at the entire band you have specified and as soon as it finds a signal it says 'FOUND!' and a quick press of the hold button reveals the frequency. You can listen to the audio straight away. Don't confuse this with the simple 'search' facility found on most scanners - it's hundreds of times quicker.  Despite the 72's 'cheap and cheerful' quality, it's worth it for this great feature.