To be a little more fairer to the 1550e other receivers i've had including Realistic Pro-2021 & Pro-2006, AOR AR3000A and a Uniden Bearcat UBC9000XLT all had the same intermodulation issues when hooked upto the Discone, apart from the PCR1000 the only other receiver that has'nt been affected was the Standard Communications AX-700, that receiver could even handle a 20Db preamp and still had no problems with overloading. In the range 65Mhz to 80Mhz & 120Mhz to 140Mhz searching and reception was impossible because of intermodulation products from strong high powered nearby (<20klms) FM radio stations. First impressions was it was well built and solid but more pricey than the PCR1000 but it's performance was very ordinary for me - on HF am & SSB frequencies the radio sounded 'busy' and noisier than the PCR1000 even on the discone i would imaginge this would of been even worse if i hooked it up to a reasonable longwire.
Having already happily owned a PCR1000 using TalkPCr i thought i give a new Winradio 1550e a go after reading many good and some bad reviews about it.