Small Portable Radio's?

[pedalinbob]

Very cool thread. Thanks to StarHalo for making it educational as well.

Ditto this.

And to this from Lit Up:
"Once in a while you'll find the Sony SFR-M37V at Wal-Mart (Around 28-30ish), but for the most part it's usually bookshelf stereos and alarm clocks. Never seen the '59' model there."

I have the M37 and it is a pretty sweet little radio. The only downer is the headphones. They sound fine, but tend to fall off my head when doing stuff around the house. Gonna pick up a set of Portapros or Sennheiser PX100.
Interestingly, I tried a few other cheapy headphones I had around the house (Jenson, Coby), and the FM reception suffered terribly. The cord acts as an antenna, so I guess the Sonys are designed to work well in this regard.

I also have two other radios: The Sony ICF S10 (pretty nice for $10, but only has mono earphone out) and the Sony ICF-36 (a darn fine radio for <25).
Those Sangeans look great, as do the Grundigs...but I don't need to spend any more $$$!!!

[StarHalo]

In the meantime, really enjoying good ol' analog signals on the Grundig S350DL.

Enjoy your powerful new toy What color did you get?

I'll mess with an external antenna of some sort later on and see what gets found.

That pocket reel antenna takes only a minute to set up and will easily double your SW catches, that's where to start.

If you've got the DIY spirit and would like to see just how many SW stations you could really get, you can try out my 15 Dollar 15 Minute antenna, made from common cable television cabling and wire, all available at your local Radio Shack: http://members.dslextreme.com/users/...15Antenna.html (This is an article I wrote for a Sony 7600GR group, but it'll work for any SW radio with a mini-jack antenna input. For the 350, replace the "F to Mini Adapter" with a "European TV Adapter": http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search)

I have the M37 and it is a pretty sweet little radio. The only downer is the headphones. They sound fine, but tend to fall off my head when doing stuff around the house.

This is why I like a portable with a speaker; I listen to AM, which doesn't require anything plugged into the headphone jack, so when I'm working around the house/outdoors, I just crank up the volume and put the radio in a cell or cargo pocket with the speaker facing outwards - presto, instant portable sound system, the sound "magically" radiates from you (children and younger folk who are so accustomed to earbuds/headphones find this fascinating)

[this_is_nascar]

I'll admit to not reading this entire thread, but if the goal is to get a small portable radio, I must recommend the Sony ICF-S10MK2 Pocket AM/FM Radio. It's an AM/FM/TV transistor radio for less than $15. This thing has to be best radio for it's size ever made. It takes 2 x AA and those batteries last forever. I found out about this radio when I started looking for something small to take with us camping. My other radios could not pull in the stations that I wanted to hear. This thing will pull in stations like you wouldn't believe and it a size that's not much larger than a couple packs of smokes. The batteries last forever, even after countless hours of running. Plug it into a speaker system and you now have stereo sound.

[pedalinbob]

LOL!!!
Thanks for the tip, Starhalo!

Funny, our mailman does something similar in that he carries a small radio on his clipboard.

[Lit Up]

Enjoy your powerful new toy What color did you get?



That pocket reel antenna takes only a minute to set up and will easily double your SW catches, that's where to start.

If you've got the DIY spirit and would like to see just how many SW stations you could really get, you can try out my 15 Dollar 15 Minute antenna, made from common cable television cabling and wire, all available at your local Radio Shack: http://members.dslextreme.com/users/...15Antenna.html (This is an article I wrote for a Sony 7600GR group, but it'll work for any SW radio with a mini-jack antenna input. For the 350, replace the "F to Mini Adapter" with a "European TV Adapter": http://www.radioshack.com/product/in...entPage=search)

I got black. And thanks about the antenna info, I'll look into it. Just one question, the SW antenna "jack" on the back of this looks more like speaker clip hookup than a jack. Has a red connection and a black ground one. What would I do differently to that antenna set-up to make it work? Just skip all the adapters and mini jack connectors and just connect bare wire?

I'm really kind of floored at the moment with the amount of SW, even without an external antenna just picking up off the whip, that I'm getting right now. Even more than I did last night/early morning. (Of course some probably were off the air) There is quite a bit out there my other smaller SW radios were never even seeing at any time of the day/night.

[StarHalo]

the SW antenna "jack" on the back of this looks more like speaker clip hookup than a jack. Has a red connection and a black ground one. What would I do differently to that antenna set-up to make it work? Just skip all the adapters and mini jack connectors and just connect bare wire?

Oops, you're right, I was thinking the PAL connector was for SW - the red spring terminal is for a bare wire antenna, the black is for grounding. You can indeed just stick a wire into the red terminal and have that as your antenna. The pocket reel antenna has a clip that attaches to your whip antenna, so you don't have to bother with connections. For the 15/15 antenna, put another F male/F male coupler at the listening end of the coaxial cable, then just stick some bare wire into the center hole in the coupler, run that to the red terminal.

I'm really kind of floored at the moment with the amount of SW, even without an external antenna just picking up off the whip, that I'm getting right now. Even more than I did last night/early morning. (Of course some probably were off the air) There is quite a bit out there my other smaller SW radios were never even seeing at any time of the day/night.

I should have mentioned it earlier, but the shortwave station guide I use is Prime Time Shortwave (http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/), click on the "SW schedules time sort" at the top upper left there, it's like a complete programming guide for shortwave. This really helps give you the full world band listening experience, as you can better identify what you're hearing, and set out to hunt down specific stations. You'll find the SW bands come alive from 5pm - midnight pacific time, so there's plenty of time to go DXing.

One fun daytime SW find is the "Firedrake" - if you tune around earlier in the day, you might run across a very strong station broadcasting extremely loud Traditional Chinese music, lots of banging and loud recorders but no host or DJ or station breaks at all; this is the Firedrake. Not far geographically from China, India has a modest but politically free station that broadcasts on this same frequency. The Chinese government disapproves of their programming and messages and therefore has a massive 200kW broadcast station play the Chinese music over it at max volume, completely mowing down the India signal. It's the sound of pure communist censorship

[Lit Up]

Oops, you're right, I was thinking the PAL connector was for SW - the red spring terminal is for a bare wire antenna, the black is for grounding. You can indeed just stick a wire into the red terminal and have that as your antenna. The pocket reel antenna has a clip that attaches to your whip antenna, so you don't have to bother with connections. For the 15/15 antenna, put another F male/F male coupler at the listening end of the coaxial cable, then just stick some bare wire into the center hole in the coupler, run that to the red terminal.



I should have mentioned it earlier, but the shortwave station guide I use is Prime Time Shortwave (http://www.primetimeshortwave.com/), click on the "SW schedules time sort" at the top upper left there, it's like a complete programming guide for shortwave. This really helps give you the full world band listening experience, as you can better identify what you're hearing, and set out to hunt down specific stations. You'll find the SW bands come alive from 5pm - midnight pacific time, so there's plenty of time to go DXing.

One fun daytime SW find is the "Firedrake" - if you tune around earlier in the day, you might run across a very strong station broadcasting extremely loud Traditional Chinese music, lots of banging and loud recorders but no host or DJ or station breaks at all; this is the Firedrake. Not far geographically from China, India has a modest but politically free station that broadcasts on this same frequency. The Chinese government disapproves of their programming and messages and therefore has a massive 200kW broadcast station play the Chinese music over it at max volume, completely mowing down the India signal. It's the sound of pure communist censorship

Thanks for that.

[Probedude]

Got my DT-400W today.
Impressions?
- AM reception is decent. It doesn't null as well as the Sony SRF-59. With the SRF-59 I'm able to null out electrical noise pretty in my house pretty well, not so with the DT-400W
- I really like the 'my favorites' memory - you can store AM and FM channels and recall them as presets without having to switch bands.
- FM selectivity is pretty bad. Just about all FM station can be heard 0.2Mhz away. Moderate to strong ones out to 0.4Mhz away. I'm sure I'm not hearing weaker stations that are 0.2Mhz away.
- FM reception is very good, but I swear it was even more exceptional for ~ the first 10 mins and now though still good, no longer exceptional. Hard to explain but I was manually stepping through frequencies and saving 'good' ones to memory. I then went back to listen to a particularly interesting station and now it was staticy as were a bunch of others. Might be my imagination. Don't think I moved but ??
- Weather reception works - can't tell how good though. I'm getting static but that may just be my location.
- SAME has to be activated. Durations selectable are 4, 8, 12, 16 hours or disabled.
- there's a switch to disable keys to prevent accidental operation.

Cons
- the bottom isn't flat so it is not stable when standing up by itself.
- no built in FM antenna. It uses the headphone cord as the antenna. It does come with a dummy headphone cord to be used as an antenna but it doesn't stick up (it's a wire). Would have been nice to have some kind of built in telescoping antenna.
- relatively smooth and with my butter fingers (worse tonight for some reason) I've nearly dropped it 3x already.

This is my first portable sangean DT radio. The DT-200VX is likely exactly the same so my gripes are probably nothing new.

Also got the Terk AM Advantage antenna tonight. It works but it's not a HUGE change. I was testing it with the Sony ICF-S10MK2 and found it did make stations come in a bit clearer, but just a bit. It was also capable of nulling out weak stations just as easily (if not easier) than boosting them. Once I had it dialed in with moving the radio to the best spot, then the Terk, then turning the Terk, if I removed the Terk all together, the audio was still decent from the radio. It was as if the Terk helped most when the radio wasn't already optimized, and not much when it was.

[Lit Up]

CPF can probably do without any more of my rants on this subject. I've posted quite a bit on this and I just don't think I should start that thread. If you search for posts with my User Name AND throw in terms like Katrina, water, garbage, insects, preparedness, radio, "nv green", entertainment, food, looters and "New Orleans" -- you'll get a bellyfull. The wonderful Moderators here have been very patient with me.

Hey it's most certainly useful information as we are currently finding out - yet again.

Have you guys seen some of these pictures coming out of Iowa? The funnel cloud/tornado in the first picture is probably one of the stranger looking ones I've seen.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/200...rs_in_iow.html

If nothing else, Sub_Umbra, a webpage would be pretty handy and informative reading.

[Lit Up]

It was as if the Terk helped most when the radio wasn't already optimized, and not much when it was.

Yeah, I'm learning that's the case with radios in general. Usually only helps the weak aspects. If the radio is pretty well tuned already, not much help.
Outside of the external speaker, the Sangean sounds a lot like the Sony SRF-M37W I already have performance wise. Think I'm gonna pass on this one.

Thanks for the review.

[StarHalo]

Got my DT-400W today.

Congrats on your new toy, I know I've gotten a lot of mileage out of my DT-210V.

You're right about difficult FM tuning; while using a wire has its advantages over a standard whip antenna, one of the cons is that it's very sensitive to position. Tiny alterations in positioning can make big changes in reception, plus FM reception in general can be very finicky, coming in loud and clear on one side of a room and not at all on another, so be sure to experiment thoroughly. The weather band is most difficult of all to receive, you may have to be outdoors or near a window with your wire extended as long as possible to receive it. I don't think any of the DTs stand on their own, you'll find you get very good at finding objects to lean the radio against when listening. Plus if you lay it down flat on its back on a couch or bed, the bass comes through much better, and makes the DT sound like a much larger table radio.

Your observations about the antenna are mostly right also - the prime use of an AM antenna is to boost a weak signal and/or to improve directional nulling. If you hear a station on your radio alone/without the antenna that comes in well enough, the antenna won't make a difference, it's when there's a weak station that's only somewhat audible, or a station that doesn't come in well all the time. A good example is when I listen to KGO 810 AM San Francisco, which is 350 miles and three mountain ranges away from me; on some nights it fades badly and alternates between comfortably audible and completely missing. That's when I whip out the Twin Coil, which boosts the signal nicely and makes the station audible at least 98% of the listening time. And directional nulling comes in handy when you have a frequency that has two stations overlapping one another; as long as both stations aren't on the same longitude/latitude, you can just point the antenna in the direction of one station and the other will fall completely silent. I null frequently as my suburban neighborhood is a bevy of various sources of RF noise; by careful antenna positioning I can completely null out even the loudest/most powerful offenders.

[bmstrong]

Bump! This topic is almost a year old but I've had this stuck in my inbox.

Anyone using a new radio? Anyhting come out in the last year that has you excited? Anything coming down the pike you are looking forward to?

[StarHalo]

Anyone using a new radio? Anyhting come out in the last year that has you excited? Anything coming down the pike you are looking forward to?

The radio manufacturing industry moves veeerryyy slloooow.. all the eagerly awaited maybe-vaporware radios from last year are still eagerly awaited and may be vaporware.

Eton has deluged the market with a whole batch of new emergency radio models, they have something like a dozen different designs now. And the Sony emergency radio I recommended much earlier in the thread has been discontinued.

I'm still getting along great with my Sony 7600GR and SRF-T615 duo..

[Sub_Umbra]

...Anyhting come out in the last year that has you excited?...

CCrane has had at least a couple anticipated new radios in and out of stock over the last year but we've got so many good DX rigs right now I haven't been able to justify buying another... we're always looking for an excuse, however...

[Flying Turtle]

I'm kind of in the same boat about not really needing (like another flashlight) a new radio in the >$50 class. But, I'm still receptive to something different or unusual for <$20. Big Lots has provided me with a few that haven't been half bad. It would be nice to see more choices at the higher end to tempt me.

Geoff

[parnass]

.... But, I'm still receptive to something different or unusual for <$20. ...

I recall how much fun we had as kids in the 1950s and 1960s with small AM transistor radios. For under $10 (US), I am rediscovering some of that enjoyment with a SONY ICF-S10MK2 AM/FM radio.

It is powered by 2 AA batteries and employs a small red LED as a tuning indicator. It has more than enough volume, though the volume control doesn't provide much resolution at lower levels -- as if the potentiometer has the wrong taper. The SONY's earphone jack is set up for a monaural earphone, though none is supplied.

The upper tuning limit on my radio appears to be about 1635 kHz so I can't tune stations in the new upper part of the band.

I bought the ICF-S10MK2 at Fry's Electronics. You can buy it for the same price from Amazon.com and read several owner reviews at Amazon's web site, as well.

[Black Rose]

I remember growing up on the east coast of Canada and being able to listen to radio stations out of Boston later in the evening. I haven't tried it at all since.

I do have a couple of Sony portable radios that I should take with me some night when we are out late roaming around and testing flashlights to see what I can pick up.

I'm debating on whether to get a shortwave radio...not sure how much I'd be able to pick up here.

[StarHalo]

I'm debating on whether to get a shortwave radio...not sure how much I'd be able to pick up here.

Anyplace on the eastern end of North America is a great place to receive shortwave - you'd be able to hear a lot more than those of us in the West. Even with a simple $10 reel antenna, you'd have plenty of prime-time listening options.

It's the same story for AM radio too, the eastern US is packed with AM stations; your biggest problem would be trying to single out one station from another, as many will overlap. A receiver that has a Synchronous Detector (like the Sony 7600GR) is a big plus in these situations, as it has the ability to completely block strong adjacent stations so you can clearly hear a weaker/more distant one.

[bmstrong]

The radio manufacturing industry moves veeerryyy slloooow.. all the eagerly awaited maybe-vaporware radios from last year are still eagerly awaited and may be vaporware

Do keep in mind that if you get a amateur (HAM) radio, in most instances, you must be authorized (licensed) to transmit on it. (USA) The Vx7 is one such radio.

I've had a VX5, VX7 and a VX6 as well as some Icom and Kenwood hand helds. They are great in the bands they are designed for. Otherwise reception is marginal.

That's such a shame that the industry moves very slowly. I take a look at these kinds of devices every spring or so, just before the summer storms.

I was really hoping that there might be a better hand held in the time since posting this thread. I was thinking that having two: a small portable hand held and one that would sit that had super long battery life. Both working together would allow for use in the widest conditions and situations.

[Flying Turtle]

I recall how much fun we had as kids in the 1950s and 1960s with small AM transistor radios.

Thought I would share a pic of my first very own radio. I think I got it in 1957 of 1958. Uses a 9v battery and still works. I recall it was pretty expensive at the time, maybe $30 or $40. Came with a leather case, earphones, some kind of wire antenna that never seemed to do much, and was made in Japan. I still remember going to the Pittsburgh zoo with my Dad after getting it and listening to tunes and Pirate baseball.



Geoff

[Radiophile]

No one mentioned the Panasonic RF-2200 or the Channel Master 6515 for AM BCB listening? There is no better AM portable than the RF-2200 for DXing or even casual listening. Quite simply, it rocks! That gyro antenna is sweet when you want to null an interfering station too.

The Channel Master 6515 is a great portable with excellent sensitivity, good selectivity, and great runtime from it's 4 C cell batteries - and it looks really cool too. I got a 6515 for $15 shipped that looks and works like new. They're built very well and quite heavy for their size. Any of the Channel Master Superfringe radios are great, and they go really cheap on eBay too.

One other AM BCB radio I really like is totally out of character for me because it's digitally tuned! It's a Sony ICFM410 LIV Clutch radio. I don't normally care for synthesized portables, but I bought the ICFM410 because it was on clearance at Target. At 75% off I picked it up for $6.24. I should have bought all 4 that were left on the shelf, but I didn't know how good it was until I got it home. It's got great AM sensitivity for a digital radio, and when I opened it up I found out why - the loopstick is about 6" long! It's selectivity isn't very good, but it's really sensitive. Better than my S350 but not quite as sensitive as my Superadios.

FM is very sensitive too. I can listen to Baltimore FM stations even though I'm over 50 miles north. It's much more sensitive on FM than either the S350 or my Superadios, but again, not as selective.

TV audio is good and also very sensitive. I can listen to 2, 11, and 13 from Baltimore if I have the antenna positioned just right, something none of my TVs can manage with just a whip antenna.

Weather isn't quite as nice as the other bands because of the radio's wide bandwidth on FM. NOAA broadcasts weather radio reports in narrow band FM, so the audio level is much lower than FM or TV. Also, I can only manage to listen to one NOAA frequency on this radio while I can normally hear 4 NOAA frequencies with any of my VHF scanners or weather radios. It's got to be the 230 kHz FM filter in the radio coupled with the capture effect of FM. It's just not selective enough to listen to more than the strongest NOAA frequency regardless of the tuned frequency.

[Flying Turtle]

I got one of those Sony clutch radios a couple years ago, also on clearance at Target. Didn't get the great deal you did though. Think mine was $20, but still half price. It's my workshop radio. I agree, it performs very well. Of course, it is a Sony.

Geoff

[parnass]

.... my first very own radio. I think I got it in 1957 of 1958. Uses a 9v battery and still works. .... Came with a leather case, earphones,..

Yup. Radios of that era came with real leather cases of decent thickness and with metal snaps -- not the flimsy onion-skin-thin vinyl carrying cases of later radios.

My first transistor radio was a Brownie 8, but I no longer have it. Ran on a 9 volt battery and came with a thick brown leather case and earphone. Used to connect a long wire antenna to the trimmer capacitor on the main tuning cap for DXing.

[Al]

http://karlzuk.blogspot.com/2008/01/small-wonder.html[/URL]

Analog dial but cheap enough to buy one to try out also.
"Even as a stock unit, right out of its plastic bubble packaging, SRF-59 owners have heard AM radio stations all the way across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from places like Japan and Saudi Arabia. The SRF-59 truly has enormous ears."

Learned of the Sony SRF-59 on this thread ... bought one for $17. for what it is - sensitivity & selectivity is incredible IMHO.

[Radiophile]

I bought an SRF-59 after reading this thread a little over a month ago. Out of the package it was okay, but not what I'd call spectacular on AM. My Sony ICFM410 was much more sensitive. I read a bunch about it and it's siblings online (mostly at www.dxer.ca) and decided that I didn't get one that was aligned well from the factory. It was still pretty good on AM, but nowhere near what I've read about.

Today I finally was bored enough to open up the SRF-59 and peak L5 (the inductor near the loopstick) which as I read was the only touch up in the alignment for AM. All I can say is WOW! A quarter of a turn counterclockwise and the noise floor came up from nothing to nearly full audio and now I can hear all kinds of signals that weren't there before. Now I get what all the fuss was about! This little radio is really selective. Amazing performance for a tiny radio with a loopstick of less than two inches.

I'd really love to get my hands on an SRF-49, SRF-39, SRF-85, or PSY-03. Does anyone know a brick and mortar that sells these radios? Shipping really bumps up the cost.

[StarHalo]

I'd really love to get my hands on an SRF-49, SRF-39, SRF-85, or PSY-03. Does anyone know a brick and mortar that sells these radios? Shipping really bumps up the cost.

All the radios you've listed there have been discontinued, some for quite a while. I owned an SRF-39 ~15 years ago; I wasn't listening to AM then, but it did have a nice form factor, and the single battery design was convenient.

I don't know that any of the models you listed were known for remarkable reception; The two current big gun Sony portables are the SRF-59, which you already have, and the SRF-T615, which you'll definitely not find in any store.

[Radiophile]

According to this article:
http://www.dxer.ca/files/doc_downloa...-59-sourcebook

The models I listed are similar to the SRF-59 in all but physical dimensions which make some of them easier to use than the SRF-59. One of them, the SRF-39FP has a clear case so it can be sold to prisoners. It looks really cool.

[StarHalo]

According to this article:
http://www.dxer.ca/files/doc_downloa...-59-sourcebook

Oh, that's cool, I didn't know I owned the original of the series. I would agree that the 39 was a little difficult to fine tune.

If you like clear casings, you should check out some of Sangean's offerings, they have quite a few models with the clear option, including table radios.

[Al]

I recall how much fun we had as kids in the 1950s and 1960s with small AM transistor radios. For under $10 (US), I am rediscovering some of that enjoyment with a SONY ICF-S10MK2 AM/FM radio.

I have three of these and they outperform any other radio of similar size w/ built-in speaker that I own. I recently did a side-by-side comparison with my Kaito KA105 on FM/AM and the Sony is much superior ... sensitivity, selectivity, noise.

[Black Rose]

That ICF-S10MK2 reminds me of the small radio I had as a kid.

I used to lay in bed at night and be able to pick up AM stations as far away as Boston (approx 350 miles down the coast).

I see that the ICF-S10MK2 is available in Canada as well. Might have to add that to my small collection of small radios.