Small Portable Radio's?

[PhotoJim]

Fast forward to 3:38 on this YouTube video and you will see the instructions on changing the steps from 9Khz to 10Khz

Would like to hear your opinion of the HDR 737 when you get a chance.


https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...6FORM%3DHDRSC3

Thanks! I'll try to play with it a little in the next few days, and then I'll make a report.

[PhotoJim]

HRD104 (not HRD737, oops, wrote on wrong radio but I'll leave this) notes as promised:

It's not a bad little radio. As noted in the video, it's very thin and fits well in the hand.

On FM, I find it to be pretty decent. It has good stereo separation (with headphones of course). Sensitivity seems, at a minimum, competent. I can pick up stations here that are slightly weak, and with good quality (a couple of 100,000-watt stations from 70 km away, and a 10,000-watt station that is normally easy to receive but tends to be noisy). Alas, there is no more distant FM to receive here unless conditions are just right.

As for AM, all I can say is ... it's awfully deaf. I can receive local stations fine, as well as a 10 kW station from 70 km away. I also receive a 50 kW clear-channel station well from about 100 km, though I have to turn the radio just right, and the signal is noisy. (This is indoors, in a single-storey wood frame bungalow.) But otherwise... it hears nothing, even slightly more distant stations that I can normally pick up on all but the worst radios.

If anyone has this radio and can scan the instruction leaflet/page for me, that'd be great. Mine didn't come with one. I was able to figure out clock setting and memory programming/deleting/surfing, but the change from 9 to 10 kHz steps on AM would never have occurred to me if not for that video.

[PhotoJim]

Oops, that's the HRD-104 I reviewed.

The HRD-737 is pretty similar, but of course has a lot more bands. It suffers from some of the same issues that the HRD-104 does on AM mode - it's pretty deaf. It definitely doesn't seem to hear much on the aircraft band, even though I can normally pick up the ATIS frequency from my city's airport pretty easily on radios with an aircraft band.

Tuning to VHF ham radio frequencies is awkward because you can't tune precisely to frequencies that ham users use (e.g. our main repeater is on 147.120 MHz but I can only tune to 147.125).

For the money, though, it's a nice little radio.

[JACKN]

Hi all,

There are some new Tecsun radios that I have not seen discussed here:

- Tecsun PL-368 which is the tall, handheld version of PL-330 (same internal). It has ETM, numeric keyboard and BL-5C battery compared with its earlier siblings in the tall, handheld format (PL360, Pl365).

- Tecsun M301 and M303 - the features seems weird. Slim, good looking, mobile-phone sized FM radio with sealed lithium battery, hand loop antenna, dsp chip, speaker, bluetooth receiver, recording and mp3. Seems to be made more for listening outdoor on its supposedly above average earphone. Recording of bluetooth music (but not voice calls) is a bonus. There's a upcoming M302 using 16340 battery instead of internal sealed lithium battery.

Sorry, I can't post links yet. I don't own any of them and am not related to Tecsun in anyway. They are just more accessible and affordable to me in my region. I came across them because I have a Retekess PR12 (thanks to you people !) and would like to find its equivalence running on alkaline instead of sealed lithium battery. The sound on PR12 is good but the sealed battery on my unit is not holding up Is there's something like the PR12 but running on alkaline battery out there ?

Jack

[Gene]

Long live this thread but it looks like it might now be dead.

[PhotoJim]

Anybody tried the 5-Core TC-22? It is a cheaply-made but fully analog radio that seems to have really good sound, based on a Youtube video I saw about it:

https://youtu.be/t1thDa4zeog

[5S8Zh5]

Jay Allen reviewed the panasonic.

Panasonic RF-562D Retro Design AM-FM-SW Portable Radio.

[5S8Zh5]

But since the PL-880 has a slightly better built-in speaker, it really can take advantage of FM radio audio fidelity when listening to music, for example. This is not to say that the PL-990 has crappy audio–far from the truth. Indeed, I was impressed with the audio when I first put the PL-990 on the air. You only notice the PL-880’s superior audio while doing side-by-side comparisons. Is it enough to sway my purchase decision? No, not really. For AM and shortwave–which is where I spend most of my time–the PL-990 audio is robust.

Using my PL-990 almost exclusively with a 32GB SDHC micro SD memory card and numerous CDs sneaker netted. Great sound - right up there with the PL-880 imho. To make it perfect, they should implement an text scroll (like the Sangean DT-800 FM RDS, without connecting online or on air) to ID the track currently playing.

[Lebkuecher]

Jay Allen posted his review of the Sangean ATS-909X2

I have always been attracted to this series but could never pull the trigger due to the reputation of being deaf on the whip but apparently Sangean has made some improvements. At nearly $300.00 a copy the 909X2 is not cheap.


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