“Transistor radio” bargain of the decade – _some_ good stuff comes out of China.

Hi Gerry

In many areas the ABC have relayed FM coverage of the major stations and if you have a good FM radio (and, ideally, a bit of height) it's often possible to pick up these local transmitters from a considerable distance. In any event for $90 it's hard to go past it - I enjoy listening to the radio in my swag as I fall asleep - a bit hard to do with a Yaesu FT857D and an 80m dipole :)

Mike Harding

Hi Mike,
I've generally found that the FM in remote towns is about 10W output and has a range extending just beyond the town limits.
Worth picking up from the ABC is their neat little frequency guide folding up into a credit card.
Re listening in bed, yeh, my 7600 still has that use, but geez it's hot on batteries. Have got an in-line 6v reg to run it off my reticulated 12v in the tent. Dunno about your old 7600, but its performance on AM broadcast band is quite poor. Fine on SW tho.
P'raps I should invest in the $90 rice radio just to listen in bed!
G

For A$90 Robin can you name another radio which comes close?

Mike Harding

No Mike thats why I consider it good value for money.

Morning Royce

Correct, I sleep outside. I'll take the radio out in the vehicle later today and let you know how it goes. It has an external antenna socket and comes with a "long wire" antenna so would probably be OK if you use that.

How's the laundrette going? I've stopped by once or twice but you weren't around?

Mike Harding

Thanks, I'd like to know.

Laundrette is working well, except for a spate of vandalism a few weeks ago.

It's not really making money, but functioning well. Hopefully over the next few years, business will pick up to the point where I might be looked after a bit in my old age!

The best thing is that I don't need to be there very often.

Slip a note under the door next time you stop in... I'm there most Friday afternoons.

Cheers Royce

Mike
You must be desperate if you huddle onto your swag- to listen to a radio??
I get a buzz out of just listening to 'the night'..!!

Hi again Royce

I tested the Degen in the vehicle today – all doors closed and the wire antenna passed through a slightly open window and draped over nearby bushes:

Medium wave (AM) – reception was better than the car radio but (as expected) the wire antenna wasn’t much help. I don’t think you would be disappointed, especially at night, (I assume you sleep at night :) as Medium wave reception improves then.

FM – Very good, I think the wire antenna helped but am not really sure – maybe it was acting as a bit of a ground radial?

Short wave – as expected, with the wire antenna reception was much the same as operating in the open.

Sorry to hear of the vandalism – maybe a video camera connected to a recording device and notices to that effect – or, possibly, a shotgun?

>Slip a note under the door next time you stop in

Will do.

>I'm there most Friday afternoons.

I’ll try to organise a trip to the HC to coincide.

Mike Harding

>The only downside of buying one of Austrian/German spec was that
>the German Post Office regulations mean that it is not allowed to
>have an external antenna connector!

How interesting. I wonder if that's an old piece of legislation left over from the Second World War?

The radio doesn't seem quirky to me (but maybe I'm proving your point? :) apart from the hex display of memory numbers which is so _odd_ for a commercial product that it's amusing. Mind you I've been using hex for so long I can do mental arithmetic in it :)

The Sony is a very good radio, I would certainly have paid $400 for another one had I not happened across the Degen.

Mike Harding

A left over from the cold war maybe. Spies and propaganda and all that spooky stuff. And good helping of paranoia.

Owen

I haven't been able to find the source again but I did read that it was a WWII artifact.

A great site for all things 7600 (mine's a ICF-SW7600) is here:
7600 site

It has links to all the mods, manuals and fixes (eg replacing the 1990's vintage SMD capacitors - not recomended as a campfire activity!)

I paid $115 delivered from Vienna in 2006.

All the best

Adrian

Hi Phil

For listening to broadcast stations on the short wave, medium wave (AM) and FM bands I think you’ll find this radio performs as well as much more expensive models.

VKS737 transmits on “single side band”; a system used mainly for communications rather than public broadcasts, it requires the receiver to be more complex and have much higher quality components than an “ordinary” radio.

I conducted some SSB tests today and compared the Degen to my $1000 Yaesu FT857D Amateur radio.

The Degen performed, surprisingly, well using its telescopic antenna but signal (as well as noise) increased significantly when I attached the, supplied, 10m long wire antenna.

It’s “fine tuning” control is a bit coarse for SSB but usable.

Frequency stability was very good.

The Degen was no match for the Yaesu on weak signals but performed quite adequately on signals of medium strength and above – in fact it overloaded on some strong local signals.

It has a narrow band filter which will help in noisy conditions.

In short: don’t expect it to perform as well as your Amateur set or Codan/Barrett on VKS737 but it will provide a usable signal on SSB and is excellent on AM/FM. For $80 I suggest it’s worth a go.

Mike Harding

Mike,
Thanks for the great reply and for taking the time to do the comparison. Sounds like I'll get one of my mates to get one first :-))) but its good value all right.

Hi Jim

My apologies – I said I would contact you in regard to Amateur Radio and haven’t yet done so, but I will – honest! :)

1. Are Sangean OK?

I have heard varying reports about them over the years and you don’t say which model, take a look here:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/8
and see what the reviews say.

2. Where can I get a guide or book about really using it?

There are some Sangean manuals here:
http://www.radiolabs.com/downloads/Sangean-user-manuals.html

and for general info on listening to the world take a look here:
http://shortwave.hfradio.org/

and/or type “short wave listening” into Google.

>I'm sure it could be a wothwhile companion in the bush

Indeed it is – an Amateur transceiver where you can talk to back to people is even better and you can listen to the short waves etc.

>but I don't really know how to search the relevant
>wavelengths etc.

A good antenna is a must; for receiving, that can be as simple as a 10m long piece of wire as high off the ground as you can get it. If your radio doesn’t have an external antenna socket (and virtually all short wave sets will) wrap 10 turns around the telescopic antenna and secure with a bit of tape.

A fine tuning control is _very_ helpful for short waves.

Frequency and wavelength (for practical listening purposes) are, essentially, the same thing. We tend to refer to a wavelength when we really mean all the frequencies in that wavelength “band” eg. the 25m band covers the frequencies from 11.6MHz to 12.1MHz and 25m itself is exactly 12.0MHz. The “hfradio.org” page above gives a list of all the short wave broadcast bands.

Here’s a frequency guide for Radio Australia:
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/pdf/frequency_guide.pdf

Here’s a couple for the BBC World Service:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/schedules/internet/800/radio_frequencies_south_east_asia.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/schedules/internet/800/radio_frequencies_south_asia.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/schedules/frequencies/

Deutsche Welle – Germany
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1777509,00.html

Holland:
http://www.radionetherlands.nl/listeningguide/

And, my personal favourite, The Korean Central Broadcasting Station – hear about the latest exploits of Our Glorious Leader Kim Jeong-Il – worth a listen I tell you! :)

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Market/2978/radio/index-e.html

And these two sites list more stations than you can poke a stick at:
http://www.naswa.net/swlguide/
http://www.ac6v.com/SWL3.htm

Ask away, or e-mail, if I can be of more help.

Mike Harding

Just to make that a bit more clear...

if your radio doesn't have an external antenna socket tightly wrap the end of your 10m antenna wire around the telescopic rod about ten times ensuring the turns butt up to one-another and secure with tape.