Nice New Radio-Shack-Job Portable Here

[Steve Green NEPA]

Well, to me, anyway. The wifester wants it, too.

I just picked it up for $25 at the soon-to-be-defunct Radio Shack at the Schuylkill Mall (Frackville PA).

They close at the end of March. Everything in the place is 40-60% off.

The unit name is 'Tune It'.

Seems to work very nice on AM -- pretty noise free with the three AA batteries (hic; excuse me), even on the lower dial.

The FM side has given me -- so far -- every station listed in Radio Locator's list of available signals from here. In fact, the Tune-It has coughed up two unIDs.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=Frackville+PA&x=0&y=0

I haven't tried the short-wave band much yet. But the Tune-It controls blessedly are fairly simple for this analog geezer to navigate ; I may give the SW dials a spin later.

It doesn;t come with an AC/DC adaptor. I'll find one here, somewhere in the confusion.

Anyone else here own one of these puppies? If not: coming soon to a former Tandy Company by you.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Well, to me, anyway. The wifester wants it, too.

I just picked it up for $25 at the soon-to-be-defunct Radio Shack at the Schuylkill Mall (Frackville PA).

They close at the end of March. Everything in the place is 40-60% off.

The unit name is 'Tune It'.

Seems to work very nice on AM -- pretty noise free with the three AA batteries (hic; excuse me), even on the lower dial.

The FM side has given me -- so far -- every station listed in Radio Locator's list of available signals from here. In fact, the Tune-It has coughed up two unIDs.

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/locate?select=city&city=Frackville+PA&x=0&y=0

I haven't tried the short-wave band much yet. But the Tune-It controls blessedly are fairly simple for this analog geezer to navigate ; I may give the SW dials a spin later.

It doesn;t come with an AC/DC adaptor. I'll find one here, somewhere in the confusion.

Anyone else here own one of these puppies? If not: coming soon to a former Tandy Company by you.

I got this thing a while back - is it the same as yours? http://earmark.net/gesr/2000629.htm Pretty amazing little unit. AM DX'er it is not, but FM was amazing after modification.

 

[Steve Green NEPA]

Here tis, RBruce


https://www.radioshack.com/collecti...able-am-fm-shortwave-radio?variant=5717075269

Long name for a little radio.

I'm comfortable with its relative simplicity. I was never a digital-dial fan ; I was an analogue purist who found the position of a Zenith pointer (or even the cat-whisker dial on a GE Clock Radio like they had atop the fridge of 'Happy Days') to visually 'say' more. But this Tune-It will do fine. Especially for something that costs $25.

The manual is an abbreviated one -- not very detailed -- but apparently you can save short-wave stations to presets. Even my Grundig S450 won;t do that.

 

[boombox4]

I got this thing a while back - is it the same as yours? http://earmark.net/gesr/2000629.htm Pretty amazing little unit. AM DX'er it is not, but FM was amazing after modification.

I've DXed with the 200629 on MW -- need an external loop though. The selectivity and sound make up for the small loopstick.

I'd use it more but it eats batteries -- my DX-375 (a Sangean made-for-Radio Shack radio) works better on MW (larger loopstick, possible extra amplification in the IF stage -- not sure though) and the batteries last a lot longer.

One guy DX'es the LW with it in Massachusetts or Maine, with no external loop, and hears Europe sometimes. Seen his logs online. So it's a capable radio.

I've read some online reviews about the OP's new radio. The main negatives are QC apparently... if you get a good one off the bat you're doing all right.

 

[Ai4i]

My favorite HF stations can be found on the primary and the first four even harmonics of 2½ MHz,
and at 3+1/3 MHz, 7+17/20 MHz, and 14+2/3 MHz, the first and last are rounded for expediency.

 

[boombox4]

My favorite HF stations can be found on the primary and the first four even harmonics of 2½ MHz,
and at 3+1/3 MHz, 7+17/20 MHz, and 14+2/3 MHz, the first and last are rounded for expediency.

So you like hearing the HF version of a ticking clock?

 

[Ai4i]

Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock, Clock...

I have owned two (2) Radio Shack "time cubes".
Both, eventually had to be discarded because the band-select buttons became too worn out to use.
I went into severe depression when 25MHz was discontinued, but at least I never had a 20KHz ELF receiver.
As that was pre-www, I so did not know how to get a Canadian model with CHU.
Back then, CHU was on 3.33 or 3.335MHz and the harmonically related 7.335MHz and 14.670MHz.
I remember they were all either LSB or USB with (I believe) full carrier.

 

[CurtisNEPA]

Does it have an FM overload? Would I able to listen to a distant FM'er without having to worry about overloading even if it's set to the DX switch. The older model does a lot of overloading when I tried to listen to the station about 60 miles away, and a severe bleedover from an adjacent signal on a frequency next to a semi-local. I hope this has a DSP chip unlike the older model and acts like the Grundig G8,(which unfortunately, its antenna rod is broke apart).

 

[Ai4i]

This will not answer your question, but local/distant switches and RF gain controls usually do not work on the FM band, but only up to 30MHz.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

Does it have an FM overload? Would I able to listen to a distant FM'er without having to worry about overloading even if it's set to the DX switch. The older model does a lot of overloading when I tried to listen to the station about 60 miles away, and a severe bleedover from an adjacent signal on a frequency next to a semi-local. I hope this has a DSP chip unlike the older model and acts like the Grundig G8,(which unfortunately, its antenna rod is broke apart).

I have one that I modified with narrow ceramic filters. Before the modification, it did not overload on the full class C stations less than 20 miles away. After the modification, it brings in a station 140 miles away, and many first adjacents are clear.

 

[Ai4i]

...After the modification, it brings in...many first adjacents...clear[ly].

First adjacents are a beach.
I have never owned a receiver that could deal with them

 

[boombox4]

I hope this has a DSP chip unlike the older model and acts like the Grundig G8,(which unfortunately, its antenna rod is broke apart).

If you're talking about the Radio Shack 200-629, there is no DSP chip in it. Just a standard (but fairly hot, according to the datasheet) IF chip.

If you're talking about the radio the OP mentioned at the top of this thread (that comes in a box that says "Tune It"), I have no idea if it has a DSP chip or not, but my guess is that it doesn't (from the performance reviews I've read). Still, that would just be a guess.

 

[rbrucecarter5]

First adjacents are a beach.
I have never owned a receiver that could deal with them

It varies with the narrow ceramic filter trick and with the new adaptive IF bandwidth chips (21 bandwidths). I am about 20 miles from full class C stations. HD is another issue, but a couple of them are not running HD - and occasionally some of them have HD off the air for whatever reason. The first adjacent frequency is clear on most of them that don't have HD or have it turned off. That is on tuners with two or more 150 kHz ceramic filters - any first adjacent in range will come in. It is the same on tuners with adaptive IF, it is clear. There is one notable exception, a local that for some reason has more punch to it than the other class C stations on that antenna farm. There is enough bleed through that it is audible on both first adjacents. I have no idea why that one station is stronger than the others - it certainly isn't grandfathered in or anything - in fact its bays are lower than the other bays at the antenna farm by about 400 feet.

Where I previously lived, it was pretty much the same setup - I was at least 20 miles from the full class C sticks - and I had plenty of time before the HD came on the air to hear first adjacents - they were loud and clear. There were two antenna farms, the one 50 miles away had stations that did not go HD - and first adjacents were certainly possible, I even had a station from 120 miles away on my presets, it was clear and reliable.

A full DSP implementation works for AM, and may be possible for FM IF - but I have never seen a full DSP implementation on FM. A few months back - a poster took me to task for saying that and gave me a part number and a link to a data sheet. A look at the data sheet showed good old analog functional blocks, with the DSP only used for AM and a few other low speed things. I just don't think the silicon is there yet, and the analog IC's like those from SiLabs are so simple to use that there is no need to sink everything into a DSP. A normal micro - controlling the display and switches - a serial interface to an analog radio on a chip, and you are done. Low cost, low power, low component count. It may be a long time before it is cost effective to put it all into a DSP.

 

[boombox4]

A full DSP implementation works for AM, and may be possible for FM IF - but I have never seen a full DSP implementation on FM. A few months back - a poster took me to task for saying that and gave me a part number and a link to a data sheet. A look at the data sheet showed good old analog functional blocks, with the DSP only used for AM and a few other low speed things. I just don't think the silicon is there yet, and the analog IC's like those from SiLabs are so simple to use that there is no need to sink everything into a DSP. A normal micro - controlling the display and switches - a serial interface to an analog radio on a chip, and you are done. Low cost, low power, low component count. It may be a long time before it is cost effective to put it all into a DSP.

The SiLabs 4730-series block diagram shows both AM and FM going through the DSP block (after a Digital-to-analog converter). The only analog portions are the low noise amplifiers ahead of the DSP section, and the output (after the analog-to-digital converter).

What is keeping them from putting all of it digital? Is it difficult to have a low noise amplifier that is digital?