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Super Radio II

M

MarioMania

I found another one at the Goodwill a few weeks ago for $6.50

I did some reception on it, then on my Sony ICF-P26

In the Daytime 1600 KUBA Yuba City, at Nighttime 1270 KVMI

Gettting the same Signal from my Super Radio II & my Sony ICF-P26

Tbh There the Same
 
Perhaps because you are in a valley with very high ground conductivity the daytime DX is the same. Also, the P-26 is probably a very good radio for its size. The DSP chips and thick loopstick can bring in a lot of stations. My Radio Shack Pocket Radio is probably very similar. What you may find is the selectivity on the SRII is a lot better.
 
I saw a bunch of Super Radio II's on a table in a retail going-out-of-business sale twenty years ago. They wanted $35. I am still kicking myself for not buying at least one.

Bought a Super Radio III and returned it the next day. Extremely poor performance!
They should have been ashamed to sell those.
 
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FreddyE1977 said:
I saw a bunch of Super Radio II's on a table in a retail going-out-of-business sale twenty years ago. They wanted $35. I am still kicking myself for not buying at least one.

Bought a Super Radio III and returned it the next day. Extremely poor performance!
They should have been ashamed to sell those.
Click to expand...

My SRIII performs as good, or better, than my SR2.

SR2's are great radios, but were not perfect. Many of them had distortion issues with their audio chips. On mine, the headphone jack is a little hissy, whereas the SR1 and SRIII are awesome sounding. Mixed bag. Still -- if you have an SR2, you have a pretty good MW DX radio, there is no doubt about that.
 
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MarioMania said:
My Sony ICF-P26 is all analog, no DSP
Click to expand...

You're right, it has a CXA1019, same chip as the ICF-38 and other Sony portables. The CXA1019 is a hot chip, and the ferrite loopstick is probably the same as the ICF-38's, also.

My ICF-38 picks up most of what my SR2 picks up. Differences are minimal. You'll only hear them in marginal conditions, where the SR2's bigger loopstick will come into play.

Some selectivity differences will also be there, especially if you have very strong local AM stations, the SR2 may work better.
 
I'd read someplace, over ten years back, that, out of every 1000 Superadio III's up for sale brand new, maybe 3 of them cut the mustard.

I bought one of the other 997. The performance distinction between 'good' and 'disgraceful' on the III's had something to do with the serial number prefixes. No slightly-more-than-casual AM DXer insists on having a radio put up on a loft to check out its DNA and undersides before purchase. I hadn't read yet about the 3/1000 percent stuff.

I wound up getting no redeemable DX on the III I bought. The FM was good, but the AM reception was despicable. A station tuned into at, say, 1060 used to drag on to 1070 and 1080 once I tuned up the dial. I got rid of the thing in a used-shop where they had a pristine II playing Kiss 102.7 from Williamsport at the register counter. I told the girl there -- truthfully -- that I'd swap her my newer model III which had just as good FM reception for her II plus give her $10. She said okay. I think we broke even. She's like everyone else in any thrift shop; no one listens to AM for music.

That newer GE SR II isn't *quite* as good as my other II for AM DX, but it's real close. And I don't have to stuff a matchbook into the on-off switch to keep it playing, like the old one can be a pain.

But it sounds like you were one of the 3 out of 1000 who got a good one, Boombox. Way to go!
 
Steve Green NEPA said:
I'd read someplace, over ten years back, that, out of every 1000 Superadio III's up for sale brand new, maybe 3 of them cut the mustard.

I bought one of the other 997. The performance distinction between 'good' and 'disgraceful' on the III's had something to do with the serial number prefixes. No slightly-more-than-casual AM DXer insists on having a radio put up on a loft to check out its DNA and undersides before purchase. I hadn't read yet about the 3/1000 percent stuff.

I wound up getting no redeemable DX on the III I bought. The FM was good, but the AM reception was despicable. A station tuned into at, say, 1060 used to drag on to 1070 and 1080 once I tuned up the dial. I got rid of the thing in a used-shop where they had a pristine II playing Kiss 102.7 from Williamsport at the register counter. I told the girl there -- truthfully -- that I'd swap her my newer model III which had just as good FM reception for her II plus give her $10. She said okay. I think we broke even. She's like everyone else in any thrift shop; no one listens to AM for music.

That newer GE SR II isn't *quite* as good as my other II for AM DX, but it's real close. And I don't have to stuff a matchbook into the on-off switch to keep it playing, like the old one can be a pain.

But it sounds like you were one of the 3 out of 1000 who got a good one, Boombox. Way to go!
Click to expand...

I bought three SRIII's, a '95 (?) for myself, a '96 later on for myself, and another '96 for my mother. All work well except one (the '95) that got its DC-DC chip ruined by some saltwater. What you refer to as the serial number thing was probably a mistaken reference to date codes, which indicate the year the radio was made.

The very early SRIII's had some production issues -- if one reversed the leads to the speaker, the performance would be improved apparently. Somehow the speaker leads could interfere with the loopstick. That issue was fixed quickly at the factory apparently.

The later SRIII's (late 1990's and 2000's models probably) had problems with the tuner potentiometers. They were cheap, and would wear out too quickly.

On all SRIIIs, the tuning is touchy between 1200-1500 or so. The channels scrunch closer together in that range. You can still tune them, you have to use a delicate touch.

Bruce Carter (who hangs out here now and then) has an SRIII that outperforms many other of his radios, even unmodified. I don't know what year that one was produced.

I would think the ratio of good SRIIIs to bad ones would be considerably higher than the ratio you give, but point still taken. Overall the model didn't live up to the first two Superadio models.

As an aside, some minor differences in Superadios can be due to the resistor in the antenna circuit, which can determine sensitivity. I've seen variances in the same model. My SR2 had a different resistor than what was indicated on the schematic. Same with my SR1. Conceivably that might be the reason you had two SR2's and they performed differently.
 
I had a III I bought at Meijer (a regional grocery/Superstore chain) in 1996 and it was great. Bought a second one off eBay and it had that tuning problem, where it wouldn't hold a frequency and drifted all over the place.
 
Both the IIs I owned plus the stray III had nice FM reception. So I doubt I gypped the girl at the thrift shop with our swap.
Besides, it must be impossible in this age to make a respectable radio with a bad FM section.

Still, I've always been an overwhelming AM DXer. So we serious AM DXers should lobby for a GE Superadio 4 that would satisfy everyone. L-)
 
Ya, whats the deal with the audio chip??

Mine distorts on FM horribly at about 9 O'clock ( with the bass turned fully down ). These were certainly not "boom Boxes", as they only have 700mw of output. Come'on GE, what the hell. You give use this beautiful big speaker, and cant even put a 1 Watt amp in a portable radio. On top of that, we get a crappy audio chip. Now that I have ranted...I did take mine in for service to see what the tech guy could do, and he said, all of them ( the ones he's tried ) do this. Is there a fix to get rid of this distortion??

I emailed Jay Allen, and according to him, his SRII's distort as well.

On AM, the radio sounds fine and strong, but on FM, forget it. Not sure why. It still distorts, just at a much higher volume ( about 12 O'clock with no bass, and its loud ).
 
formula72 said:
Ya, whats the deal with the audio chip??

Mine distorts on FM horribly at about 9 O'clock ( with the bass turned fully down ). These were certainly not "boom Boxes", as they only have 700mw of output. Come'on GE, what the hell. You give use this beautiful big speaker, and cant even put a 1 Watt amp in a portable radio. On top of that, we get a crappy audio chip. Now that I have ranted...I did take mine in for service to see what the tech guy could do, and he said, all of them ( the ones he's tried ) do this. Is there a fix to get rid of this distortion??

I emailed Jay Allen, and according to him, his SRII's distort as well.

On AM, the radio sounds fine and strong, but on FM, forget it. Not sure why. It still distorts, just at a much higher volume ( about 12 O'clock with no bass, and its loud ).
Click to expand...

It isn't the chip necessarily... the audio is performed via the audio section of the IF chip. I have read that some chips were faulty... But I also have read on a radio repair hobby site that it wasn't necessarily the chip itself, but the way the audio circuits were connected to the chip.

GE changed the way the audio is connected to the chip from the SR1 to the SR2... and then they changed it again with the SR3. My SR2 is OK on FM. I do not know why. I think some of them varied at the factory.
 
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