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Is a car stereo sufficient for conducting radio band-scans?

F

fordranger797

I usually scan the AM and FM band with a Grundig S450DLX, but its never yielded any interesting results. In fact, its useless for picking up "out of town" signals that boom right in as soon as I get into my car in the morning. I know that most DX'ers avoid using car stereos, but all of my interesting catches have been in the car.

Any recommendations?
 
Cars can be a great spot to DX from since they usually have a good antenna and you can drive them to different places. Ever since I put a Pioneer stereo in my car, I find myself doing bandscans and other DX with it. All of their car radios are Supertuner 3D units with a DSP that has pretty good sensitivity and adjacent channel selectivity, plus you get RDS.

The only downside is there is no easy way to record audio straight from a car stereo without wiring something to the back of the unit. If I record a bandscan in my car, I just use my cellphone so you can see the display frequency and RDS info.
 
The FM on the radio in my Saturn has great sensitivity and selectivity, better than any of my other radios.

I'd use it to listen to E Skip except this time of the year, opening my car door and getting in during the middle of the day or even late afternoon is like getting into an oven.

The AM is good too but one drawback with DXing on AM in a car radio is that the antenna is not directional.
 
fordranger797 said:
I usually scan the AM and FM band with a Grundig S450DLX, but its never yielded any interesting results. In fact, its useless for picking up "out of town" signals that boom right in as soon as I get into my car in the morning. I know that most DX'ers avoid using car stereos, but all of my interesting catches have been in the car.

Any recommendations?
Click to expand...

Yeah, get a better antenna for your 450DLX.

A lot of DXers use car stereos. Car radios historically have had decent RF sections, usually an RF amp at least. And the AM side is usually designed to work well with the car's whip antenna.
 
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