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Portable radios

clouseau said:
pocket-radio said:
I love it, the latest excuse HD radio isn't selling is the lack of portables.
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I would hope you do love it. You're the only one that said it. This is a thread about portable radios.

Sorry if it doesn't meet you "HD Excuses" criteria. :)

It will receive AM/FM & HD. And won't include a CD player or USB/SDI memory port.
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Imagine that. A radio that doesn't have a USB/SDI memory port. How out of touch.

I have mrore radios than virtually any normal consumer. Out of all of them, I have ONE (FMeXtra Aruba) that has a usb or a memory card slot. It has both. Did I mention you need a factory procedure to use the USB for upgrade and that the memory card reader is disabled? How AM I living without these ports?

Seriously, what percentage of radios sold in the US have either of those features. I'll bet FAR more have CD. This disjointed "Everything sucks" has always been weak. Now it's getting really old

Clouseau
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Ok I'm wrong, bring on the portable HD radios and let's see what happens. My guess is people who love their radios, will run out and buy one, but the question is will a $79.00 portable radio move the dial.. ha ha....
 
Hold on... It runs on "Rechargable" batteries. The 100-240 V is for the built in charger. As in "Device works in a power failure or on a beach". Charge life isn't all that great, tho...
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The description of that Coby doesn't say whether the headphone jack is stereo. Can we assume it is?
 
pocket-radio said:
Ok I'm wrong, bring on the portable HD radios and let's see what happens. My guess is people who love their radios, will run out and buy one, but the question is will a $79.00 portable radio move the dial.. ha ha....
Click to expand...

I doubt it. Again, you're arguing with yourself about the success or lack of same of HD radio in this thread. It was about availability of portable radios.

If only there was a thread on this board about the success level of HD radio. Oh wait. Every single thread is changed to that.

I forgot.

BTW, I would suspect that Coby does have a stereo headphone jack. It would almost be more work to go mono.

Clouseau
 
Well there are tons of other radios with mono speakers, but stereo headphone jacks. Table models from Sangean, my Revo Blik internet radio, portable multi-band radios like the Grundigs, Etons, Sangeans, and Sonys, not to mention the great (though now greatly overpriced) portables from Tivoli. And it makes sense. In a small radio, the speakers are too close together to make stereo worthwhile unless you're a t a very close distance to the radio. It's easier to get a warm, full-bodied sound from a single good speaker, then two mediocre ones. But the circuitry for stereo audio through headphones takes up almost no additional space, so why not?

Besides, mono speaker audio makes these radios much quieter for distant FM listening through their whip antennas. Like HD, noise-free analog FM Stereo needs a good, signal, and really benefits from a better antenna.
 
Review: CCRadio-SWPocket Radio (Was: Portable radios)

(Yes, I'm stirring up a 2.5-year old thread! ;D )

Mike Walker said:
I got a C Crane CC-Radio SWP, a pocket AM/FM Stereo/Shortwave portable for Christmas. It's a steal at 50 bucks! GREAT sound quality through headphones, too. Ok, so it overloads on very strong signals (it's a single-conversion design), and the controls are a tad unresponsive (sometimes requiring a couple of pushes). No radio is perfect, and this one is good, EXTREMELY sensitive (on AM), and again, it's CHEAP!
Click to expand...

I just got one "Sold by Trend Marketing and Fulfilled by Amazon" for $35.50 ("No tax + Free shipping ")!
As most of the reviews have noted, the digital volume control leaves much to be desired, though (as also frequently noted) a $5-10 headphone volume control connection should fix that.
I find a bigger (though tolerable) annoyance is the mono-stereo shifting——it sounds like a dj "record scratching"!
As for reception, FM is ho-hum (certainly not dsp!), but I use it at the South Station (Boston) Post Office, which is in the middle of image/overload wasteland, courtesy of the Prudential Tower xmtr up the street! AM, though, is at least as good as the Grundig G1000A, which is what I've been using (its tuner is going :'( ), or maybe even a little better (less——strong signal——adjacent channel gurgle/"splashover"). I hardly ever visit the SW spectrum (other than, maybe, to check WWV's space wx report), so I can't really pass judgement, there.
 
Re: Review: CCRadio-SWPocket Radio (Was: Portable radios)

Uncle Kaimbridge said:
(Yes, I'm stirring up a 2.5-year old thread! ;D )

Mike Walker said:
I got a C Crane CC-Radio SWP, a pocket AM/FM Stereo/Shortwave portable for Christmas. It's a steal at 50 bucks! GREAT sound quality through headphones, too. Ok, so it overloads on very strong signals (it's a single-conversion design), and the controls are a tad unresponsive (sometimes requiring a couple of pushes). No radio is perfect, and this one is good, EXTREMELY sensitive (on AM), and again, it's CHEAP!
Click to expand...

I just got one "Sold by Trend Marketing and Fulfilled by Amazon" for $35.50 ("No tax + Free shipping ")!
As most of the reviews have noted, the digital volume control leaves much to be desired, though (as also frequently noted) a $5-10 headphone volume control connection should fix that.
I find a bigger (though tolerable) annoyance is the mono-stereo shifting——it sounds like a dj "record scratching"!
As for reception, FM is ho-hum (certainly not dsp!), but I use it at the South Station (Boston) Post Office, which is in the middle of image/overload wasteland, courtesy of the Prudential Tower xmtr up the street! AM, though, is at least as good as the Grundig G1000A, which is what I've been using (its tuner is going :'( ), or maybe even a little better (less——strong signal——adjacent channel gurgle/"splashover"). I hardly ever visit the SW spectrum (other than, maybe, to check WWV's space wx report), so I can't really pass judgement, there.
Click to expand...

If you spend a bit more you can get the Tecsun PL-380 which has basically the same layout as that CCrane radio but it comes with a good DSP chip:
http://www.amazon.com/Portable-ster...12FC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309956217&sr=8-1
 
Actually, it appears that NO HD Radio product is being featured on the Coby site any more. When you click on "HD Radio Systems," nothing happens. No products appear; just the "HD Radio Systems" button stays up.

Does this mean Coby has bailed on HD? Or is it just a website snafu??

"Stay tuned." (I recommend staying away from the nasty sidebands. ;) :D)
 
If you're serious about buying a Coby radio you might as well just take the money you're going to spend on it and bet it on black. You'll have a 50% chance to win something. If you get a Coby radio, you'll have a 0% chance of being satisfied.
 
From the link supplied by Clouseau, my browser displays a page with an array of buttons at the top including one that says "HD Radio Receivers." Clicking on it produces a blank page with the button in the center that simply reads "HD Radio Receivers," with no products displayed.

The initial link produces the legend, "this product is no longer available."

In any event, it's a lotta work to try to buy something that will probably sound lousy, perform worse and have the build quality of a Yugo.
 
Bad comparison. I've seen many Yugos around here that (obviously) have far outlived *anything* carrying a Coby badge!

Buying any Coby equipment and expecting it to hang around until the end of the month, even with light usage, is like hitting when you hold a "20" in Blackjack and expecting to win. Epic fail.
 
Darth_vader said:
Bad comparison. I've seen many Yugos around here that (obviously) have far outlived *anything* carrying a Coby badge!

Buying any Coby equipment and expecting it to hang around until the end of the month, even with light usage, is like hitting when you hold a "20" in Blackjack and expecting to win. Epic fail.
Click to expand...

But sometimes, that ace does pop up. This reminds me of the time I saw a drunk idiot hit a hard 20 and he luckily got an ace!

So there might be some Coby products that last long.
 
Yeah, maybe. I have had a few pocket Coby AM/FM radios (CX-70, CX-73, CX-83, CX-96) for a few weeks and they haven't fallen apart yet. I should probably mention I've only used them a grand total of a few hours combined, and am very careful with handling them. I got them to compare reception with a few other radios, like my Tecsun PL-606 and Sony SRF-59. I haven't had time to do much, though.
I'm hoping to maybe take them out to the desert one day next week to test weak signal performance outside the transmitter site of a local 50kW for testing strong signal/overload (with the Select-A-Tenna), and maybe to a beach as well to check saltwater-aided groundwave reception. I don't plan to do the dunk-in-saltwater-then-run-over-with-a-train durability test, though, as I need to return them (as well as a Sony SRF-M85W) later in the week before the 30 days is up. (I bought them June 15th.)
Speaking of durability, should I think twice about testing them with a SAT + longwire within a few hundred feet of a local 50kW? Or should they be able to survive that, considering my Tecsun PL-380 still works after I did that to it?
 
Had a little Coby mulitband from a Publisher's Clearing House type mail in operation that worked out of the box, picked up the unit to move it and had a small static charge from my hand to the rod antenna and BOOM, blew out the front end and no more radio audio at all. Got my $20 back and that was it - lasted less than an hour.
 
You're wasting your time if you plan to do some DXing with a Coby radio. I can just say that when you take them near the 50 kW station, you'll hear that station all over the dial. Just send them back now before they get damaged.

I think it would be more fun for me to go to the casino, play blackjack, and hit a "20" than to waste that money on a Coby radio.
 
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