Radio Shack Dx398 or other?

[JH_Radio]

Hi,
What kinda good radio is available for portibal listening? One that you don't have to plug in a headphone jack to hear, one with an line-out jack to hook up a portibal cassette deck, DAT, etc?
Something taht when I g go in the car, I can listen to radio as good as a car radio can recieve without consent fading like normal portibals? Something to record airchecks while driving around and that can DX as well. Its also importnat to have something where the mono can be defeated to have stereo on all signals no matter how noisy they are.
Thanks,
John
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John
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[PhilJSmith67]

> Hi,
> What kinda good radio is available for portibal listening?
> One that you don't have to plug in a headphone jack to
> hear, one with an line-out jack to hook up a portibal
> cassette deck, DAT, etc?
> Something taht when I g go in the car, I can listen to radio
> as good as a car radio can recieve without consent fading
> like normal portibals? Something to record airchecks while
> driving around and that can DX as well. Its also importnat
> to have something where the mono can be defeated to have
> stereo on all signals no matter how noisy they are.
> Thanks,
> John

For FM, no portable receiver will work as well inside the cabin of a car as the car's radio which uses an external antenna, except for maybe the cars with on- or in-glass antennas, which are rather directional.

For AM, forget it. Only the strongest stations will get into a car's cabin. It's the same as trying to listen to an AM station on a bridge with trusswork.

The best portable I have, to this day, for inside the car is a Panasonic RF-2600, circa 1982. The RF-2600 has an analog tuner that drives a digital display, in addition to the analog "barrel" indicator. Audio is crisp and very loud, and the sensivity is good even inside a car. Selectivity is even better than some car radios. But, as the saying goes, "they just don't make 'em like they used to." I would think a GE Superadio or Grundig receiver should do a good job.

I own a DX-398, which although it's a nice all-around AM/FM/LW/SW receiver with RDS, it has a few drawbacks. The 398 overloads on FM very easily, in some cases trashing the entire band unless the antenna is fully-collapsed. As for selectivity, it's good but not great, which is fine when you're stationary and can move the antenna around to find a station's "sweet spot," but not so good when you're going down the road and adjacent stations' power levels are continually fluctuating. The audio is quite weak, too; headphones would be desirable.

 

[BillP]

> Hi,
> What kinda good radio is available for portibal listening?
> One that you don't have to plug in a headphone jack to
> hear, one with an line-out jack to hook up a portibal
> cassette deck, DAT, etc?
> Something taht when I g go in the car, I can listen to radio
> as good as a car radio can recieve without consent fading
> like normal portibals? Something to record airchecks while
> driving around and that can DX as well. Its also importnat
> to have something where the mono can be defeated to have
> stereo on all signals no matter how noisy they are.
> Thanks,
> John
>
If, by chance, you could find an old Sony TFM-95 (ca 1963) it will have an audio out jack and an input jack for a car antenna.

Back in the day, there was a locking under dash mount available for this unit.

---------------- Bill