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When Was the Last Time You Bought A Radio?
- Thread starter Mike Sheridan
- Start date
Last week. A small second hand Penncrest AM portable in the leatherette case.
Made by Panasonic.
Made by Panasonic.
Last weekend I got a bluetooth Soundcore Boombox thats paired to my phone. I have SiriusXM, TuneIn, Litt Live, Amazon Music, and Podcast Addict apps. The sound is pretty, pretty, pretty good and I'm sparred the ads and limited playlists. I got a clock radio back about 15 years ago to wake me up for work before I retired. I never listen to it, but I can look at the clock from my bed so it's still useful.
This thread cursed me, I bought a QODESEN DX-286 after a few years of no new radios. Figured I'd give it a try, this is a really excellent portable for the price. FM is suburb, AM(MW) is great also. Actually makes shortwave decent to listen to, station and content limitations aside.
Is it true that it does not come with the battery? You have to buy that extra and it's a special type of battery?
The Qodosen DX-286 takes an 18650 battery, with button top. It doesn't come with the battery. They're not expensive, but I would go with a good brand and believable mAh rating, like 2600 mAh.
Amazon is now selling the DX-286 packaged along with two 18650 lithium-ion batteries. Radio Jay Allen has this link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DF63Z54...7737378&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&tag=radiojayallen-20
If you decide to buy the battery separately, I've had good results with batteryjunction.com - the right capacity to order is 3000 mAh. I got a Panasonic battery with a rating just above that along with built in overcharging protection and I've been happy with it. That's unusual for me, because I had such bad luck with 18650 batteries a couple of years ago that I got totally frustrated with my XHDATA D-808 radios and sold them. The Qodosen has been a much better experience.
Indeed!
What is the bandwidth on LW/MW/SW like? Is it adjustable?
I like my RadioShack DX-398 (aka Sangean ATS-909), but the sound quality on anything other than FM leaves much to be desired (audio is muffled and muddy, so most speech becomes almost unintelligible if there's even a little bit of static and music sounds plain bad).
c
Minimum of 3 kHz, defaults to 4 kHz whenever you turn the radio on; the 6 and 8 kHz bandwidths really aren't as wide as claimed, in my evaluation, but still wider than 4.
Some of the more hard-core DXers have complained about the 3 kHz minimum, but Qodosen has said that the TEF6686 chip does not support bandwidths narrower than 3 kHz.
Saw a long video review of it on YouTube
Does not mention HD Radio so I'm guessing no? Which seems odd since it has so many features.
No HD. That would have required a different chip. It does have RDS/RBDS capability.
That's a nice amount of flexibility. Too bad they omitted 2.5 kHz; 9 kHz might be nice for US AM stations, but if it's flat out to 8 kHz I guess it's close enough. Do you have any idea how sharp the filters are? It would be interesting to hear how some AM stations sound when the receiver can actually reproduce the highs.
The filters seem reasonably sharp to me.
I ran sweep tones and some tests with music to come up with some estimates of the actual bandwidth:
- "3 kHz" - 3 kHz (more or less accurate)
- "4 kHz" - 4 kHz (more or less accurate)
- "6 kHz" - 4.5 to 5 kHz (narrower than stated)
- "8 kHz" - 5.5 kHz (much narrower than stated)
I posted the link to my review of the DX-286 elsewhere earlier, but I'll post it again here for convenience: Radios I Have Known - and there's more detail to come but I probably won't be able to add that detail until next month.
There's a lot in that little box.
I'm considering a Qodosen DX-286. I check thrift stores often and have found a number of radios over the years. But better radios there seem to be harder to find, unless you buy a clock radio or phone docking station that happens to have a radio built in. With that said I bought a used Grundig Yacht Boy 400 at a thrift shop in July for $25 and it works great!
What model # on the Penncrest? I have a #1993, AM-FM-SW. Always wondered who actually made it.
I have the PR-D18, the mono speaker version. Good radio. Good sound, especially through headphones. Decent DXer. I think the PR-D19 is the mini-boombox version. That's probably the only difference. Maybe a different AF chip to drive both speakers? Probably same guts otherwise.
Try headphones. Audio is better -- not terrific, but much better than the speaker. The tone control works better using headphones. And you get more battery life as well. I have a 398 and still use mine.
I see.
Maybe it's something with my particular unit, but the muddiness and muffled sound I described is through the headphones. I've tried the speaker (an aftermarket replacement I found, since the original was blown when I bought it), and it's actually a bit better, perhaps because the speaker I found happens to be somewhat better than stock.
c
Yeah, my 398 doesn't sound terrific through headphones either. My DX-390, DX-370, DX-375, and Radio Shack 200629 are much better, audio wise (all Sangean products). Great audio is definitely not the Sangean 909's strong point. One workaround on MW/SW is to tune off by a kHz or so. That sometimes helps.
Great radio, otherwise. DXes very well on MW even without a loop. SSB is really good on it.
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