quote:

Originally posted by Ackks:

quote:

I prefer a professional type review like ARRL labs or Sherwood Engineering can do where they get down to the nitty gritty of a whole lot of measurements.

I haven't seen a Sony ICF-SW7600GR, 660, or CC review on the ARRL Labs site. If you have links I'd love to read them. I prefer lab tests as well, but I'm not aware of any.

If you haven't spent time on Swling it's a pretty good site. If their owner Tom doesn't write the review he usually posts comments immediately after it to either agree or disagree. Then you have a comment section for other members, so outside of a lab it's a pretty good source for information.

Offhand I don't know of such a comprehensive test as ARRL and Sherwood typically do more expensive ham transceivers and receivers. Still I take such subjective reviews with a big grain of salt. Pretty much any even cheaper decent receiver has enough sensitivity. When lots of very strong signals are crowding a band is where receivers start showing degraded performance which is very typical for ham radio bands when propagation conditions are good but much less for most SWL listening.

Eham.net has user reviews of most radios for those interested.

Http://Radioreference.com is another site for all things radio and scanner related.


http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/8

quote:

Offhand I don't know of such a comprehensive test as ARRL and Sherwood typically do more expensive ham transceivers and receivers. Still I take such subjective reviews with a big grain of salt. Pretty much any even cheaper decent receiver has enough sensitivity. When lots of very strong signals are crowding a band is where receivers start showing degraded performance which is very typical for ham radio bands when propagation conditions are good but much less for most SWL listening.

Makes sense, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of other options other than opinion based reviews. For example, I'm currently trying to decided between the CC and the Skywave for a smaller SW and I just have to read the reviews and go with my gut.

I own an older C.Crane Radio 2. It is a solid piece of kit. Uses 4 D cells and they last a long time. Good reception on all bands. It is a little heavy, but built like a tank. Everything you need and little extra as far as listening to radio. I have not met anyone that thought they were shorted when purchasing CC gear.

quote:

Originally posted by Ackks:

quote:

Offhand I don't know of such a comprehensive test as ARRL and Sherwood typically do more expensive ham transceivers and receivers. Still I take such subjective reviews with a big grain of salt. Pretty much any even cheaper decent receiver has enough sensitivity. When lots of very strong signals are crowding a band is where receivers start showing degraded performance which is very typical for ham radio bands when propagation conditions are good but much less for most SWL listening.

Makes sense, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of other options other than opinion based reviews. For example, I'm currently trying to decided between the CC and the Skywave for a smaller SW and I just have to read the reviews and go with my gut.

It doesn't help that the 11 year solar cycle is on the downside of the peak of cycle 24. Thus long distance comms, or DX, is going to be negatively impacted. The best radio and antenna can't make up for poor propagation conditions. Man made noise (plasma TV's are particularly bad) will impact a receivers performance greatly so two people reviewing the same radio in the presence of different levels of man made noise, using different antennas, and varying propagation conditions all factor into a radios perceived goodness. Without lab testing, you have to go with your gut as you stated. Fortunately we don't have to spend a fortune to find out.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned SDR options.

Given the ubiquity of computers, laptops, etc. some of these might be just the ticket. Lots of free software, and some of the dongles are quite inexpensive. They cover DC to daylight for the most part.

I have a Funcube Pro+ that I'm about to put into service as a panadapter. I've played around with it some as a receiver. Pretty slick!

I once owned what at the time seemed like the king of short-wave radios, a Braun T1000.
This was when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. I had bought the rig in Germany when I was a student there.
Anyway, I was in a little village about 2 miles from the border with Portuguese Guinea, where there was a civil war going on.
One day a guy in a camp outfit came up with my local interpreter. He wanted to know if I was transmitting info--that is, to the Portuguese. I showed him I had no microphone, I guess that convinced him I was not an agent for the Portuguese--otherwise I wouldn't be here today.
Sold it when I left for more than I paid, to finance my trip home across the Sahara and on to Germany where I proposed to my college girl friend, now my bride of 47 years.



You can buy one right now on eBay:
Braun T1000: $1099

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:
I once owned what at the time seemed like the king of short-wave radios, a Braun T1000.
This was when I was a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa. I had bought the rig in Germany when I was a student there.
Anyway, I was in a little village about 2 miles from the border with Portuguese Guinea, where there was a civil war going on.
One day a guy in a camp outfit came up with my local interpreter. He wanted to know if I was transmitting info--that is, to the Portuguese. I showed him I had no microphone, I guess that convinced him I was not an agent for the Portuguese--otherwise I wouldn't be here today.
Sold it when I left for more than I paid, to finance my trip home across the Sahara and on to Germany where I proposed to my college girl friend, now my bride of 47 years.

Nobody would make a spy radio looking like that, Stan!

Is it possible to tune into weather and noaa channels/stations?

Is SSB the most important feature in a SW for emergency use? How useful would the weather options be?

For NOAA weather, I have a Sangean DT400W. I had a CC Pocket, but the power button went tits up. Great speaker sound from this little guy.

I sent a HAM Radio pal the portions about leaving wallet at Denney's before going to HAM Store.

His reply...

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets...-there-and-thriving/

Thanks for all the replies. I ordered the Sony 7600. This was my birthday present this year. At some point, I may get the CountyComm for my Go bag, but I've long wanted the Sony, so...

Interestingly, Sony long ago discontinued the AC power adapter for this radio. They have a replacement, but it's not compatible with their worldband radios, as it introduces noise into audio. There are a ton of cheap adapters available, but I don't want to burn my house down. Does anyone have a recommendation for a good quality 6V adapter for this radio? 700ma, IIRC.


Thanks again to all.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Thanks for all the replies. I ordered the Sony 7600. This was my birthday present this year. At some point, I may get the CountyComm for my Go bag, but I've long wanted the Sony, so...

Interestingly, Sony long ago discontinued the AC power adapter for this radio. They have a replacement, but it's not compatible with their worldband radios, as it introduces noise into audio. There are a ton of cheap adapters available, but I don't want to burn my house down. Does anyone have a recommendation for a good quality 6V adapter for this radio? 700ma, IIRC.


Thanks again to all.

Wall warts are a common source of RFI, a growing plague on amateur radio.

I don't know of any way to know in advance. You just have to plug them in and see, or avoid using them as much as possible. I have some that are unnoticeable, and a couple that spew noise all over the radio spectrum.

I'll ask around. What kind of plug does the radio take?

quote:

Originally posted by Ackks:
Is SSB the most important feature in a SW for emergency use? How useful would the weather options be?

SSB is what hams use for voice on the SW bands. Very little, if any, commercial broadcasts are in SSB however. Most of the time ham radio would be boring idle chit chat for most non ham listeners. However in times of emergency ham radio SSB voice could provide a lot of valuable information.

For local VHF/UHF voice hams use FM. It would not be a bad idea for emergency times to have a portable radio/scanner that can also pick up the FM ham VHF/UHF bands. Such also provide local weather as in NOAA. Ham radio 2 meters is 144-148 MHz and 70 Centimeters 420-450 MHz. One used to be able to pick up a lot of local government traffic on VHF/UHF including police and 911/fire but a lot of that is scrambled these days I believe.

Getting the basic ham radio license is pretty easy and inexpensive these days and would allow one to transmit which would be a huge plus in an emergency situation.

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/nwr/

http://www.arrl.org/band-plan

http://www.universal-radio.com/

2005 discussion that of course mentions the Universal Radio MW 41-680, and one guy says avoid AC and use NiMH. That's what I'd do. Get some made in Japan NiMH AA Eneloops and a good charger. I don't let alkaleaks anywhere near my radios.

I just want a good AC adapter, thanks.

The Sony 7600 is GTG, great choice Para. Great radio in a compact package. Add a 50' wire alligator-clipped to the whip antenna and you'll be pulling in stations from around the globe. And the SSB capability is a huge bonus.

I don't have a recommendation on an AC adapter, but the AA's last a long time.

OK, you're set for HF (short waves) receive. Grumpy1's point on VHF/UHF (the really short waves) receive capability is equally important. A simple analog scanner that is a hand-held will do nicely.

In an emergency even there is a lot of radio chatter, by Amateur Radio operators, on the VHF/UHF frequencies. Power failure, and I'm on VHF/UHF to hear was happens. Even the local Electric Company has a Amateur Frequency they'll listen and respond on.

Anyway, add a cheap portable VHF/UHF scanner to your emergency radio mix.

I've got receivers and transceivers for the electro-magnetic spectrum, from DC to daylight. But my Nikon, Cannon, Pentax and Exakta do better at the daylight end than my ICOM's, Yaesu's and Elecraft's. Radio's and Camera's are a real incurable disease.

It looks like it uses the same power supply as a Sony Walkman Discman, if that helps.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Genuin...7:g:tRgAAOSw3YNXZOrc