Category Archives: Receivers

Tecsun S-8800 SSB Portable

Posted on March 24, 2017 by | 1 comment

S-8800-English-Manual Here is a new portable receiver to be released shortly by Tecsun Australia.  It receives SSB, has a multitude of filter options and has external antenna connections. Full coverage.

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Tecsun PL-365 SSB Portable

Posted on March 20, 2017 by | Comments Off on Tecsun PL-365 SSB Portable

PL-365-MANUAL There has been recent interest in portable receivers. This is quite a nifty little portable with external MW connection. It is the SSB equivalent of the Tecsun PL-360 with a new DSP chip. Available ex Australia. It is understood to be the same design as the U.S.A. County Comm GP-5/SSB Handheld AM FM SW Radio Receiver which was designed as a low cost unit for military and similar uses.

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Antennas For FM DX

Posted on December 27, 2016 by | 2 comments

There are commercially available antennas still for sale in New Zealand. Matchmaster have a 3-element and 5-element single dipole design.

However to cover 20MHz of bandwidth for FM (88-108MHz) a single dipole design liek the Matchmaster will really struggle, with performance falling off the further from its design frequency you tune. So a combo yagi which is a hybrid log periodic yagi and standard yagi, sometimes called a “logyag” is a good way to go. It has 3 dipole elements, one cut for the lower portion, one for the middle and one for the top of the FM band giving much more even performance. There are also optimised yagi designs available on K6STI’s excellent site.

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The 2015-2016 Shortwave Radio Buyer’s Guide

Posted on December 4, 2015 by | Comments Off on The 2015-2016 Shortwave Radio Buyer’s Guide

ccrane1Thanks to the SWLing Post, the latest buyers guide can be viewed here. The trend away from conventional knob and button radios to software black boxes continues, and there are hybrids of both to tempt you too.

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The Dreaded “Sealed Set”

Posted on July 28, 2014 by | Comments Off on The Dreaded “Sealed Set”

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Historical article:

SEALED SET SCHEME

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We feel sure DX’ers would not have appreciated the sealed set scheme, used for a time during 1924. To overcome the financial problem, a listener was able to purchase a set, enabling him to receive signals from one station only. The listener was able to choose the station to which he wished to listen, and was compelled to pay a licence fee to the station to which his receiver was tuned. Stations asked their own fees, by the way.

This is a preview of The Dreaded “Sealed Set”. Read the full post (206 words, 2 images, estimated 49 secs reading time)

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Tecsun Releases New PL-880 Portable

Posted on December 30, 2013 by | 4 comments

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Thanks to Tony King for passing along news of a new portable on offer from Tecsun. And if you don’t like those narrow, fiddly tuning knobs of most portables, this will be on your present list!

Here’s an excellent review and plenty more info from the SWL Info blog.

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In the Market for a New “Pre-loved” Receiver?

Posted on August 2, 2013 by | 5 comments

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In New Zealand, the majority of used shortwave radios are bought and sold via the on-line auction site TradeMe.

But which of them are cherries and which are lemons? There is a useful guide on the dxing.com website. The list of receivers rated appear on this list. The receivers ratings using ‘H’s instead of stars, seem to reflect general opinion as far as the tried and true experience of NZ DXers goes, with one exception. The Yaesu FRG7 receives a top-rank, however they pale in comparison to the actual performance of even some HHH rated sets.

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Hot Rod Your Ultralight For MW DX!

Posted on July 31, 2013 by | Comments Off on Hot Rod Your Ultralight For MW DX!

John Bryant at Grayland DXpedition (credit: dxing.info)

John Bryant (sadly no longer with us) penned many useful and practical technical articles for DXers looking to eke the extra out of their radios and antennas.

Here is an article showing how to add an external MW antenna to your Tecsun/Degen radio.

Luckily for us, John’s articles live on thanks to the internet.

John’s obituary on dxer.ca web site.

 

 

 

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Posted in Antennas, Receivers, Technical