"Richard" wrote in message
...


Yep.

Reading some comments about the Sony ICFM33RDS, and the bit I text I
quoted
to start the thread, I've somehow got the impression that many modern
portable PL sets are "rap" with a capital "C"on FM. Radio Shack DX-397
and
the Sony 7600GR quoted as not being that good. Not sure how expensive
these
radios are, but, the ICFM33RDS is only£35, so maybe poorish FM
performance
is to be expected for this set. If I pay say £80 or £100 for a PLL
radio,
maybe FM performance would get to as good as the old Grundig. I don't
want
the RX to be deaf on FM, or have images from localstations all over
the
band.

My DX 440 is a PLL portable and it's a good FM DXer, although I rarely
get to FM DX due to the crowed frequencies here. I was picking up a
small station, maybe 5kW or less, almost 200 miles away when conditions
were good.

Shirt pocket portables have some problems the larger portables don't.
Most small portables use the headphone cord as an antenna. The antenna
may be off it's ideal length. Stretching the cord out straight makes it
a better antenna and a poorer headphone cord.

Small portables have to use small batteries, so power consumption
becomes an important issue. It's a bit of an oversimplification, but a
RF stage which operates a high power is less prone to overloading than a
RF stage which operates on minimal power. The power consumption issue
becomes more important on radios which use power hungry PLL circuits.
So I suppose small PLL radios might starve the RF amp to preserve the
batteries. But that's just speculation.

I wonder then if I need double conversion on FM.I bet ICFM33RDS is not
double. Thats actually just a two band RX. I probably should spend a
bit
more and go for worldband. I vacillate between worldband and not
worldband.
:c)


The normal 10.7 Mhz IF is OK. You'll get an extra set of images with
each conversion. A poorly done double conversion radio is worse than a
single conversion radio.

You might want to consider radios larger than shirt pocket size. In my
expirence, the larger portables are the better performers.





Frank Dresser