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Old March 12th 04, 09:16 PM
Corbin Ray
 
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Default New Tecsun R-333 arrived today

This was an interesting radio. I opened it up and thought it looked cool,
but when I put brand new batteries in it, it was dead. Grrr. I went home,
got out my multimeter and took the radio apart. Everything seemed normal,
and then I accidentally made the radio come on when I hit my multimeter
prong against the coils where the batteries sit. So I stretched them out,
closed up the radio, and re-installed the batteries, and it worked fine.

First, let me say this radio has nice sound. It's a cool size and shape, and
it has everything arranged just exactly where I would put them if I had
built it. One disadvantage, the owners manual and even the radio's switches
are all written in Chinese. That didn't help much when I was trying to
figure how to turn it on. But once I got the batteries properly installed
and seated, the controls were second nature.

It has a tuning knob, a fine tuning knob, and a volume knob, all on the
right side of the radio. All worked perfectly. I also tested the light and
the alarm. Again, all was fine.

The radio, like the BCL2000, is broken down into two SW bands, one MW band,
and one FM band. Coverage is not as complete however. The radio's reception
was about the same as my Tecsun R-9700DX, which I am selling on eBay. But
unlike the 9700, the 333 has horrible image rejection, especially on FM. I
was finding our two local 50kW stations all over the dial. Maybe if you
didn't live in an area with many of those such stations, it might be
alright. It picked up a few standby stations on MW and SW, nothing to get
excited about, especially since my computer is on and there's a lot of buzz
in the air right now at my house.

I'll probably keep this radio because it costs only $15 and I won't feel
guilty if I get it wet sometime or leave it in the sun too long. Don't buy
this radio to DX with. That's not the purpose of it. It's purpose is to look
cute and to serve as a cheap, battery-powered clock radio that looks cool.

By the way, here's a link to the radio at Tecsun's English site:
http://www.tecsun.com.cn/english/pro...33/main333.htm