ve3... wrote:
Over the years I have purchased way too many short wave radios, most of
which ended up in the garage. A few I keep at hand for various needs
and I thought my experience might be of interest to those bitten by the
"gotta have it" bug.
PRINCIPLES
1. There is no radio that will do everything you want.
2. You need lots of carefully chosen radios to do different things. (
show this to the wife)
3. There are many ways to sneak a new radio into the house. ("What?
this old thing? Why I have had it for years! Wives are never quite
sure as all radios look the same to them) Avoid the dreaded lament, "
You had lots of money 1982, You went and let that Collins make a fool
of you, Why don't you do right, Like the other men do, Get out of
here and get me some money too! As if I had a money tree out back or
something to fend off the incessant demands for food, rent, heat and
other things irrelevant to SWL. But I digress.

BEST ALLROUND : SONY SW7600G. Good sensitivity on SW, AM, and FM.
Clear tone. The antenna whip, and mini jacks are not robust and are
hard to fix. The synchronous detector makes all the difference under
severe fade conditions.

BEST PORTABLE: GRUNDIG S350. Good sensitivity on SW, AM and FM. Clear
tone. Handy size to grab onto and take to the yard or bath. Known as
the "shifty 350" because of its horrible drift on AM and SW.

BEST TONE: GENERAL ELECTRIC SUPERADIO II . Superb tone, excellent
sensitivity, easy to align, a bit heavy, but puts out lot of sound
outdoors. Drifts on AM. I had a GE Superadio III at one time and I
disliked it so much I gave it away. I am not sure exactly why I
disliked it, it received ok, and sounded good, but the tuning was like
skating on thin ice. And it was very tricky to align.

BEST OLD ANALOG: GRUNDIG YACHT BOY206: Near the last of the
European-made SW radios. sensitive, all the SW bands nicely bandspread
for easy tuning, compact, good tone, long battery life, quiet circuits,
really all that is needed for SW listening. I use it to scan the bands
quickly.

BEST MINI: ETON E100: Good for walks or to slip in a pocket. Sensitive,
clear tone, state of the art, tiny push buttons, complicated menus, a
remarkable no compromise miniature. The only trouble is that it is so
small I tend to lose it.

If it is possible to limit your SW radio collection to five radios,
these would be a good long-term selection
But I must go. My wife has arrived and is demanding to know why I am
wasting my time on this thing when there are 3749 chores to do and her
mother was right: I am a good for nothing lazy layabout bum and she
should have married Raoul who became a lawyer AND a doctorl and I must
think of an answer which is difficult because she is probably right.
In haste and 73

There have been so many good portables, portatops and tabletops in the
past 30 years that coming up with a consensus list would be all but
impossible.

For sheer audio quality the old Panasonic RF5000b would be very hard to
beat on any band. And I'll leave my list there.