Joe and everybody,

Thanks so much for explaining the options I have and some of
the fundamentals. I have some more
questions and comments:

What do you think about Grundig 550?

The Sony unit that lots of people like appears to have a smallish
speaker. I just read about a KA2100 model that looks interesting.

Kaito PLL Synthesized Dual Conversion AM/FM Shortwave Radio, KA2100
at http://www.amazon.com/Kaito-Synthesi.../dp/B000HOJN3O

The KA2100 appears to have SSB.

As far as any unit I buy,
the keypad sounds very convenient, but can live without, as I have
always lived without one.

No immediate plans to get into Ham Radio. I can't remember if you
have to do morse code or not, still. I know somebody who did Ham
when they were a kid and learned code and was eventually able
to get a very good rig and talk to people around the world.

What would really be cool is to find a reasonably priced desk top
SW receiver that was built into a stereo receiver. I have an ancient
receiver that is almost dead (Sansui 771) and it would be cool to buy
a new stereo receiver with shortwave reception, but have not seen
anything like that :-)

Entfred



What is the advantage having a SSB?

Single Sideband (SSB) is a form of transmission by which one of the
radio wave's sideband and its carrier wave is "stripped off" the
signal. This leaves only one sideband that is actually transmitted. An
SSB-equipped radio then "reconstitutes" the signal so that the
listener can hear it. This has a great advantage in that far less
power is required to achieve equivalent distance to a standard AM
signal. It has a MAJOR disadvantage in that it is fairly difficult to
tune. This is why this transmission method had only "caught on" with
amateur (Ham) radio operators. There are very few SSB broadcast
signals (the armed forces radio-television service being the notable
exception). I do not know if your current radio can tune any of the
amateur bands; if it can, you will hear signals that sound highly
distorted (they have been compared to "Donald Duck") and which cannot
be understood at all. If your radio were to be equipped with SSB, you
would be able to switch it in and listen to the signals.

It is a complication in operation and most people do not need or even
want it. If you later decided that you wanted to listen to Ham
transmissions, you would need a more complicated (and expensive)
radio. The Degen radios that have been mentioned here DO feature SSB
reception as do some other radios in the price range in which you are
interested but in ALL cases these radios just do not have the build
quality (or apparent longevity) of the Sony model. (Others reading
this will disagree with me but the Degen radios, such as the '1103,
have not been on the market long enough to know just how long they
will give problem-free service. The Sony shortwave radios have
excellent track records.)

I hope the above has been helpful to you. Please do not hesitate to
ask any further questions you may have.

Best,

Joe