For the last 40+ years, I've listened to shortwave with the same
receiver, an old Hallicrafters S-108 that I bought when I was 12 years
old.

I recently moved it out to my workshop (making the wife happy to have
it out of the house), hung a 200' longwire antenna through the trees,
and began listening more often than I used to do.

The old radio still sounds good, and it brings the BBC and Havana in
pretty strong, but trying to listen to anything other than the strong
stations is frustrating. The reception drifts, and I never really
know what frequency I've got. I can guess somewhere in the ballpark,
but that's about it.

Yesterday I started looking on ebay for receivers, wanting something
non-portable with digital tuning. I think I'm now more confused than
anything.

I don't need or want anything state of the art or expensive, just
something workable that has better frequency identification.

Any suggestions on what to look for, and maybe just as important,
anything to definitely avoid? Cost is a factor (the economy has gone
downhill here, as well), so buying a new unit is not an option.

I appreciate any suggestions or input y'all can offer.

On Wed, 8 Apr 2009, AllenMcB wrote:

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 08:28:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: AllenMcB
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.equipment
Subject: Looking for newer SW receiver with digital tuning

For the last 40+ years, I've listened to shortwave with the same
receiver, an old Hallicrafters S-108 that I bought when I was 12 years
old.

I recently moved it out to my workshop (making the wife happy to have
it out of the house), hung a 200' longwire antenna through the trees,
and began listening more often than I used to do.

The old radio still sounds good, and it brings the BBC and Havana in
pretty strong, but trying to listen to anything other than the strong
stations is frustrating. The reception drifts, and I never really
know what frequency I've got. I can guess somewhere in the ballpark,
but that's about it.

Yesterday I started looking on ebay for receivers, wanting something
non-portable with digital tuning. I think I'm now more confused than
anything.

I don't need or want anything state of the art or expensive, just
something workable that has better frequency identification.

Any suggestions on what to look for, and maybe just as important,
anything to definitely avoid? Cost is a factor (the economy has gone
downhill here, as well), so buying a new unit is not an option.

I appreciate any suggestions or input y'all can offer.

I bought a Grundig G5 about a year ago from Radio Shack.

About the size of two king size cigarette packages, digital readout, and
almost intuitive to operate with push buttons, and is readout to one kc,
and there is a vernier tuning for SSB and CW. Built in BFO is turned on
and off with a button, and you can tune very accurately. PLL means
basically zero drift. 2 foot telescoping antenna, can pick up almost
anything in HF range. Tunes 150 kc to 29,999 khz. But has a lot of birdies
(but that shouldn't affect much). At the time it was $150 and some places
you can get it for $100. Built in S-meter, etc. Also does FM band as well
as AM and HF. For what it is, I think its a pretty good deal.

What made the deal for me was they had one in a Radio Shack store, with
batteries, and I spent ten minutes playing with it and was able to figure
out how to use it (at the basic level) without reading the manual. Could
not hear much because of all the noise made by all the other junk, but
after I bought one and took it home to quiet home environment, I could
hear just about anything my base ham transciever could hear except for the
weakest signals.

Hi,

Eton E5. Spectacular sensitivity and wicked selectivity in a portable.
$150.

Another fellow mentioned a G5 from Grundig he got at RS. AFAIK, they are
the same rig inside.

Cheers!

On Apr 8, 9:54*pm, Stray Dog wrote:

I bought a Grundig G5 about a year ago from Radio Shack.

About the size of two king size cigarette packages, digital readout, and
almost intuitive to operate with push buttons, and is readout to one kc,
and there is a vernier tuning for SSB and CW. Built in BFO is turned on
and off with a button, and you can tune very accurately.

Can you attach an external antenna to it?

I've seen the little SW receivers on ebay, and they all look like the
old portable transistor radios to me. I realize a lot has changed, so
please tell me: After listening to the old Hallicrafters all these
years, how is the small receiver going to sound? Will it receive as
many stations as the old boat anchor I've been using?

On Apr 9, 12:01*am, geek wrote:
Hi,

Eton E5. Spectacular sensitivity and wicked selectivity in a portable.
$150.


The Etons I've seen are wind-up chargers, made mostly for emergency
use. Is this the same Eton setup?

On Apr 9, 12:01*am, geek wrote:

Another fellow mentioned a G5 from Grundig he got at RS. AFAIK, they are
the same rig inside.

I just read reviews on the E5/G5 at http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/6815..
I think I'm looking for something that's not designed to be portable,
that will accept an external antenna, and that doesn't use batteries.

Thanks for the suggestion, though. I learned a good bit reading about
these.

AllenMcB wrote:

Thanks for the suggestion, though. I learned a good bit reading about
these.

http://www.rffun.com/catalog/commrxvr.html

http://www.rffun.com/used/used2.html

The R1000 was sold, but there were several R1000, R2000, R5000.

The R5000, and maybe the others has a Yahoo group ask there
about them before you buy one.

http://radio.tentec.com/amateur/receivers/RX320D

Possibly the best of the radios that are run by a PC.
(no controls on the radio).

FYI: Grundig is a European manufacturer of radios who sold out their
line to Eaton. In some places current production is sold as Grundig in
others, the same radios are sold as Eaton. Grundig also made a line of
very good shortwave desktops.

Another good used radio is the Drake SW8,
http://www.rffun.com/catalog/commrxvr/0088.html

BTW, almost every ham radio transceiver made since 1985 has had a general
coverage receiver. Many of them require an added AM filter to recieve
shortwave broadcasts. Even with the price of the added filter, they make
excelent desktop shortwave receivers.

73,

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

On Thu, 9 Apr 2009 02:54:39 +0000, Stray Dog wrote:

On Wed, 8 Apr 2009, AllenMcB wrote:

Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 08:28:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: AllenMcB
Newsgroups: rec.radio.amateur.equipment
Subject: Looking for newer SW receiver with digital tuning

For the last 40+ years, I've listened to shortwave with the same
receiver, an old Hallicrafters S-108 that I bought when I was 12 years
old.

I recently moved it out to my workshop (making the wife happy to have
it out of the house), hung a 200' longwire antenna through the trees,
and began listening more often than I used to do.

The old radio still sounds good, and it brings the BBC and Havana in
pretty strong, but trying to listen to anything other than the strong
stations is frustrating. The reception drifts, and I never really
know what frequency I've got. I can guess somewhere in the ballpark,
but that's about it.

Yesterday I started looking on ebay for receivers, wanting something
non-portable with digital tuning.

If you're talking used, the Grundig Satellit 700 would fit the bill.
About the size of a college pyhsics text book and runs off of batteries
or a 12VDC wall wart. Has a telescoping antenna and a external antenna
connector. Lots of extra features -- like SSB and a synchronous
detector.

(Yep, that's the way it's spelled: "Satellit".)

HTH,
Jonesy
--
Marvin L Jones | jonz | W3DHJ | linux
38.24N 104.55W | @ config.com | Jonesy | OS/2
* Killfiling google & XXXXbanter.com: jonz.net/ng.htm

My recommendation is to look for an Icom R71A or Kenwood R5000. These
receivers are high end table top units.
They were the top models in the 1980's and can easily out perform any
of the portables currently produced.
These units have excellent crystal filtering, and can take optional
narrow filters. They both have passband tuning and CW
notch filters, and are stable enough to listen to AM stations in ssb
mode (exalted carrier AM reception).

In SSB mode you can listen to either the upper or lower sideband of an
AM signal, whichever has the least amount of interference,
and make use of the narrow ssb filters and passband tuning to really
dig out those weak stations.

The IcomR71A and Kenwood R5000 are very reasonably priced, and have
excellent crystal filters with several optional
filters that can still be found. I've seen R71A's with all the
optional filters go for around $300.00, and units with the stock
filters for $200.00. The Kenwood R5000's go for a bit more. The build
quality of these units far exceed the plastic radios
being produced now a days.

DonL wrote:

The IcomR71A and Kenwood R5000 are very reasonably priced, and have
excellent crystal filters with several optional
filters that can still be found. I've seen R71A's with all the
optional filters go for around $300.00, and units with the stock
filters for $200.00. The Kenwood R5000's go for a bit more. The build
quality of these units far exceed the plastic radios
being produced now a days.

There are two problems with these radios. Both are excelent choices if you
are aware of the problems and buy a radio which has had them fixed or you
consider the cost of the repair/upgrade when you buy it.

The R71 and R71a had their internal programing in battery backed up RAM.
Eventually the battery died and the radio became unusable. There were
ROM upgrade kits (where the RAM was replaced with a permanent ROM chip)
and ICOM did some sort of repair (replace battery and reprogram the
RAM).

It's well worth your time to investigate one and see. Here is a web page
I found searching the web for "ICOM R71 battery backed up RAM"

http://ronhashiro.htohananet.com/am-...-ramboard.html

The Kenwood R5000 is a different matter. The R5000 was made with certain
components "potted" with a rubber compound. This rubber compound eventually
absorbed enough water from the air to cause the radio to stop working and
eventually corrode the components it protected. This know as the "dots"
because the display shows a dot instead of each digit.

The R5000 has a RECHARGEABLE lithium battery for memory back up. It cannot
be replaced with a regular lithium battery and the front cover of the
radio must be removed to access it.

All together the removal of the potting compound, replacing and damaged
components and replacing the battery costs around $150 plus shipping.

As an estimate an R5000 that has its original battery and has not been
"fixed" is worth around $250-$350 depending upon filters and accessories.

In any case the VHF converter is worth an additional $200 on it's own.

A repaired unit is worth around $450 on up depending upon filters, accesories
and the condition.

Note that the computer interface is two parts one an add-on inside the
radio and an external ttl to RS232 level convertor. It is very limited
in what it can do.

The R5000 takes the same solder in SSB and CW filters as the TS-430,
TS-440 and TS-450, so they are fairly common. Some of them took the same
AM filter, but the R5000 version came on a circuit board while the ham
version was soldered in.

The radio includes a useable 6kHz AM filter and a 2.4kHz SSB/CW filter.
A better 6kHz AM filter was available and IRC sold a 4kHz AM filter.
You could also buy a 1.8kHz SSB filter, and 500Hz and 250Hz CW filters.

There are some limits on the number of filters, placement and combinations.

There is an R5000 Yahoo group, which is a good place to ask questions.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM