http://www.home.earthlink.net/%7Esrw...rundig-100.htm

"FM? Whazzat?

After 25+ years in that business, we no longer listen to any FM
broadcasting. Why; when we have 9,000 classical CDs, an eight-foot grand
piano, a Yamaha Clavinova, and a harpsichord?! In order to be useful to
readers who might, however, want to know about the FM performance, we did
tune to the band and TRY to pick up a station. Surely the only one we would
ever want to hear, from our home in San Jose, would be classical KDFC,
102.1, in San Francisco. It was absolutely unreceivable. Ditto via the Radio
Shack DX-397; and there is almost no trace of it either using the Sony
7600GR.

But a late-60's Grundig Music-Boy germanium transistor radio (original
manual at left) picks it up quite clearly! This shows the sad deterioration
of FM radio design over the decades; the old discrete-component radio, with
excellent selectivity, could pull KDFC out of the hiss and mush; the new
ones, with their short whip aerials and IC cookbook designs, just did not
have the power and discrimination."


I'm wanting a pockety sized PLL radio that will, on FM performance, actually
equal, at least an, old Grundig radio for sensitivity, cross-modulation and
image rejection!

This web site lists some of the best portable fm receivers:

http://www.geocities.com/toddemslie/...sedbydxers.htm

I have found the best fm stereo dx setup to be a combination of a
small rooftop antenna with rotor and a stand alone FM tuner like the
Denon TU1500.

http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=15-2163

http://www.fmsystems.net/sp_tu1500.htm

Jim

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 18:07:15 -0000, "Richard"
wrote:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/%7Esrw...rundig-100.htm

"FM? Whazzat?

After 25+ years in that business, we no longer listen to any FM
broadcasting. Why; when we have 9,000 classical CDs, an eight-foot grand
piano, a Yamaha Clavinova, and a harpsichord?! In order to be useful to
readers who might, however, want to know about the FM performance, we did
tune to the band and TRY to pick up a station. Surely the only one we would
ever want to hear, from our home in San Jose, would be classical KDFC,
102.1, in San Francisco. It was absolutely unreceivable. Ditto via the Radio
Shack DX-397; and there is almost no trace of it either using the Sony
7600GR.

But a late-60's Grundig Music-Boy germanium transistor radio (original
manual at left) picks it up quite clearly! This shows the sad deterioration
of FM radio design over the decades; the old discrete-component radio, with
excellent selectivity, could pull KDFC out of the hiss and mush; the new
ones, with their short whip aerials and IC cookbook designs, just did not
have the power and discrimination."


I'm wanting a pockety sized PLL radio that will, on FM performance, actually
equal, at least an, old Grundig radio for sensitivity, cross-modulation and
image rejection!

"R.F. Collins" wrote in message
...
This web site lists some of the best portable fm receivers:


http://www.geocities.com/toddemslie/...sedbydxers.htm

I have found the best fm stereo dx setup to be a combination of a
small rooftop antenna with rotor and a stand alone FM tuner like the
Denon TU1500.


http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=15-2163

http://www.fmsystems.net/sp_tu1500.htm

Jim

I should have put portable in the subject header!

I'm also thinking in terms of the worldband portable as well!

What resonated with me, is the idea that FM performance of many of your PLL
portables, worldband or not, cannot even match a late 1960's Grundig.

If you scroll down on the first link, there is a section on portables.
The Panasonic is no longer made. The Yacht Boy 400 is still in
production and the Satellit 700 is now the 800 but these should give
you idea as to who manufactures the best FM portable.

Jim

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 20:54:23 -0000, "Richard"
wrote:


"R.F. Collins" wrote in message
.. .
This web site lists some of the best portable fm receivers:


http://www.geocities.com/toddemslie/...sedbydxers.htm

I have found the best fm stereo dx setup to be a combination of a
small rooftop antenna with rotor and a stand alone FM tuner like the
Denon TU1500.


http://www.radioshack.com/product.as...t%5Fid=15-2163

http://www.fmsystems.net/sp_tu1500.htm

Jim

I should have put portable in the subject header!

I'm also thinking in terms of the worldband portable as well!

What resonated with me, is the idea that FM performance of many of your PLL
portables, worldband or not, cannot even match a late 1960's Grundig.

R.F. Collins wrote:
If you scroll down on the first link, there is a section on portables.
The Panasonic is no longer made. The Yacht Boy 400 is still in
production and the Satellit 700 is now the 800 but these should give
you idea as to who manufactures the best FM portable.

Jim

Are you trying to say there's some connection between the Satellit 700
and the 800, or just that the 800 is a good FM DX portable, in the same
league as the 700? The radios are of course unrelated. I don't know
anything about the 800 except what I read on the net, and I don't recall
having read anything extreme one way or the other about its performance
on FM, but the 700 is one great FM radio.

"Larry Ozarow" wrote in message
...
R.F. Collins wrote:
If you scroll down on the first link, there is a section on portables.
The Panasonic is no longer made. The Yacht Boy 400 is still in
production and the Satellit 700 is now the 800 but these should give
you idea as to who manufactures the best FM portable.

Jim

Are you trying to say there's some connection between the Satellit 700
and the 800, or just that the 800 is a good FM DX portable, in the same
league as the 700? The radios are of course unrelated. I don't know
anything about the 800 except what I read on the net, and I don't recall
having read anything extreme one way or the other about its performance
on FM, but the 700 is one great FM radio.


I've put narrower IF filters in my Sat 800 and the result is quite
impressive on FM. Good sensitivity with the whip antenna, handles a larger
antenna well (actually better than most radios I've tried on FM). Definately
worth considering for FM DX if you limit yourself to radios actully in
production.

craigm

"Richard" wrote in message
...
http://www.home.earthlink.net/%7Esrw...rundig-100.htm


Holy Moly!! Two images on a single conversion radio!!!

I'd ask Major Armstrong what's happening here, but he checked out before
I checked in and my old pal, Fred Terman, has been quite silent over the
last couple of decades, or so.

Is there a mathmetical formula for this image frequency stuff?

Please tell me how this happens, oh wise one!


"By now, we had also acquired a Grundig FR-200 "crank" radio, which has
the typical problems of other single-conversion Grundigs we've tested,
such as the Model 350: noticeable and very irritating images on the
broadcast and SW bands, 910 kHz above or below the proper station
frequency. This means, for example, no less than THREE instances of
"WWV, 10 MHz": one below, one on, and one above the correct frequency.
And stations that are very strong cause hetrodynes when their images
land right on top of one you want to tune in."

Frank "Trailer Park" Dresser

This is a common problem with single conversion. If your front end is
too sensitive as on some Grundigs, you can overload the IF and get a
mixing product generated at 2 x IF frequency (455kHz) = 910 kHz. This
gives you the image at 910kHz above and below the actual frequency.
This is why more expensive radios are dual and triple conversion.

Jim

On Wed, 31 Dec 2003 19:38:56 GMT, "Frank Dresser"
wrote:


"Richard" wrote in message
...
http://www.home.earthlink.net/%7Esrw...rundig-100.htm


Holy Moly!! Two images on a single conversion radio!!!

I'd ask Major Armstrong what's happening here, but he checked out before
I checked in and my old pal, Fred Terman, has been quite silent over the
last couple of decades, or so.

Is there a mathmetical formula for this image frequency stuff?

Please tell me how this happens, oh wise one!


"By now, we had also acquired a Grundig FR-200 "crank" radio, which has
the typical problems of other single-conversion Grundigs we've tested,
such as the Model 350: noticeable and very irritating images on the
broadcast and SW bands, 910 kHz above or below the proper station
frequency. This means, for example, no less than THREE instances of
"WWV, 10 MHz": one below, one on, and one above the correct frequency.
And stations that are very strong cause hetrodynes when their images
land right on top of one you want to tune in."

Frank "Trailer Park" Dresser

"R.F. Collins" wrote in message
...
This is a common problem with single conversion. If your front end is
too sensitive as on some Grundigs, you can overload the IF and get a
mixing product generated at 2 x IF frequency (455kHz) = 910 kHz. This
gives you the image at 910kHz above and below the actual frequency.
This is why more expensive radios are dual and triple conversion.

Jim



Images have nothing to do with overloading.

I read the linked web page and it says:

"Earlier in the year 2003, we made the mistake of taking seriously some
very enthusiastic posts on rec.radio.shortwave -- "the trailer-park
shortwave newsgroup" according to one of our acquaintances -- by
dim-wits who were overjoyed with a ten-dollar multiband radio with the
unexpected brand name "Bell & Howell""

"dim-wits"? "the trailer-park shortwave newsgroup" ?

As far as images go, there's only one. The signal mixes with the local
oscillator. Either the sum or difference signal is the desired signal.
The other signal is the image.

There may be other false signals from oscillator harmonics. But these
will be totally out of band, even VHF signals.

The page's insults and cheap shots on cheap radios continue:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~srw-s...rundig-100.htm

It's just one crackpot's opinion, but I find insult humor unimaginative.

There's is a another image at the bottom of the page:

"by Steve Waldee, retired broadcast consultant, AM-FM transmitter
engineer, and audio specialist;"

If the original poster is still reading this, I'll suggest the problem
with FM DXing has little to do with PLLs and more to do with stereo. It
takes a lot more signal to get adaquate quieting with FM stereo.

I used to receive a Green Bay public radio station from Chicago with a
DX-440 on a semiregular basis. No more, the local stations around 88 -
89 Mhz are broadcasting almost full time now.

All the radios on the webpage, aside from the old Grundig, were bottom
end in both price and performance. There might be a pattern there.

Frank "trailer park" Dresser

"Frank Dresser" wrote in message

I read the linked web page and it says:

"Earlier in the year 2003, we made the mistake of taking seriously some
very enthusiastic posts on rec.radio.shortwave -- "the trailer-park
shortwave newsgroup" according to one of our acquaintances -- by
dim-wits who were overjoyed with a ten-dollar multiband radio with the
unexpected brand name "Bell & Howell""

"dim-wits"? "the trailer-park shortwave newsgroup" ?

Who is the *real* dimwit here? You would have to be the original
dimwit to really expect a $10 radio to actually be very useful. Good
grief...I've never seen one, even the picture, and I know it sucks
just from the description. They DO NOT build good shortwave radios and
sell them for $10. I have to good sense not to believe
otherwise...Mamma didn't raise no "trailer park" fool.




The page's insults and cheap shots on cheap radios continue:

"clipped from that site"...
If someone posts an enthusiastic comment about one particular brand of
sw radio or scanner, this is immediately "rebutted" (allegedly) by
those who disagree. This is, as I state in my Icom articles, a futile
act. Everyone is entitled to the enjoyment of the hobby and to
appreciate his or her own radio. By telling an enthusiast that his
"radio is bad" or that his or her taste is faulty, nothing positive is
accomplished....

OK, let me get this right...He's complaining because no one would say
the B@H was a piece of dime store junk, but now he's complaining
because some might or did in other cases with other brand
radios...Hell, I think most all portables are basically junk. I've
never seen one that was really worth a hoot for anything serious. I
wouldn't buy any of them. That's my opinion, and I'm sticking to it. I
don't care if I'm chased out of this house, and forced to a trailer
park to live next door to the guy that wrote that web page. Normally,
I never comment on specific radios, unless it's a question on own I
actually own. I realize not all people need radios that cost several
hundred dollars or more to listen to VOA or whatever. I don't normally
comment on other peoples radios, unless they start developing
incorrect delusions regarding some aspect of it's performance, and
even that is rare. I know the B@H would be useless to me, but there is
no point on raining on someone elses parade just to act radio
snobbish. That's why I never add to threads like that. If the poster
likes the thing, more power to him. He's certainly a lot less lighter
in the pocket than I am with my various models. MK