"McMansion" wrote in message
...
By the way, as I also listen to a lot of MW, I'd be curious to know
what you think are the shortwaves with the best MW reception.


The Yaesu FRG 7 and FRG 7000 are quite nice on MW. Although yaesu's more
recent models (7700,8800 & 100) are quite poor in comparison.

On many (most?) shortwave radios the MW, FM and sometimes LW sections seem
to be added almost as an afterthrough - or as if most of the budget has gone
into the shortwave section but the marketing drones seem to think that the
radio has to have those bands as well - so the cheapest nastiest AM and FM
sections are tacked on. I'd prefer it if they left them out.

McMansion wrote:
I recently bought a Sony shortwave 7600GR and am pretty happy with it.
(As those of you who own this unit know, the speaker could have been
better, but what the hey) .... Anyway, the thing is, the AM reception
on this shortwave is no better -- actually, a little worse -- than the
AM reception with my $10 sony pocket radio (the new one).

The synch detection pulls in many a difficult station on the 7600GR;
the MW band isn't mostly a place of weak signals but of interference.

Both benefit from a MW loop antenna in the daytime, but the 7600GR
most of all because it can reject adjacent stations.
--
Ron Hardin


On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk.

Subject: MW reception Sony 7600GR vs Sony pocket radio
From: McMansion
Date: 1/31/2004 4:47 PM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id:

I figured this was the place to write an observation ...

I recently bought a Sony shortwave 7600GR and am pretty happy with it.
(As those of you who own this unit know, the speaker could have been
better, but what the hey) .... Anyway, the thing is, the AM reception
on this shortwave is no better -- actually, a little worse -- than the
AM reception with my $10 sony pocket radio (the new one).

- An external Loop antenna will help..
even a cheap one ( Radio Shack used to make one)
this is true of ANY radio, shortwave, MW, etc..

McMansion schrieb:

I figured this was the place to write an observation ...

I recently bought a Sony shortwave 7600GR and am pretty happy with it.
(As those of you who own this unit know, the speaker could have been
better, but what the hey) .... Anyway, the thing is, the AM reception
on this shortwave is no better -- actually, a little worse -- than the
AM reception with my $10 sony pocket radio (the new one).

That's interesting, since this receiver reportedly has about the best MW
reception in its class. A MW frame antenna should help there.

Don't that strike y'all as odd to say the least?

By the way, as I also listen to a lot of MW, I'd be curious to know
what you think are the shortwaves with the best MW reception.

Well, an AR7030 with a good MW frame should yield quite acceptable
results... Actually, just about any receiver with low noise levels,
decent filters and otherwise well laid out circuitry should do. The old
Panasonic RF-2200 seems to be a favorite among MW DXers also due to its
rotatable MW antenna, too bad it apparently wasn't sold in big numbers
over here. (The RF-2800 does appear on Ebay once in a while.)

Stephan
--
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This post may be a little late (only about 3 years) but still may have relevance.

To the OP, are you sure the reception on the ten dollar radio is as good as you may think it is? For instance, will it take the same amount of strong signal before saturating the front end. This can be a very big factor for many people but not at all important to others, all depending on where you use it. The 7600GR seems to have a very good dynamic range to me but you will never know it until you are in a position to overload the front end, such as being near powerful MW transmitters or using a 200' longwire antenna is search of the elusive weak DX station. Will the $10 receiver handle this as well as the expensive receiver.

As for well laid out circuitry, I don't know how you could pick a radio by looking at its schematic. Any number of components could be altered slightly and turn a good RX into a terrible RX or vice versa and you would have know way of knowing that by looking at component values.

Reading many opinions on a given receiver is about the best way to choose. Then once you have yours, and if you think it is not performing as well as others think that model should, the next thing to do would be to compare it with another one. If that is not an option you might set up some tests that you can have others repeat and see if you get the same results. The tests could be to devise a simple transmitter at a MW frequency and see how far away your miliwatter can be placed and till heard at all, or turn on the TUNE indicator. Then send your TXMTR to a friend and have him do the same, under all the same conditions of course. There are lots of ways to do comparisons long distance so to speak.

You can make a transmitter out of something as simple as a 555 timer I.C. and 3 resistors and 2 capacitors and a battery. Don't use a plug in power supply as then you would be introducing an antenna that is not the same at one installation as another.