I bought a RatShack DX-392 shortwave set from a thrift shop for $3.
They couldn't get it to work because they didn't see the clock
batteries (AA cells) in the bottom of it....(c;

The radio works great and is a nice hot receiver for something without
proper sideband filters in it. It's only problem is the BFO is about
3Khz off frequency, so you have to tune the receiver off frequency to
get the BFO injection in the right place to receive sideband. It's
VERY stable, amazingly enough, and will stay on freq for hours
monitoring hams and NY Radio on 8.9 Mhz to planes over the Atlantic.

Does anyone have access to the service manual Radio Shack tells me
USED to exist, but is no longer available? I can't find any
adjustment to center up the BFO in it but there's gotta be a way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even the way it is it was a
helluva bargain....(c;



Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....

Like the DX-390 its TC3 on the board, it not accessible.
Without a test jig the screws on the outer board must come off, the PCB
flipped up just enough to access it with the set powered ON
I DO NOT recommend this if your a rookie !
Center the BF at 12 O'clock and Tune to WWW and adjust TCP-3 for a zero
beat.

Joe


"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
I bought a RatShack DX-392 shortwave set from a thrift shop for $3.
They couldn't get it to work because they didn't see the clock
batteries (AA cells) in the bottom of it....(c;

The radio works great and is a nice hot receiver for something without
proper sideband filters in it. It's only problem is the BFO is about
3Khz off frequency, so you have to tune the receiver off frequency to
get the BFO injection in the right place to receive sideband. It's
VERY stable, amazingly enough, and will stay on freq for hours
monitoring hams and NY Radio on 8.9 Mhz to planes over the Atlantic.

Does anyone have access to the service manual Radio Shack tells me
USED to exist, but is no longer available? I can't find any
adjustment to center up the BFO in it but there's gotta be a way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even the way it is it was a
helluva bargain....(c;



Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....

On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 17:44:18 GMT, "Joe"
wrote:

Like the DX-390 its TC3 on the board, it not accessible.
Without a test jig the screws on the outer board must come off, the PCB
flipped up just enough to access it with the set powered ON
I DO NOT recommend this if your a rookie !
Center the BF at 12 O'clock and Tune to WWW and adjust TCP-3 for a zero
beat.

Joe

Thank you, Joe. I owe you one.

SSB sensitivity just went up 15 db...(c;



Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

No Problem
Yea, the early boards alignments from whoever Sangean contracted were real
"El-Stinko"
I also had to convert the AVC rectifier to a doubler to handle the big MW
stations here in the Tri State area (overloading, brash audio), I also added
a LED illumination to the display
Those filters are no beauties also, I have a DX-390 aka Sangean ATS 818.
Its still a bang for for the $$.
I have dealt with Sangean in Ca. they are hands down the nicest people to
deal with in radio since Drake n the 70's.

-Joe





"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 17:44:18 GMT, "Joe"
wrote:

Like the DX-390 its TC3 on the board, it not accessible.
Without a test jig the screws on the outer board must come off, the PCB
flipped up just enough to access it with the set powered ON
I DO NOT recommend this if your a rookie !
Center the BF at 12 O'clock and Tune to WWW and adjust TCP-3 for a zero
beat.

Joe

Thank you, Joe. I owe you one.

SSB sensitivity just went up 15 db...(c;



Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

I don't know why I bought it. There's $15K in Yaesu ham equipment
sitting idle on this desk...(c; Internet has been hell on ham radio
operations, here, for many years.

It's a nice receiver, even though RS treated it as if it were a leper
when I asked for the service manual. I'll take it to sea, Wednesday,
for some R&R on deck.

At $3, it IS a lot of bang for the buck...(c;



On Sat, 06 Mar 2004 03:28:35 GMT, "Joe"
wrote:

No Problem
Yea, the early boards alignments from whoever Sangean contracted were real
"El-Stinko"
I also had to convert the AVC rectifier to a doubler to handle the big MW
stations here in the Tri State area (overloading, brash audio), I also added
a LED illumination to the display
Those filters are no beauties also, I have a DX-390 aka Sangean ATS 818.
Its still a bang for for the $$.
I have dealt with Sangean in Ca. they are hands down the nicest people to
deal with in radio since Drake n the 70's.

-Joe



Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

The BFO on my 392 is just a little off, so I just marked on its dial where zero
is and then offset the knob either way for SSB (or CW). SSB remained in range
on the "short" side of the BFO range.

I agree the receiver is stable. I used it on fax. I tried taping the fax, but
there's a slight difference in motor speed between record and play, which
causes thefax display to skew. I never got around to poking inside and
correcting or changing one of the speeds.

Those AAs below the Ds also save the memory and power the control circuits.
When they're dead, nothing happens.

Bill, K5BY

On 06 Mar 2004 05:24:11 GMT, (WShoots1) wrote:

The BFO on my 392 is just a little off, so I just marked on its dial where zero
is and then offset the knob either way for SSB (or CW). SSB remained in range
on the "short" side of the BFO range.

To zero beat WWV on mine, you have to turn the receiver to 10.003 and
the BFO nearly full CCW. That's a wee bit too far off for fun.

I agree the receiver is stable. I used it on fax. I tried taping the fax, but
there's a slight difference in motor speed between record and play, which
causes thefax display to skew. I never got around to poking inside and
correcting or changing one of the speeds.

On the boat, I have HF-FAX software from Germany on a Dell Latitude
notebook also used for navigation. Even live, HF-FAX skews the
display to the right as the picture loads. It's usable but the
program seems to free-run, not listen to the sync pulses on each line.
I wish it used the sync pulse to make it straight.

Those AAs below the Ds also save the memory and power the control circuits.
When they're dead, nothing happens.

Those AAs were the reason it was $3...(c; The display was blank and
wouldn't show, so the thrift shop just sold it off broken. I took a
chance, as I do a lot in thrift shops.

My greatest find was a 1939 Motorola 41D battery portable AM radio in
the same shop. I paid $20 for it, as is. Every part in it is
ORIGINAL, even the tubes! It's 4 tubes now run on a pair of alkaline
D cells for filaments and eleven 9V alkaline batteries clipped
end-to-end for B+. From Charleston, SC, I can hear Central American
AM stations on its big open loop antenna around the entire back of its
leatherette-covered wooden case.

Because there are no more radio station on the AM hate radio band, I
have an Archos Studio 20 20GB hard drive MP3 player driving a little
computer speaker amp that runs off 4 AA Ni-MH batteries inside the
battery compartment, connected to the radio's original 4" speaker.
Load the Archos with old time radio shows from the 1930-40 era and
watch the eyes of the old folks who hear it playing music and radio
shows that were playing on it when it was a "new radio" in 1939.
Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey sound better played on a real
radio...(c;



Bill, K5BY


Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 17:27:51 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

I bought a RatShack DX-392 shortwave set from a thrift shop for $3.
They couldn't get it to work because they didn't see the clock
batteries (AA cells) in the bottom of it....(c;

The radio works great and is a nice hot receiver for something without
proper sideband filters in it. It's only problem is the BFO is about
3Khz off frequency, so you have to tune the receiver off frequency to
get the BFO injection in the right place to receive sideband. It's
VERY stable, amazingly enough, and will stay on freq for hours
monitoring hams and NY Radio on 8.9 Mhz to planes over the Atlantic.

Does anyone have access to the service manual Radio Shack tells me
USED to exist, but is no longer available? I can't find any
adjustment to center up the BFO in it but there's gotta be a way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even the way it is it was a
helluva bargain....(c;



Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....

here is a link to the operators manual...matbe it will help

http://support.radioshack.com/suppor...oc62/62173.pdf

Tracy

Thank you, too, Tracy. Wonder why, after 30 minutes of searching
through the office, my big RS store couldn't point me to this website.
Now, maybe, I can figure out some of its queer timer functions and how
to get the recorder recording the radio, not the microphone...(c;



On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 15:21:31 -0500, Tracy Fort
wrote:

On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 17:27:51 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

I bought a RatShack DX-392 shortwave set from a thrift shop for $3.
They couldn't get it to work because they didn't see the clock
batteries (AA cells) in the bottom of it....(c;

The radio works great and is a nice hot receiver for something without
proper sideband filters in it. It's only problem is the BFO is about
3Khz off frequency, so you have to tune the receiver off frequency to
get the BFO injection in the right place to receive sideband. It's
VERY stable, amazingly enough, and will stay on freq for hours
monitoring hams and NY Radio on 8.9 Mhz to planes over the Atlantic.

Does anyone have access to the service manual Radio Shack tells me
USED to exist, but is no longer available? I can't find any
adjustment to center up the BFO in it but there's gotta be a way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even the way it is it was a
helluva bargain....(c;



Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....

here is a link to the operators manual...matbe it will help

http://support.radioshack.com/suppor...oc62/62173.pdf

Tracy


Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!

10 cents he get the UST and local timers backwards.
- Joe


"Larry W4CSC" wrote in message
Thank you, too, Tracy. Wonder why, after 30 minutes of searching
through the office, my big RS store couldn't point me to this website.
Now, maybe, I can figure out some of its queer timer functions and how
to get the recorder recording the radio, not the microphone...(c;



On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 15:21:31 -0500, Tracy Fort
wrote:

On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 17:27:51 GMT, (Larry W4CSC) wrote:

I bought a RatShack DX-392 shortwave set from a thrift shop for $3.
They couldn't get it to work because they didn't see the clock
batteries (AA cells) in the bottom of it....(c;

The radio works great and is a nice hot receiver for something without
proper sideband filters in it. It's only problem is the BFO is about
3Khz off frequency, so you have to tune the receiver off frequency to
get the BFO injection in the right place to receive sideband. It's
VERY stable, amazingly enough, and will stay on freq for hours
monitoring hams and NY Radio on 8.9 Mhz to planes over the Atlantic.

Does anyone have access to the service manual Radio Shack tells me
USED to exist, but is no longer available? I can't find any
adjustment to center up the BFO in it but there's gotta be a way.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Even the way it is it was a
helluva bargain....(c;



Larry W4CSC

No, no, Scotty! I said, "Beam me a wrench.", not a WENCH!
Kirk Out.....

here is a link to the operators manual...matbe it will help

http://support.radioshack.com/suppor...oc62/62173.pdf

Tracy


Larry W4CSC
POWER is our friend!