I received my newest cheap Chinese portable today, a Tecsun R9700DX, and I
was very disappointed. It was packaged nicely and it arrived on time, but
the radio wasn't much of a performer. I tried all the bands, and at no time
did it seem to be very sensitive.Even when I tried to listen to Rush on our
local AM, I seemed to have trouble tuning the radio right in the middle of
the carrier wave.

I like the size and sound ok, even though I could get the radio to distort
fairly easily by turning it up over half way on a local FM station. It's not
very ergonomic, hiding the power switch at the bottom of the left side
panel. The tuning knob seemed to be a bit tight, but felt solid. The volume
control was a slider control, and even though I would rather have a knob, my
first radio had a slider, and I thought that would be a neat feature on this
radio. I didn't do much for me.

I've put the radio back in the box. If I had bought it at my local Wal-Mart,
I would take it back. If it was worth $100, I might sell it on eBay. But
since I spent only $27.90 for the radio, it's not worth sending back to
Liypn nor listing it on eBay.

You mirror my thoughts EXACTLY. I just got mine 3 days ago. (YAWN)
I have the much touted Degen 1102 due here any day. I have a sneaky feeling
that it also will be less than the hype surrounding it. As an aside:
No, I am not expecting Drake performance out of any of the cheapies. It
would be nice if some of them lived up to the hype...



"Corbin Ray" wrote in message
...
I received my newest cheap Chinese portable today, a Tecsun R9700DX, and I
was very disappointed. It was packaged nicely and it arrived on time, but
the radio wasn't much of a performer. I tried all the bands, and at no
time
did it seem to be very sensitive.Even when I tried to listen to Rush on
our
local AM, I seemed to have trouble tuning the radio right in the middle of
the carrier wave.

I like the size and sound ok, even though I could get the radio to distort
fairly easily by turning it up over half way on a local FM station. It's
not
very ergonomic, hiding the power switch at the bottom of the left side
panel. The tuning knob seemed to be a bit tight, but felt solid. The
volume
control was a slider control, and even though I would rather have a knob,
my
first radio had a slider, and I thought that would be a neat feature on
this
radio. I didn't do much for me.

I've put the radio back in the box. If I had bought it at my local
Wal-Mart,
I would take it back. If it was worth $100, I might sell it on eBay. But
since I spent only $27.90 for the radio, it's not worth sending back to
Liypn nor listing it on eBay.

"Jim Hackett" ...
You mirror my thoughts EXACTLY. I just got mine 3 days ago. (YAWN)
I have the much touted Degen 1102 due here any day. I have a sneaky feeling
that it also will be less than the hype surrounding it.
[snip]

I really think you'll like the 1102 and recommend it to others.
Let us know... ok?

You mirror my thoughts EXACTLY. I just got mine 3 days ago. (YAWN)
I have the much touted Degen 1102 due here any day. I have a sneaky feeling
that it also will be less than the hype

*************rest snipped************
Jim and Corbin,
I feel your pain. *BUT*......you do get what you pay for. I don't undestand
the thinking. Unless, you absolutely don't have a small pocket radio, if
that's what you're looking for.......grab the DX399.....I'm sure they're out
there. If you want just BCB, grab a GE P-780.....shortwave with sideband the
DX402, a buddy a mine that has that piece cut out a lot of the problems
(fitering and whatnot) and now he can hook a longwire to it without all the
intermod and crosstalk on it.

Good luck guys, as I'm waiting on my second GE P-780. :-D

I'm not "really" complaining. Radios are my hobby and I obviously have more
$ than brains I enjoy buying new radios and if I only get a few hours of
"play" time out of a $20 radio, I'm ok with that. I would have spent MORE
at a movie and wouldn't have anything to show for it later...



"Dxluver" wrote in message
...
You mirror my thoughts EXACTLY. I just got mine 3 days ago. (YAWN)
I have the much touted Degen 1102 due here any day. I have a sneaky
feeling
that it also will be less than the hype

*************rest snipped************
Jim and Corbin,
I feel your pain. *BUT*......you do get what you pay for. I don't
undestand
the thinking. Unless, you absolutely don't have a small pocket radio,
if
that's what you're looking for.......grab the DX399.....I'm sure they're
out
there. If you want just BCB, grab a GE P-780.....shortwave with sideband
the
DX402, a buddy a mine that has that piece cut out a lot of the problems
(fitering and whatnot) and now he can hook a longwire to it without all
the
intermod and crosstalk on it.

Good luck guys, as I'm waiting on my second GE P-780. :-D

I went ahead and listed it on eBay. No reserve. If somebody wants to bid on
it, here's the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3084068948

Funny though, I have close to 100 different portables (really need to count
them) and many are less than what I had hoped for. I have NEVER considered
selling any of them, so far. I did give a Bell & Howell away to someone on
the group for the cost of shipping though. Good or bad, they are mine.
Kinda like children, huh?



"Corbin Ray" wrote in message
...
I went ahead and listed it on eBay. No reserve. If somebody wants to bid
on
it, here's the link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=3084068948

"Jim Hackett" wrote...
Funny though, I have close to 100 different portables (really need to count
them) and many are less than what I had hoped for. I have NEVER considered
selling any of them, so far. I did give a Bell & Howell away to someone on
the group for the cost of shipping though. Good or bad, they are mine.
Kinda like children, huh?

Yep : )
I want to adopt a Tecsun PL-550 next

In article .net,
Sanjaya wrote:
"Jim Hackett" wrote...
Funny though, I have close to 100 different portables (really need to count
them) and many are less than what I had hoped for. I have NEVER considered
selling any of them, so far. I did give a Bell & Howell away to someone on
the group for the cost of shipping though. Good or bad, they are mine.
Kinda like children, huh?

Yep : )
I want to adopt a Tecsun PL-550 next

Frankly, I don't see the attraction of this radio over, say, the Degen
1101 or 1102 ... except for size of speaker. In real-world use, certainly
it isn't going to be the extra memory slots that the Tecsun has which will
make the difference.

I'm a bit puzzled by some of the new Tecsun radios, and especially how
Eton has chosen which models as replacements for former offerings. For
instance, they sold the PL-707A, a dual-conversion set with weird tuning
controls, as one of the eTraveller models. Now they are carrying the PL-230
as the Yacht Boy 550 ... which is a _single_ conversion set ... a fact
they surely don't advertise. I don't see many user reports on this set,
apart from that one glowing review on RadioIntel, but there is a Yahoo
forum devoted to its twin-with-one-less-AA-cell, the PL-200. What sticks
in my mind from the few discussions there is poor battery life. Maybe the
PL-230 does better with an additional AA cell powering it.

I see no in-depth coverage of the brand new PL-550 so far .. .I'm
wondering if it's single-conversion as well ... as it seems to be
basically a big version of the PL-200 with an antenna trimmer. Does anyone
know otherwise?

According to your 'write up' though on ebay Corbin, it is just fine. What
gives? Hmmmm?