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Tecsun BCL 2000
I am looking for a feedback on the performance of Tecsun BCL 2000
from someone who owns it and experimented it's SW ability . Thanks , Kam |
I wouldn't pretend to be an expert, but I have owned and regularly used a
number of analog and digitally-tuned shortwave receivers since the 1960's. I sure like the Grundig S350 version of this radio. The one I have has the newer power-on switch with defeatable timer on it. I don't know about the drifting improvement, but it doesn't seem to drift very much. I have to say, as a person who likes analog tuning, this is by far the best analog portable shortwave receiver I've ever owned in terms of performance, and it's my number one favourite of ANY radio I have had and still have (I've only owned portables though). It really pulls in the shortwave stations just from the telescopic antenna where I live (eastern central Canada), as well or better than the higher-end digitally-tuned radios I've owned. I find myself able to listen to stations for hours that I could only get for a short while before. It's also wonderful on regular AM and FM bands. I absolutely love the way it marries analog tuning with a digital frequency display, and the way the tuning dial has both fast and a fine tuning. And unlike any portable I've ever had except my early 70's Grundig, the audio is full and deep, just about like the Grundigs of old, with separate bass and treble controls, plus the two bandwidths, LPF and RF gain buttons/dials really help tuning shortwave stations to best advantage. And if that's not enough, although the buttons are light plastic, they are solidly-mounted, and the whole radio feels like the most solidly-built one I've seen so far from China. The antenna alone feels like it's on a radio 10 times the price, and, compared to the one on a Sat 800, its base is rock solid. It has a solid cabinet that appears very well put together, with everything a precise fit. For the price, this is one terrific radio, without a cheap feel to it at all - and this is completely the opposite of what I expected. If you can live without punch-in tuning and digital tuning conveniences like automatic band scanning, pre-sets, SSB, etc., and I certainly can, this is a great radio. Nice size too. Not too small, not too big. Did I say I love it? Let me count the ways! I know it's really a Tecsun, but what American or European brand of anything electronic is really what the brand says these days. To me, it feels totally like I own a nice Grundig again, like I did in the 1970's. I got mine at Radio Shack, and as I said, while the model they had on display didn't have the new power switch, the one in the box sure did. If you buy it from China on ebay, you have to wait a while until it arrives, the shipping isn't exactly cheap, plus you don't get the guarantee and support that Eton/Grundig provides. By the way, I think that for those of us who are longtime Grundig fans, it's terrific that Eton keeps the Grundig name alive in shortwave receivers like this. Those of you who have been here a while may recall that I wasn't at all impressed with the Sat 800 I had a couple of years ago (maybe they are better now, don't know), and I didn't mince words about it on here. I don't like what I don't like, but if I say I like something, I really like it. Pete "kamalakar pasupuleti" wrote in message om... I am looking for a feedback on the performance of Tecsun BCL 2000 from someone who owns it and experimented it's SW ability . Thanks , Kam |
kamalakar pasupuleti schrieb:
I am looking for a feedback on the performance of Tecsun BCL 2000 from someone who owns it and experimented it's SW ability . This is a fun rig with analog tuning and good sound, but not a serious shortwave receiver. In this price range, I'd look out for a Degen DE1102 (or Kaito KA1102), a Sangean ATS-606 or maybe an ATS-505. A used Sony ICF-SW7600G may also be an option. If you're looking for something more or less similar to the BCL-2000, an old (National) Panasonic RF-2600/2800/2900 may be worth a look. Stephan -- Meine Andere Seite: http://stephan.win31.de/ PC#6: i440BX, 2xCel300A, 512 MiB, 18+80 GB, R9k AGP 64 MiB, 110W This is a SCSI-inside, Legacy-plus, TCPA-free computer :) Reply to newsgroup only. | See home page for working e-mail address. |
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I can't say that has been my experience. I listen to the BBC for hours.
Look, it's an analog radio. It's not like a Drake R8 or something like that. If you're into digital tuning, the S350/BCL2000 probably won't satisfy you. But it's an outstanding medium-sized portable for the price. Pete "Jay Heyl" wrote in message ... [snipped] I view the BCL-2000 as an outstanding MW portable at a great price. The fact that it also tunes SW is a big plus, but SW is not its best feature. If you mostly want to tune around the SW bands to see what you can find and occasionally do some casual listening, you might be happy with it. If you want to tune in the BBC and listen for an hour or two, you would probably do better with something else. If the latter is the case, the Degen/Kaito 1102 has been getting some good reviews. You might also want to check ebay for a used DX-398 (rebadged Sangean ATS-909). They've been going for $100-$125 recently. -- Jay |
"Pierre L" wrote in message ble.rogers.com...
I can't say that has been my experience. I listen to the BBC for hours. Look, it's an analog radio. It's not like a Drake R8 or something like that. If you're into digital tuning, the S350/BCL2000 probably won't satisfy you. But it's an outstanding medium-sized portable for the price. I agree with you, Pierre. The BCL2000 is an outstanding radio for the money. I'm not at all disappointed that I bought one. But the reality is that it has a few shortcomings, and these make it less than optimal for certain situations. I was just trying to point out these flaws in case they were of concern to any potential purchasers. As to your experience listening to the BBC, are you saying you aren't seeing the drift that others are experiencing? Do you normally run off batteries or off the mains? R. Australia was booming in last night and I listened on my BCL2000 for about an hour. I had to retune four times in the first 30 minutes because the radio had drifted so far as to make the signal almost unlistenable. After 30 minutes it seemed to stabilize. I always run off batteries, so I don't benefit at all from the stay-warm solution Tecsun implemented for when the radio is plugged into the mains. I'm wondering if this might explain our different experiences in this regard. -- Jay |
I took my BCL 2000 outside and listened for a couple of hours today. It's
such a sweet radio, but most of the time, there's too much RF noise in my house to get much use out of its sensitivity. I mainly use it to listen to AM talk or maybe a ballgame or maybe an oldies station on FM. Dxing isn't possible inside our house right now. We have a cable modem and four computers all networked with WI-FI. The radio noise is unbearable with everything going at once. One thing I noticed today about my 2000, the radio's battery indicator is one step below full. I got my radio in Feb 2003. On the day I got it, I bought some cheap Panasonic alkalines (4/$2) to put in it. If the radio had been a dud, I didn't want to waste money on good batteries. But, now it's been 13 months, and those cheap batteries are still going (sorry Eveready) strong. Oh, to be fair and balanced, there is one thing I wish I could change about this radio that really drives me crazy. The fine tuning mechanism is ok on MW and FM, but on shortwave, especially over 15 MHz, it's incredibly tough to fine tune those signals. |
That's one of the things I also like about analog radios. The batteries last
such a long time. I never really thought of this as a problem with the two Sony digitals I had, because I live in a region that had never had a technological or natural catastrophe of any kind in my lifetime. But then, we were without power for 5 days during the big ice storm of Jan 1998 (right in the city too), and then again this past summer, we were without power almost 24 hours. 24 hours wasn't too bad, but man, it wasn't easy to find a store with batteries in stock during that ice storm. I think that's when my then love affair with things digital began to wane :) About the drifting. It drifts a little bit on SW, and the digital frequency readout seems very precise in showing it, but, in my experience, not that much for analog tuning. I don't personally find it a problem. I've so far only used mine on batteries. I haven't tried the AC adaptor. Pierre "Corbin Ray" wrote in message ... I took my BCL 2000 outside and listened for a couple of hours today. It's such a sweet radio, but most of the time, there's too much RF noise in my house to get much use out of its sensitivity. I mainly use it to listen to AM talk or maybe a ballgame or maybe an oldies station on FM. Dxing isn't possible inside our house right now. We have a cable modem and four computers all networked with WI-FI. The radio noise is unbearable with everything going at once. One thing I noticed today about my 2000, the radio's battery indicator is one step below full. I got my radio in Feb 2003. On the day I got it, I bought some cheap Panasonic alkalines (4/$2) to put in it. If the radio had been a dud, I didn't want to waste money on good batteries. But, now it's been 13 months, and those cheap batteries are still going (sorry Eveready) strong. Oh, to be fair and balanced, there is one thing I wish I could change about this radio that really drives me crazy. The fine tuning mechanism is ok on MW and FM, but on shortwave, especially over 15 MHz, it's incredibly tough to fine tune those signals. |
Jay Heyl wrote:
...You'll be re-adjusting the tuning every 10-15 minutes, possibly even more often on the upper end of the bands. That's when the hysteresis in the slow tuning knob will start to annoy you. On the plus side, it's the best sounding SW portable south of the Satellit 800. The performance on MW is excellent. Battery life seems pretty good.... You're right, it does drift a little. That doesn't bother me. I guess it might be because I was brought up on analog radios. Touching up the tuning is second nature to me. At least with the digital readout, you know which way it drifted. I love the sound quality, plus the fact that I can use the wide bandwidth setting even on most distant MW stations, even when there's another station 10kHz away. Plus, I live in a really bad area for FM. There's so many transmitters nearby, nearly every radio overloads and all but the strongest local stations are lost in mixing products. The BCL-2000 does show a little bit of overload, but I can listen to FM stations 60 miles away and even further, which is a real achievement. -- Reply address munged. You can figure it out. |
I guess that's why it didn't seem very significant to me that there a slight
amount of drifting, having first used analog radios for years long before digitally-tuned ones. I'll bet that with many digitally-tuned radios, there's drifting too, back and forth, only, because the display stays fixed at the frequency you punched-in, you don't notice it. I really don't consider a very slight adjustment to the shortwave frequency every once in a while to be a big deal. For example, listening to the BBC last evening, on 5975, after an hour or so, the display showed 5974. That's the kind of drifting we're talking about. Pierre "CAndersen (Kimba)" wrote in message ... You're right, it does drift a little. That doesn't bother me. I guess it might be because I was brought up on analog radios. Touching up the tuning is second nature to me. At least with the digital readout, you know which way it drifted. I love the sound quality, plus the fact that I can use the wide bandwidth setting even on most distant MW stations, even when there's another station 10kHz away. Plus, I live in a really bad area for FM. There's so many transmitters nearby, nearly every radio overloads and all but the strongest local stations are lost in mixing products. The BCL-2000 does show a little bit of overload, but I can listen to FM stations 60 miles away and even further, which is a real achievement. |
"Pierre L" wrote in message .cable.rogers.com...
I really don't consider a very slight adjustment to the shortwave frequency every once in a while to be a big deal. For example, listening to the BBC last evening, on 5975, after an hour or so, the display showed 5974. That's the kind of drifting we're talking about. This is perhaps a difference due to frequency range or manufacturing variation, but if that was the kind of drift I was seeing I would have never brought it up. The last couple nights I've been listening to R. Australia on 9580. I tune it so the signal is maxed and the display reads 9580. A couple minutes later (and I really do mean a couple minutes), the display reads 9578. This, I assume, is due to tension in the tuning mechanism. I re-tune to 9580. Five minutes later it reads 9579. I, again, attribute this to mechanical tension. I re-tune to 9580. Five minutes later it's back to 9579. Re-tune to 9580. I start reading while I'm listening and stop paying close attention to the display. Maybe fifteen minutes later I'm hearing a fair amount of static and it's clear the radio has drifted again. The display reads 9578. Re-tune to 9580. Fifteen minutes later it's at 9579 again. It did seem to become more stable at this point. -- Jay |
Pierre L schrieb:
I'll bet that with many digitally-tuned radios, there's drifting too, back and forth, only, because the display stays fixed at the frequency you punched-in, you don't notice it. Indeed, receivers with PLL synthesizers also drift. However, their accuracy only depends on the reference crystal (that's why TCXOs exist), which eliminates a lot of other sources of drift found in rigs with analog frequency synthesis. As for an example of "digitals" drifting, my ICF-SW7600G will drift a few 100 Hz if the temperature changes by a few °C, it also needs some warmup until fine tuning no longer needs to be adjusted for SSB. However, that's already an order of magnitude lower than the drift by a few kHz to be observed with a number of analogs. (Also, you'll never see the typically analog irreversible drift that causes the frequency to wander by a few kHz up or down in the same direction over a longer period of time. Look here for drifting measurements on a Sony ICF-5900W: http://www.noobowsystems.com/restorations/icf-5900w/icf-5900w-e.html) A definite plus of analogs is synthesizer noise, or rather the lack thereof. Unfortunately this isn't worth much if not backed by a good receiver concept, as it's usually the case today. (On my ICF-7601, for example, there's plenty of intermod on the more crowded bands, along with some FM breakthrough in the low 31m band. And this on a dual conversion receiver.) Stephan -- Meine Andere Seite: http://stephan.win31.de/ PC#6: i440BX, 2xCel300A, 512 MiB, 18+80 GB, R9k AGP 64 MiB, 110W This is a SCSI-inside, Legacy-plus, TCPA-free computer :) Reply to newsgroup only. | See home page for working e-mail address. |
Stephan Grossklass wrote:
Pierre L schrieb: I'll bet that with many digitally-tuned radios, there's drifting too, back and forth, only, because the display stays fixed at the frequency you punched-in, you don't notice it. Indeed, receivers with PLL synthesizers also drift. However, their accuracy only depends on the reference crystal (that's why TCXOs exist), which eliminates a lot of other sources of drift found in rigs with analog frequency synthesis. As for an example of "digitals" drifting, my ICF-SW7600G will drift a few 100 Hz if the temperature changes by a few °C, it also needs some warmup until fine tuning no longer needs to be adjusted for SSB. Do you know what the first I.F. frequency is for the '7600'? -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
KAM,
It has been observed that by Tuning Down (CCW) to the Frequency; and Tuning One-Kilo-Hertz above the Frequency. This method will have the least 'apparent' Drift due to the Mechanical Tuning System of the Grundig S350 "Super Radio" Tecsun BCL-2000. Grundig S350 "Super Radio" Tecsun BCL-2000 eGroup on YAHOO ! GS350= http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grundig-S350/ The Grundig S350 is the everyday everyman's "Volks-DXing-Radio". A basic low cost AM-FM-SW Radio with Good Sound for: the bedside, kitchen or work shop; a sports radio at work and in the office; or portable for On-the-Go Radio Enjoyment; much like the GE Superadio I, GE Superadio II and GE Superadio III. hth ~ RHF .. .. = = = (kamalakar pasupuleti) wrote in message = = = . com... I am looking for a feedback on the performance of Tecsun BCL 2000 from someone who owns it and experimented it's SW ability . Thanks , Kam .. |
can someone tell me how it compares next to a panasonic rf-3100 ( sw and
mw ) "RHF" wrote in message om... KAM, It has been observed that by Tuning Down (CCW) to the Frequency; and Tuning One-Kilo-Hertz above the Frequency. This method will have the least 'apparent' Drift due to the Mechanical Tuning System of the Grundig S350 "Super Radio" Tecsun BCL-2000. Grundig S350 "Super Radio" Tecsun BCL-2000 eGroup on YAHOO ! GS350= http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grundig-S350/ The Grundig S350 is the everyday everyman's "Volks-DXing-Radio". A basic low cost AM-FM-SW Radio with Good Sound for: the bedside, kitchen or work shop; a sports radio at work and in the office; or portable for On-the-Go Radio Enjoyment; much like the GE Superadio I, GE Superadio II and GE Superadio III. hth ~ RHF . . = = = (kamalakar pasupuleti) wrote in message = = = . com... I am looking for a feedback on the performance of Tecsun BCL 2000 from someone who owns it and experimented it's SW ability . Thanks , Kam . |
bill smith wrote:
can someone tell me how it compares next to a panasonic rf-3100 ( sw and mw ) The RF-3100 is double conversion (no images) and the tuning is much more stable, because of the semi-synthesized PLL. However you can't get parts for a '3100'. -----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =----- http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! -----== Over 100,000 Newsgroups - 19 Different Servers! =----- |
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