Hi......just picked up a radio shack dx400.......I'm 80 ,and not too
smart,,,,,,need help in setting it

Dear Tom,

I own one of these receivers. I purchased it in 1983. Right out of the
box it was somewhat disappointing. Its tuning is in 1, 3, 10, and 30
kHz steps. I do not know what the designers were thinking when they
failed to include a 5 kHz step. The 30 kHz step is really useless and
the 3 kHz step is of some use only for MW DXing the European MW
fequencies.

The radio "chugs" badly when tuning (as you've no doubt experienced).
Its scanning is slow and noisy. My unit stops on a frequency 1 kHz
above the actual transmitted one (e.g. 5976 instead of 5975 kHz).

Its sound quality is mediocre as is its SSB reception. Adjacent-channel
interference is annoying and selective-fading distortion, for which
there is no remedy, is likewise annoying.

All that said, it is a relatively decent portable radio and can still
be used to good advantage. It is quite sensitive. Selectivity, as noted
above, is disappointing but IF rejection appears to be quite good; it
is the only triple-conversion portable receiver ever made, as far as I
know.

Do not try to use it with alkaline batteries; it is a "battery-eater."
Buy some C-size NiMH batteries and a suitable charger (2 sets of
batteries are ideal). I have a C. Crane QuickCharger which works very
well. For the two AA computer-memory batteries, you can use alkaline
ones; they last two or three years. I hope you have the AC cord. This
is the way to use the radio if you are near an AC outlet.

It was my first "digital" SW radio and I used it for many years until
finally "retiring" it in 1998. It is the only SW radio I own for which
I do not have the original box (it got lost in one of several moves). I
do have the manual. The radio is simple enough to figure out that you
don't really need it. F1 and F2 are memories for starting and stopping
bandscanning. They are user programmable. For example if you wanted to
scan the 31 meter band, you woud program 9300 kHz into F1 and 10100
into F2. When you press the scanning button, those are the frequencies
that would be scanned. Manual scanning allows you to stop manually and
Auto scanning has the radio stop on the first heard frequency of
suitable strength (as I mentioned, on my unit, 1 kHz above the actual
frequency). The radio also has in effect 12 memories for selected
frequencies; there are 6 for AM (MW and SW combined) and 6 for FM. It's
all pretty straightforward by today's standards, though fairly advanced
for 1983.

Note that the Uniden CR-2021 is exactly the same receiver save for the
S-meter which is LED on the Uniden and analog (superior) on the
Realistic.

I remember when the Uniden was being closed-out for $79.95 but,
frankly, I was so disappointed in the Realistic (for which I paid
$249.95) that I didn't "bite."

My main receiver remained my 1962 Lafayette HE-10 until I bought my
Grundig Satellit 800 in 2000.

I am presently on vacation and will not have access to the radio or
manual until I get home (middle of September) but if you have any
specific questions that "jog" my memory, I shall be happy to try to
answer them. Note that I won't be monitoring this (or any) newsgroup
consistently during my vacation; there are too many other things to do!

Good luck with your radio.

Joe

Dear Tom,

One other very important characteristic I forgot to mention is the fact
that batteries seem to have "grown" in size since 1983. When you put
the C batteries in the (hidden) battery compartment, it becomes
somewhat difficult to remove them, especially the last one of the six
C-cells. (This was not the case in 1983; the batteries just slid out
easily at that time.)

I use a curved dental pick to reach into the compartment to get that
last battery out.

I also want to mention that the radio really benefits from an external
antenna. Its whip, while adequate for casual listening or for travel,
is not suitable for true DXing. (Be VERY careful with that whip; you
can't replace it. I was able to "fix" mine, which became loose and
"flopped" over, by taking it apart and replacing the washers, which I
found at a local hardware store. The "fixing" was accompanied by some
colorful language. I'm glad, however, that I was able to do this as
there appears to be no replacement whip available.)

Again, the best of luck.

Joe

Loctite helps on loose metal antenna screws and nuts threads after you
tighten the screws and nuts up real good first.But,dont get any Loctite
on plastic!,it will melt the hell out of some plastics.I know this from
personal experience when I sloshed some Loctite on the screws of the
tail light lenses metal screws to a 1974 Ford/Mazda pickup truck I used
to own.The next morning,the plastic tail light lenses were lying in the
dirt.
cuhulin

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 19:28:52 -0500, wrote:

Loctite helps on loose metal antenna screws and nuts threads after you
tighten the screws and nuts up real good first.But,dont get any Loctite
on plastic!,it will melt the hell out of some plastics.I know this from
personal experience when I sloshed some Loctite on the screws of the
tail light lenses metal screws to a 1974 Ford/Mazda pickup truck I used
to own.The next morning,the plastic tail light lenses were lying in the
dirt.
cuhulin
That's funny. You made me laugh out loud.

I bought about 10 pounds of miscellaneous hardware at a surplus sale
about 15 years ago and that cut my trips to the screw drawers at Sand
Canyon Hardware to almost none. Lots of little lockwashers. Split
and star. I like the star type for antenna screws.