sctvguy1 wrote:
Gregg wrote:


I'm going to make a point sometime this week to see if the Ace around
here has the SR and maybe pick one up. Sometimes it's hard for me to
get past the way these radios are put together. I remember when I was
going to pu the RS that touted that piece as a "long distance" radio.
The knobs and switches were loose and there was just no heft to the
piece for its size. There's no way that particular radio would have
held up to all the hours I would have used it IMO.
I think that they are now re-branded RCA,but still the same radio. It is
still pretty solid, not a lightweight. The varactor tuning knob is very
touchy however. The Select-Tenna really helps null out the noise and the
interference, in addition to the ferrite rod in the radio. BTW, I picked up
an old Knight Star Roamer with a wound loop in the back of the radio. With
some tweaking of the controls, it is a good BCBDXer! Four tubes and a
selenium resistor. It was restored by a friend of mine who specializes in
old radios. I am getting overrun with old radios around here! My really
great AM DXer is my Panasonic RF-2200 with the swiveling ferrite rod, can't
beat that baby! Got it at Keesler AFB when I was stationed there in the
'80s.

Those radios are all built in Asia by Thomson Multimedia.

On Sun, 25 Apr 2010, Gregg wrote:


Hey Michael, I'll just add that I don't really feel the same way as
you when you say "the old radios were lousy" or even your last
sentence. Though no doubt, there are pluses to the digital radios - if
it's really that big a deal - you can take care of that - not the
presets of course but having a digital next to you if it's that big a
deal to check the bands would suffice.

But a lot of the old radios were lousy. Yes, if you spent a lot of money
you got good radios, but a lot of people were using low end radios. When
I got a Hallicrafters S-120A in the summer of 1971, I couldn't afford
anything better, not only was it lousy in terms of reception
(completely lacking in sensitivity, it overloaded too much, couldn't
receive SSB because the BFO was too weak, horrible backlash on the tuning,
and on and on), but for calibration it was like "well, the pointer [which
was terribly wide anyway) is closer to the 10.5MHz mark than the 10MHz
mark, and even then it might not have been on 10MHz when the pointer was
on that mark.

A lot of people had that level of radio, you just have to look at the
pictures in the old magazines.

Even when I got an SP-600 a year later, that was still fairly vague in
the resolution department, though it had a good logging scale and no
blacklash on the tuning so I could have built up a tuning scale built on
that logging scale.

Except that some analog tuning shortwave receivers are creeping in, like
the S350, you can get digital tuning at all price levels. The radios
behind those digital dials may still be lousy, but at least you can tune
in the strong signals, just like that S-120 from almost forty years ago,
but now you know what frequency you are tuned to.

An important consideration is that the circuitry is now cheap, and it's
easier to automatically solder in extra components than it is to calibrate
a dial, especially when those analog radios would all be mildly different
so all had to be adjusted to match the dial. Hand calibrating/adjustment
is costly, the extra parts for digital tuning isn't. Likewise, a ceramic
filter is cheap in large quantities, and does away with multiple IF
transformers, and the need to align them. Sometimes complicating a design
makes things easier to produce.

For AM broadcast band DXing, any old table radio was a good start, they
were sensitive enough. But they all had lousy dials, leaving that same
issue I previously explained, not being sure where you are, having
problems getting back to that previous frequency.

The Delco digitally tuned car radio I use by the bed has the best FM
reception I've seen (admittedly limited to what I've actually tried).
Good sensitivity, good selectivity, and virtually no overload. And yes,
if it hadn't been digitally tuned, I likely wouldn't have heard that
Mississippi station some years back here in Montreal, because I wouldn't
have automatically tried the not quite local station in the preset and
found reception exceptional, so I tuned the band and found that
Mississippi station and some others not so distant. And it was gone
almost as soon as it began. You want digital tuning and presets under
those circumstances, because you don't have the time to tune up and
down the dial.

Michael

Michael Black wrote:

But a lot of the old radios were lousy. Yes, if you spent a lot of
money you got good radios, but a lot of people were using low end
radios. When I got a Hallicrafters S-120A in the summer of 1971, I
couldn't afford anything better, not only was it lousy in terms of
reception (completely lacking in sensitivity, it overloaded too much,
couldn't receive SSB because the BFO was too weak, horrible backlash on
the tuning, and on and on), but for calibration it was like "well, the
pointer [which
was terribly wide anyway) is closer to the 10.5MHz mark than the 10MHz
mark, and even then it might not have been on 10MHz when the pointer was
on that mark.


Hey, I had the Helen Keller Signature model version of the S120a.

Other than crystal radios I built as a kid, I'm not sure I've ever had
another radio with that level of performance.

"Gregg" wrote in message
...
On Apr 25, 9:14 am, dave wrote:
Gregg wrote:
On Apr 24, 11:55 am, wrote:
Am looking for the best choice of a portable AM radio, to be used
mainly to
listen to talk radio, both local and national stations.

Audio sound quality and decent tuner are a must. Inclusion of a
shortwave
band would be nice, but not a requirement. I do want digital tuning,
and
station presets.

Have had a CC Crane radio for five years, and getting a bit tired of
it.
Good sound, but quality control is awful, and digital readout is flaky.

thanks !!

James

This should be fun to watch:-)

I like radios with continuously variable tuning, or at least ones with 1
kHz or better resolution, so I can off-tune slightly for better
intelligibility or interference mitigation.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

IMHO - a real good radio for the BCB or listening to talk radio should
be a radio that is strictly AM. I know - I know there are some
extremely good receivers that have the SW and FM with the AM but in
most cases there are taking 'something' away to have all three modes.
The only radio I would buy that had the AM and FM for talk radio would
be one of the SR or if you can find a GE P-780 on Ebay, grab it. I
can't count how many hundreds of hours where I have the GE on and
listening to the Reds games or talk radio, it's fabulous for that.
Just my take.ducking beer bottles

Talk radio and sports don't mix, they preempt talk radio with
those stupid baseball games!
Now I'm ducking beer bottles
Yea, I have a couple of GE SRs too.
Mike

"Michael Black" wrote in message
ample.net...
On Sun, 25 Apr 2010, Gregg wrote:

On Apr 25, 8:31 am, Gregg wrote:
On Apr 25, 9:14 am, dave wrote:





Gregg wrote:
On Apr 24, 11:55 am, wrote:
Am looking for the best choice of a portable AM radio, to be used
mainly to
listen to talk radio, both local and national stations.

Audio sound quality and decent tuner are a must. Inclusion of a
shortwave
band would be nice, but not a requirement. I do want digital tuning,
and
station presets.

Have had a CC Crane radio for five years, and getting a bit tired of
it.
Good sound, but quality control is awful, and digital readout is
flaky.

thanks !!

James

This should be fun to watch:-)

I like radios with continuously variable tuning, or at least ones with 1
kHz or better resolution, so I can off-tune slightly for better
intelligibility or interference mitigation.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

IMHO - a real good radio for the BCB or listening to talk radio should
be a radio that is strictly AM. I know - I know there are some
extremely good receivers that have the SW and FM with the AM but in
most cases there are taking 'something' away to have all three modes.
The only radio I would buy that had the AM and FM for talk radio would
be one of the SR or if you can find a GE P-780 on Ebay, grab it. I
can't count how many hundreds of hours where I have the GE on and
listening to the Reds games or talk radio, it's fabulous for that.
Just my take.ducking beer bottles- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Oops - you say no analog and want presets, forget about my post then.
Let us know what you decided but you may want to reconsider it "having
to be" digital with presets, what's the big deal about turning the
knob and having to have stations preset? I never understood that,
especially for the BCB.


But, presets are also useful for listening to distant stations. I have
a Delco digitally tuned car radio as my bedside radio.

Michael

I have a car radio that use as my bedside radio too. I did it mostly for
the presets, much easier in the middle of the night to just push a button,
then to turn a knob. I use a pillow speaker and just recently I added a
volume control on the pillow speaker so I don't need to roll over to adust
volume.
BTW, what do you use for your antenna on your car radio? I just used a
regular
car antenna, but would like to get a better AM antenna outdoors. This brings
up several problems as the input is both AM and FM. Any idea about impedance
matching for the antenna input on a car radio?
Mike

I still have my Icom R-71a which I'll use occasionally

On Apr 26, 12:45*pm, "amdx" wrote:
"Gregg" wrote in message

...
On Apr 25, 9:14 am, dave wrote:





Gregg wrote:
On Apr 24, 11:55 am, wrote:
Am looking for the best choice of a portable AM radio, to be used
mainly to
listen to talk radio, both local and national stations.

Audio sound quality and decent tuner are a must. Inclusion of a
shortwave
band would be nice, but not a requirement. I do want digital tuning,
and
station presets.

Have had a CC Crane radio for five years, and getting a bit tired of
it.
Good sound, but quality control is awful, and digital readout is flaky.

thanks !!

James

This should be fun to watch:-)

I like radios with continuously variable tuning, or at least ones with 1
kHz or better resolution, so I can off-tune slightly for better
intelligibility or interference mitigation.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
IMHO - a real good radio for the BCB or listening to talk radio should
be a radio that is strictly AM. I know - I know there are some
extremely good receivers that have the SW and FM with the AM but in
most cases there are taking 'something' away to have all three modes.
The only radio I would buy that had the AM and FM for talk radio would
be one of the SR or if you can find a GE P-780 on Ebay, grab it. I
can't count how many hundreds of hours where I have the GE on and
listening to the Reds games or talk radio, it's fabulous for that.
Just my take.ducking beer bottles

* Talk radio and sports don't mix, they preempt talk radio with
those stupid baseball games!
* * Now I'm ducking beer bottles
Yea, I have a couple of GE SRs too.
* * * * * * * * * *Mike- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ha! I don't know if you really feel that way or was just trying to get
a reaction. I'll play. ;-)
Actually here in the Nati' - talk radio preempts baseball. I feel
lucky to reside in Cincinnati for many reasons but the one I feel most
gracious for and actually take for granted is the talk radio. I'm sure
every city has talk radio but from the afternoon with Bill Cunningham
all the way through to the midnight show with Steve Somers and The
American Trucking Network - it's just real good listening and everyone
is local.

That's why I like to tune to other cities and listen to their
homegrown talent, you learn alot about those areas by their talk radio
IMO.

Michael Black wrote:


For AM broadcast band DXing, any old table radio was a good start, they
were sensitive enough. But they all had lousy dials, leaving that same
issue I previously explained, not being sure where you are, having
problems getting back to that previous frequency.

That's absurd. We were quite able to tune a 5 tube All-American from
540 to 1600 in the twist of the wrist. KTAR next to the first triangle,
KRIZ was next to the second triangle. KUPD was in the middle. Nobody
had any trouble knowing where on the dial "their" station appeared.

On Apr 27, 8:44*am, dave wrote:
Michael Black wrote:

For AM broadcast band DXing, any old table radio was a good start, they
were sensitive enough. But they all had lousy dials, leaving that same
issue I previously explained, not being sure where you are, having
problems getting back to that previous frequency.

That's absurd. *We were quite able to tune a 5 tube All-American from
540 to 1600 in the twist of the wrist. *KTAR next to the first triangle,
KRIZ was next to the second triangle. *KUPD was in the middle. *Nobody
had any trouble knowing where on the dial "their" station appeared.

I've read what Michael has said in some other posts about why he
didn't like the older radios. I couldn't really put myself is his
place because I only have experience in the specific Hammars I own and
some of my older but newer analogs. But I didn't really understand
when he said about losing your spot or however he said it.

I never had a problem finding the exact same spot after I left a
specific freq - only took a second or two - and now with the freq
counter it's exactly the same....spot on as having a digital. I know
it doesn't take long to spin my wheel and I'm there. I'm not familiar
with some of the pieces he was speaking about - maybe they just flat
out sucked and gave him a bad taste?

Panasonic quality went to Crap! on a Panasonic RF-2600 AM/FM/Shortwave
radio I bought new at a Service Merchandise store.A few years after I
bought that radio it got to where it won't stay on station, tune in a
station and you can see the tuning knob physically move, off
station.Then, it got to where it won't turn on at all unless I wedge a
little bitty piece of something between the earphone jack and the
plastic case.
Panasonic, HUMPH!
I still have that radio too, I hardly ever use it though.
Panasonic, HUMPH!
cuhulin

I have some old tube type car radios.Those old AM car radios from the
1950's are some of the best AM radios.Mount one inside of a metal box
and use a 12 volt battery and you have a good AM radio to use in your
home.
cuhulin