Just bought a Realistic DX 302. I went to Radio Shack for some
headphones and all they had were stereo phones with a higher impedance
than what the radio calls for. Two questions: is this radio supposed
to operate only with monaural phones? I plugged the stereo phones in
and nothing happened. the speaker was not even disabled. could that be
because of the wrong phones or is is a problem with the receiver??

(Philip Levine) wrote in
:

Just bought a Realistic DX 302. I went to Radio Shack for some
headphones and all they had were stereo phones with a higher impedance
than what the radio calls for. Two questions: is this radio supposed
to operate only with monaural phones? I plugged the stereo phones in
and nothing happened. the speaker was not even disabled. could that be
because of the wrong phones or is is a problem with the receiver??


A receiver this old would have a mono phone jack. Still, the speaker should
have been disabled, and the stereo phones should have worked on one side.

Check to see if the jack has been disconnected or bypassed somehow.

Stereo phones should be 8 ohms nominal. How could the DX302 call for less,
unless it calls for 4 ohms? That would make very little difference.

Philip Levine wrote:
Just bought a Realistic DX 302. I went to Radio Shack for some
headphones and all they had were stereo phones with a higher impedance
than what the radio calls for. Two questions: is this radio supposed
to operate only with monaural phones? I plugged the stereo phones in
and nothing happened. the speaker was not even disabled. could that be
because of the wrong phones or is is a problem with the receiver??

In a solid-state radio I wouldn't worry about using phones with too high
an impedance. You might not get as much volume as you'd get with the
right impedance, but I don't think it would be so low as to be unusable.
You certainly won't damage anything.

If the speaker wasn't disabled, either you plugged the phones into the
wrong jack or the radio is broken. The process of plugging in the
phones physically moves a lever inside the headphone jack which causes
the speaker to be disabled. You could cut the headphones off the other
end of the cable, and the speaker would still be disabled when the cable
is plugged into the radio.
--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com