Quote:
Originally Posted by musichal
Keep it? Or sent it back?
Inquiring minds want to know.
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It is a keeper, for sure...
Very selective and sensitive on FM, my major area of interest for a portable. Great for out of town and LPFM stations that lesser sets would miss. RBDS appears to function well, but only seems to update the clock to gmt.
Very sensitive and selective on AM. Logged a station a couple of nights ago that I had not heard before. Not fond of the way the sync detector sounds, but with the many choices of bandwidths available, I doubt that I would use it anyway. IMHO, no coat pocket performs this function as well as the long discontinued Sony 2010. Not fond of the soft mute, but that really does not cause a serious problem when dxing.
Aircraft band is a plus, and the soft mute helps greatly here, as it functions as a soft squelch, when no transmissions are being made.
LW is pretty weak, I heard a few aircraft beacons, this seems to be fairly typical for most smaller radios with shorter loop-sticks... Sony 7600GR wins here.
Some SW broadcasts are received with just the whip antenna... have not tried an outdoor antenna yet. Auto scan actually catches quite a few, which is a real plus.
Ham SSB is usable, but there is a lot of "chuffing" as one tries to fine tune. I much prefer the dual knob set up of the Tecsun pl880.
CW is a mixed bag... yesterday I tuned in a W1AW code practice session on 14.047(5) mHz and was really enjoying the way the 500 hz filter was working (wish I would have spent the extra $175 to equip my Icom 8500 with the narrow filter) until I bumped the radio and the pitch changed...Yikes, that should not happen and does not happen on similar sized radios such as the Sony 7600gr, Tecsun pl880, Eton E5, Tecsun pl600.
May not be the best choice for some, but I am quite pleased with the set.
LW beacons:
http://www.dxinfocentre.com/ndb.htm
W1AW schedule:
http://www.arrl.org/w1aw-operating-schedule
jr