My latest GW find, Sony ICF-7600d
 

Hi Guys, its been a while but i'm back and a few days ago i found this at the the local GW. Sony icf-7600D also know as the ICF-2002 in the U.S, only thing wrong with it is missing a aluminium faceplate over the LCD readout.

Looks like an older version of my ICF-7600GR. If yours is anything like mine it should be a great performer especially on SW and amateur DXing. Mine is good on it's internal antenna, and down right awesome when one clips a simple outdoor longwire antenna on to the built in whip antenna.

It doesn't seem to have a BFO so there go both CW and SSB listening.

When i first got it home i noticed that the radio would only increment in 5khz steps on shortwave which i thought would make it useless for SSB but actually there is a switch on the side that has broad, narrow and ssb selection, next to the switch is a thumbwheel that fine tunes on narrow and adjusts on ssb. The radio will tune in to a ssb transmission at say 7.252 khz but the digital display will only register it at 7.250 khz or 7.255 khz depending if it is upper or lower sibeband.

Mine has Synchronous Selectable Side band (which I don't use much) and Single Side Band (which I use to listen to amateur radio and that one US SW station that runs SSB). Mine can tune in 1kHz increments, and can scan in those increments if one cares to hold the button down. Mine is only about 6 years old so if you want a newer improved model you could probably get the same one I have brand new.

I'm not normally a Digital SW fan, I like analog receivers, Zenith transistor Transoceanics, Panasonic RF-5000 and the like. Analog radios get much longer life from their batteries. and has less background noise. but i found this cheap and was pleasantly surprised on reception with batteries, although i need a sony wallwart, my universal RS powersupply makes too much noise to make DXing possible.
I kinda like that Sony still makes radios in this series. I wish Zenith was still in the shortwave radio biz, we might have been up the Royal 9000 with digital tuning, preset memories and panoramic display by now!

Sony's wall wart for this series is excessively noisy according to Passport To World Band Radio (I think they suggest an alternative). This book has got a good section of receiver reviews (which I used to pick my set). It also contains a sort of station time and frequency guide, and SW related articles. It is an annual publication BTW.

I seem to recall that some where my model has been tested to have a 76 hour (continuous operation) battery life.

I couldn't comment on any SS Transoceanics as I've only seen them and never owned one. But I'd imagine that if cheap Asian junk (and the political dummies that let it in the door) had not all but killed the American consumer Electronics industry, the current gen Transoceanics (not to mention the rest of their line) would have been most impressive indeed.

I have had a 7600DS for years and love it. Great SW performer. And, yes...it works well on SSB. Quite stable, which is important. The fine tuning wheel works well when there's two stations close together, and does a good job getting an understandable SSB signal. One trick I've used to find the "center" of that control's range is to tune in WWV on 5 or 10 mHz (whatever works for you at a particular time of day), then switch on the BFO. Move the control to "zero-beat" the WWV signal so that the BFO tone essentially vanishes. You've now found the center of the control's range. Just switch back to the fine tuning position & enjoy.

Now...regarding tuning increments: Check inside the battery compartment (I THINK it's the compartment with the two AAs for the clock) and see if there's a tiny slide switch at the bottom. This switches the tuning increments from even to odd #s. Most BC stations outside N. America use 9kHz spacing instead of 10kHz.