This is not a radio designed for band scanning: you must turn the dial to select the MHz band of the band you want, tune the built-in preselector to the appropriate area, and then use the tuning knob. Still have memories? Ha! Do you want to remember? ! ! You must remember what frequency you want, or at least which part of the frequency band you want to tune.
But Sony's radio is a receiver with extremely low background noise. On many happy nights, I like listening to radio signals from the other side of the world. It is not without danger to signal sleeping from a distant place with headphones. One night, I fell asleep listening to the news sent by Radio Australia to Papua New Guinea in English. After a while, I woke up to hear the news broadcast to Papua New Guinea, but this time it was Pidgin English. I heard some English words, but the rest were meaningless. I panicked and thought that something nervous system had disturbed my brain, but a crisp voice saved me: "This is English news from Radio Australia." Thank god!
When Passport stopped publishing, I neglected short-wave broadcasting for more than ten years, and was busy writing freely, running a commuter assistance network on a two-meter amateur radio station.
Earlier this year, the problem of short wave reception bothered me again. I started the long-neglected Grundig Satellit 800 and started cruising around the high frequency. Many artillery high-power short-wave radio stations have disappeared, or their target is not North America, but there are many programs to listen to, including short-wave radio stations, HF ham frequency bands, and some practical radio stations.
Gee, I think it might be great to do some remote DXing on the radio in bed before turning off the lights at night. Something I can put on my knee, turn the tuning button and find the hidden treasure. Satellite 800 obviously does not conform to such a receiver. It's a large radio, about the size of a boastful zenith transoceanic radio, and it's definitely not suitable for being a pillow machine.
So based on good reputation and excellent comments, I bought CCrane Skywave SSB. Skywave SSB is a powerful product that provides AM, FM, weather, aviation, SW and SSB in a package about the size of a deck of cards, which may be twice as thick. It is worth the money and provides valuable performance in every frequency band, although the SW performance is greatly enhanced by the linear antenna connected to Skywave SSB.
But I found that there are two factors that reduce the applicability of Skywave SSB to bedside DXing. First of all, the tuning knob is so small that you can't just turn your finger to select the frequency band. It will also click the tuning knob to mute between tuning steps, so the tuning is discontinuous, which reduces my pleasure. So the drill becomes: search the frequency band with automatic tuning system (ATS) and store the stations in memory, and then jump from the stored stations to the stored stations with keyboard keys. In addition, when pressed correctly, each keyboard key will make an obvious "click" sound. This brings us to the second factor: one night, when my sleepy bride patted me, I was trying to explore the radio stations stored in ATS. "What?" I said. "Too many clicks," she said. Oh, I think; Now I need to find a quiet radio, as long as I wear headphones.
A series of research finally led me to find Desheng PL-880, which is about the size of a paperback book. According to some critics (including Dan Robinson), 880 is more sensitive than PL-990 and more suitable for short-wave listening. 880 provides a large bandwidth on both AM and SSB, and the tuning is very smooth, without noise and jamming. The edge of the compact tuning knob is a little knurled, so you can turn the knob with one finger; You can use another knob to fine-tune SSB, and you can use the tuning knob to select filter bandwidth or storage channel at the touch of a button. In short, if you avoid using the keyboard, this radio can run almost silently next to the other half who wants to take a nap.
So far, the performance of Desheng PL-880 is exemplary. Using the PL-880 whip antenna, I can easily hear the air weather broadcast in Gander, Newfoundland, and the air traffic controller in Shannon, Ireland directing the plane to cross the Atlantic. Yes! I haven't started to explore all the functions of PL-880, but it will certainly be interesting.
Franco:
Interesting comments, some subtleties of which are often overlooked.
For listening late at night, I don't like to mute and rattle when scrolling the frequency band suffered by many DSP receivers or bright digital displays.
I think Desheng 9700DX is the most enjoyable to use. It is based on an old analog receiver, with a fully bright dial and slow but smooth tuning. There is a sinking tuning wheel on the side of the equipment, which is a sensitive receiver.
When you move the slide switch to change the frequency band, it will tick, but if you do it gently, it will be very subtle, and obviously it has no SSB mode or many other functions except double conversion.
Jock Elliot:
Franco,
Thank you for your opinions. If you don't need or want SSB, R-9700DX seems to be an interesting late-night DXing substitute.
Francisco Pires de camargo:
I like this article, and I also like listening to the radio in bed. I have several, but the experience described by PL 880 is very interesting to me. This is a very good article, which describes the antenna system in a simple way without tbraiic data.
Bill Henhill:
Jock,
It's good to see others like listening to the radio in bed. Many years ago, I always listened to happy radio programs from Holland in bed. Although there seem to be fewer radio stations now, there are still some interesting programs to listen to.
Like you, I also chose Desheng PL-880. I found that the control naturally fell under my fingers. The only thing that's a little embarrassing is the antenna. If I put the radio on my stomach and stick it out, the antenna will tilt away from the radio, not vertically. I hope they can install an antenna. You can pull it out of the box about half an inch. Then you can go straight up. I know I have a radio to do it.
In fact, I just checked the house and found that the antenna of my old Realtone AM/FM radio is like this.
Thank you for your good article. Have a good time.
73
Bill WD9EQD
Jock Elliot:
Bill: Have fun! I agree with you about the 880 antenna; It may need to be handled carefully. I have to measure: the antenna of 880 is about 38.5 inches long. In contrast, the antenna on Skywave SSB is 2 1.5 inch.
Brother-in-law is here:
As a radio enthusiast, which one is your pillow machine? Welcome to comment!