Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Shortwave Radios

Do any of you have any opinions regarding what would be a good choice in a high quality shortwave radio?

I am looking at the Grundig 750- from looking at reviews it appears that many like it but then again many don't.

I am asking for any opinions you might have re. this radio or better alternatives that are available.

Thanks
Whistle

I'm not familiar with their short wave offerings, but you might take a look at C.Crane company radios.

They have a pretty good reputation for quality products.

Myron

You might look at this:

http://www.ccrane.com/c/pdfs/misc/mtsept2013.pdf

I don't have the 750, but really had the itch to get one a few years ago. I DO have the Grundig S350DL, and it's a very good alternative for the price. It appears to be discontinued.

My first SW receiver was the Eton G4000A, and it's been a strong little unit. Also discontinued.

My two little pack-arounds are the Grundig Mini 300 and the Kaito WRX911.

I'm sure you're aware of the Passport book.......which is also discontinued, and replaced with the WRTH book. It lets you know what's out there, rather than hunting blindly. Hunting blindly is also fun, then the book helps you figure out what you've found.

The bad news IMO, is that the internet has replaced much of the cluttered airwaves from the good old days. DXing for AM anyway. I honestly have had as much or maybe more fun with an internet radio. I just punch in the country I want to listen to, then scroll through my station choices. It's fun listening to stations in Europe as if it's the "local" station..........both for news and music.

I hope you get the 750 a post a review. I've wanted one for several years, but after using my other radios I was afraid it'd fall short of my expectations. It also helps to have a sleeping disorder (my career has helped with that) because different times of day yield different results. I'm too busy to do that now, which is the other reason I still haven't pulled the trigger on a 750.

Good luck with your decision.

A lot depends on what kind of listening you want to do.

One common alternative is a 500 KHz-30MHz receiver that will let you listen to hams, shortwave broadcast, and AM radio. A step up from that expands the frequency range to well above 1000 MHz, including the FM band. Check offering from Kenwood, Yeasu, Icom and AOR for a start.

There is not near as much to hear on VHF police and fire frequencies, since most of them have gone to trunked systems. For that, you need a trunked scanner.

Analog FM probably won't be around for too much longer in this country. The same technology that transformed TV will eventually be applied there.

A lot of the activity on the ham bands is still SSB, but there is growing use of PSK31 and JT65. If you want to listen to those, you can download free software and just run an audio line from your radio to your computer. Both are teleprinter modes. With JT65 you can print solidly with stations that are too weak to detect by ear.

For portable use, I have a Yacht Boy 400. It does a very respectable job.

An outdoor antenna is very helpful if you want to hear the world.

well, I assume you are looking at new production radios.

But, just for my .02 worth, I have several vintage Zenith transoceanic radios dating from the 1940's into the solid state models.

The old tube guys sure bring in a lot of stations and are a lot of fun to own.

I have some HF ham-radio gear that I also use to snag signals between 100khz to 30mhz.

Dave

Yeah, those old Zenith Transoceanics were way cool.

If you can find a quality used Sony 2010 or SW77, that would fill your bill nicely for a portable. I'm partial to the vintage Yaesu FRG-7 and the much newer Palstar R30 series for desktop/semi-portable (lots of batteries ).



I also favor the Par Electronics SW antenna having had almost a dozen other makes over the decades:
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/sw_ant/2205.html

Bald1,

What is that PRO7 at the bottom of the stack?
I can't read the fine print on it. That looks like a nice rig.

Myron

Most definitely! I'm on the lookout every time I hit the antique stores. I'll own one of those old gals someday. They look great just sitting on a shelf.

An old military R390 is an awesome radio, but audio quality may not be the best.
They are coil (slug) tuned and could be difficult for an amateur to keep tuned up. They are a mechanical nightmare inside.

We used them hard in the Navy, so the ETs were kept busy.

Myron

I had one of those 55-60 years ago. Hooked it up to an antenna made up of a couple of hundred feet of copper wire scraps in the back yard and used to listen to am stations 2500 miles away when conditions were suitable.

It was really special.

Don't forget a decent ground with those old receivers. Can cut a lot of crud from the desired signal, particularly the weak ones.

Myron,

Not "PRO7" but FRG-7. It's a vintage Yaesu SW receiver.
For more details: http://foxtango.org/frg7/foxtangofrg7.htm

The old tube type receivers are a kick...cut my teeth on those, many years ago. I think that the best I had back in the day was a Drake 2A. Later on, I did have an R390A, which was very nice, but large.

But designs today are much, much better. Many old designs suffered from selectivity issues, image rejection issues, poor dynamic range, and, of course, the constant failure of vacuum tubes which are a fairly scarce commodity these days.

Some of the best modern designs have very little in the way of a conventional IF chain, detector, etc. Instead, it's all digitized and selectivity and frequency conversion are handled by a microprocessor. These designs are significantly less expensive to build and perform better than earlier designs.

Bald1,

Thank you sir for setting me straight. I about went nuts trying to find it on the 'net.

I knew my eyes are bad, but geeeze !

Myron