HFU HF Underground
Technical Topics => Equipment => Topic started by: Kage on September 23, 2019, 2146 UTC
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I spelled teh on purpose.
Yeah here is all the glory of this $1 radio I just bought at the thrift store. It has world band, so... You know how radios are, if it has shortwave you have to buy it because we're suckers.
Well this little goofball of a radio covers medium wave from 530 to 1610kHz or so, talk about a killer for me. I listen to the X band AM mostly. To make things a little more gentle though it does have a barn door IF stage which makes AM listening like listening to FM if you don't mind going out into the deep woods to hear a broadcast far away from your local 50kw. It's easy to modify though to cover up to 1710kHz as I found by a simple adjustment on the 4 gang capacitor variable, but don't expect the readout to be right of course.
FM is even better, it actually performs as good as my breadboard FM radios. It almost has the ability to have selectivity if you hold it just right.
Oh and did I mention shortwave? This has the feature but I think they forgot to enable it. I picked up Havana and oooooh weeeee!
Okay I'm giving this little radio a harsh time. It's cute, performs okay for camping, and for being a radio that was a gift if you purchase other crap prizes on TV then voila. It at least has no birdies and after opening it up and damn near breaking the antenna connection from only removing the cover that is held together by... get this... ONE SCREW, and clips, I adjusted the 455kc oscillator and touched up the 4 screw tuning capacitor for peak. It's on par with dollar store gizmos and well it had shortwave... who will let a cheap radio with shortwave sit around for $1? Gumballs cost that much these days. I say we replace gumballs with shortwave radios! 8)
(https://i.imgur.com/Vp0eXkN.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/GTWjtru.jpg)
BTW that arrow pointing to that screw, that is literally the ONLY screw holding the thing together, it's all plastic clips besides that one real loooong screw lol.
(https://i.imgur.com/Y72aMxD.jpg)
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I got one too! Neat toy, keep it in a antistatic bag as the goto survival radio for when nukes get to popping on our cities.
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With no battery terminal corrosion the asking price should have been $2.... and it has TV band!
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With no battery terminal corrosion the asking price should have been $2.... and it has TV band!
That "TV band" is the Japanese FM broadcasting band, just relabeled for US buyers.
BTW, the USA should change it to an official extension of the FM band. But sure the existing stations don't want to make any space for newcomers.