BELKA DX

[syfr]

Just ordered one of these , given the good reviews it's  been getting.  I got the one with the internal speaker(ette) though this may or may not turn out to be the choice I end up with

Pretty impressive little box, looks like:

https://www.eham.net/reviews/view-product?id=14803

Anyone have one?  Easy online transaction directly from Alex, received email conformation within minutes of the order.

[Sealord]

Mine should be coming in any day...I also got the version with the built in speaker and reduced battery size.  From everything I've read & seen, this little receiver should be impressive - we'll see.

[~SIGINT~]

You are both going to enjoy the BELKA DX. I have had mine for about 6 months and for the money it is a fantastic little receiver. It is super sensitive. Even with the 1/2 battery, it will run for a very long time. I have the non-speaker version and have not charged mine since November and use it fairly regularly.

The only negative I have is that reception starts at 1.5 MHz. Most of us who own this radio wished it went down to at least 500 kHz to cover the entire AM band. Even if it tuned to 0 kHz with reduced specification that would be fine by me.

Anyway, I have taken mine on walks, just slip it in your pocket, although the antenna gets a little tricky and I have had on bike rides etc ... Sometime I just stop on the trail for 10 minutes and do a little DXing. I have used it with a rubber ducky antenna and that works pretty good as well. It also receives the strong pirate station just by sitting in the house with the telescopic antenna. I have had limited success with the audio cord plugged into the sound system of the Jeep. The receiver requires an external antenna.

You will find that the display can cause some digital hash under certain conditions but that is not a problem. I use the display timer which turns off the backlight after a preset amount of time.

The receiver does not come with any instructions so be sure to download the PDF from the web site. Enjoy.

[alpard]

This radio seems getting great reviews for its high performance.
Pity it doesn't cover MW and LW bands.
With ever keep diminishing number of TX stations on SW bands, and persisting poor SW band condition,
MW and LW are very important DXing bands now.

[RobRich]

Sadly, I doubt many longwave broadcasters will be around a few years from now. Several have already shut down.

The cost to maintain the transmitters and antenna arrays can be quite prohibitive, even compared to mediumwave and shortwave broadcasters. Imagine ongoing replacement tubes for a 500KW station, less long the electricity costs. o.0

Taking it to an even further extreme, Medi 1 runs (or ran?) 1600KW into three 1250' tower antennas. That is likely why it often is the first or loudest longwave broadcaster I can dig out of the noise when DX actually allows LW BCB reception here.

[alpard]

We still have many LW signals coming up with very nice signals and contents every night here.
Not sure on the longevity on the LW stations, but it is still RXed by many BCLs in Europe.

I am sure that MW will be always active and busy as long as human civilisation in existence on Earth
The big power transmitters might be going off Air time to time, but there are always plenty of LPAM
community radios scattered around everywhere.

And MW transmissions from China, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, Japan and will always be active as long as the civilisation exists I am sure.

[syfr]

Shipping delays on my Belka because of components shortages.

Patience is a virtue I've hear them say...

[syfr]

Alex updated shipping and I'm looking forward to the end of the month!

[Sealord]

I love this radio - it runs circles around my Tecsun's.  I've done a few experiments using both the whip vs my on-the-ground antennas (MMD dipole & longwire w/MLB) and although there is a difference in signal strength, as long as you're away from noise, the whip can easily hear what the other two can.  I was listening to WTF last night in bed rockin out to Queen's 'Fat Bottom Girls' - this past May was in Seattle and enjoyed arm chair copy of North Korea's English service on both 11710 & 9435 also with just the whip & earbuds.

The quality of the sync detector is the closest I've found to my HF-150 on a portable, but without  the selectable sidebands and low frequency rumble; paired up with a Bose Soundlink, it is killer!  The sideband audio is also excellent; very similar to my Ten Tec.

I should clarify that I ran the two external antennas through a MFJ 16010 tuner since it's input is designed for the high impedance whip.  Also, I'm getting around 10 -12hrs per charge which is fine for my use.

If I had any gripes, I would rather have a dedicated line out than the I/Q, but that's just me.

[syfr]

I'm really glad to hear your positive response .  I hope Alex can keep his design out of the hands of the Chinese IP pirates for a while at least. 

I've got a lot of radios, but this one I'm really looking forward to.  12 hours is fine with that battery pack.  I'd much rather have a small radio with no UI "bling" than a big fancy brick with battery eating waterfalls, etc.

[syfr]

I got mine yesterday ..... without question, it's the best portable I've ever used. It's also capable of holding its own with a lot of the desktops I've used. Yes, there's the issue of it needing to be adjacent some metal (or body) to supply a ground plane, but that's always going to be an issue with portables.

40Meter CW during a contest at night, is perhaps the best test of dynamic range handling that there is , and the Belka did fine there. I could EASILY operate this as a ham receiver during a contest, it's that good. Oh, and this with just about 16" of the telescoping antenna extended.

I'm still learning how to use it as there's no manual with it, but it's pretty intuitive so far.

No BCB reception if that's important, but perhaps that contributes to its overall performance. 

This thing is one of the performance bargains that's currently on the marketplace, and is the ideal portable SW rx. It's chargeable via the USB port too, so that solar panel you have can top it off in the field.

[~SIGINT~]

Good to hear that you are pleased with the receiver. I continue to enjoy mine and it is taking its first road trip to the 49th parallel this week. I will be bringing a dipole and and my YouLoop along. The YouLoop works very well with this receiver. As for a "ground plane" a small piece of wire as a counterpoise works well. I sometime just alligator clip the ground part of the SMA connector from the YouLoop to the BNC on the telescopic whip and that makes a wold of difference as well.

[~SIGINT~]

syfr, I forgot to mention, the Belka manual is on the website: http://belrig.by/belka-DX
Switch to the English language, click on Belka-DX Receiver without speaker and scroll down to the bottom of the page. There you will find the link to the User Manual Belka-DX.

[syfr]

Thanks very much for the info, I'll go snag a copy.  It's really a nice UI.... even with just 4 buttons and the encoder/button it's pretty natural to move around.

I keep loading strange frequencies into memory by accident however, instead of fetching them, but that's my mistake!

Now to try some mobile....

[~SIGINT~]

Yes, there are actually some nice "hidden" options that you would never guess by pressing some "2 key" combinations. I also highly recommend that you turn on the backlight timer. You will notice that when the backlight is on and you place the palm of your hand over the display that the receiver is so sensitive that it picks up the noise from the display. There are also a few other conditions where this can happen as well. This will not be an issue when the backlight is off. As soon as you use the encoder dial or push one of the buttons it will come on again.