Icom R5

[Punkychan]

I just received my Icom R5 ( japan version) yesterday..but the sad thing is since yesterday itself was trying my best to hook up any station , ham or aircraft or marine...but what I got was some Vietnamese radio station and a few from China or Taiwan...I bought it because I read many reviews about it that its a good radio.I not new in SW listening except this radio is new to me.
What is the best way to enjoy this radio ? How do you tune it , by scan mode or manual mode ?
And what is the best frequency steps when doing manual tuning ?
I've followed everything the owner's manual said. By the way , at the moment I' relying on my standard rubber duckie.Would want to upgrade for an external antenna if I could find some fun or woud give it up and find another radio.

[MPSCS]

The Icom R5 is an excellent micro sized wide-band receiver. That being said, it's not the best choice for SW listening. Added to that, the supplied rubber duckie antenna is worthless for SW.

You do not want to 'scan' on the SW band. Manual slow tuning it a better technique. The steps depend on the band. Smaller steps won't miss anything, but will require more tuning. Larger steps will tune faster, but you may miss weaker stations in between the steps. Experiment a little with that.

Try connecting a long piece of wire, about 20', to the center terminal of the antenna jack (being careful not to damage it), and it should come to life.

[Punkychan]

Thank you !! That motivated me a bit...already started 'shopping' for external antenna.

[villager57]

It is more a scanner rather than a SW radio. I use it for scanning (ie: racing, railroads, air traffic), but if you use it for shortwave, you probably want a longer antenna for better and optimized reception. Anyway, the reception with the stock rubber duckie is quite limited overall. You have some options with the SMA connector, but a SMA/BNC adapter is needed for most antennas. Also, we have no SSB mode on the R5.