Deciding on a radio.

[TheCactusThief]

Hey guys! I've recently gotten into radios, and figured I'd expand the field into the SW spectrum, and figured I'd come here to ask some advice on which would be good for what I'm looking for.

I'm looking for a SW radio that covers pretty much everything, weather, PB, CB, SW 1 + 2 you name it, and one that covers pretty much as large a range as you can get. I'm also looking for one that preferably I wouldnt need a huge outdoor antenna to hear things from far away, so one with its own functional antenna would be great. Another thing is (and I'm not sure if this will contradict the last thing) I would love to be able to get broadcasts from various places around the globe, and I hope not having a huge outdoor antenna wont stop me from doing so. Also, last thing I'd prefer it to be probably less than $200, preferably around or less than $100 but if theres a really good one for like $130 or so, I wont mind. Any and all help is greatly appreciated!

 

[N8IAA]

Location, location, location We are not mind readers here on the RR.
Inexpensive SW radios are the Tecsun family. Work well on their own antenna, and won't break the bank.
If your police are VHF/UHF, or trunked, the SW radio won't work on those frequencies. Without knowing where you live, we can't point you in the right direction.
Welcome to RR.
HTH,
Larry

 

[TheCactusThief]

Location, location, location We are not mind readers here on the RR.
Inexpensive SW radios are the Tecsun family. Work well on their own antenna, and won't break the bank.
If your police are VHF/UHF, or trunked, the SW radio won't work on those frequencies. Without knowing where you live, we can't point you in the right direction.
Welcome to RR.
HTH,
Larry

Ah! Well I live on Long Island if that helps, thanks for the quick response!

 

[WB4CS]

I'm also looking for one that preferably I wouldnt need a huge outdoor antenna to hear things from far away, so one with its own functional antenna would be great.

Welcome to RR forums Catcus!

Unfortunately when it comes to shortwave, a large antenna is unavoidable. The wavelengths of radio signals at those low frequencies require some large elements to be resonant. Of course you'll be able to hear transmissions with the built in whip antenna on the radio, but it will only pick up the strongest of signals. To be able to really hear anything from the other side of the world, at the very least you'll need a good long-wire antenna. Do some searching online for shortwave antennas, you'll find tons of DIY projects that will allow you to build a SW antenna for really cheap.

On the other hand, once you get up into VHF and above, the built in whip antenna on a radio will work pretty well. However, an outdoor antenna will work better - the higher up the better!

 

[TheCactusThief]

Welcome to RR forums Catcus!

Unfortunately when it comes to shortwave, a large antenna is unavoidable. The wavelengths of radio signals at those low frequencies require some large elements to be resonant. Of course you'll be able to hear transmissions with the built in whip antenna on the radio, but it will only pick up the strongest of signals. To be able to really hear anything from the other side of the world, at the very least you'll need a good long-wire antenna. Do some searching online for shortwave antennas, you'll find tons of DIY projects that will allow you to build a SW antenna for really cheap.

On the other hand, once you get up into VHF and above, the built in whip antenna on a radio will work pretty well. However, an outdoor antenna will work better - the higher up the better!

Alright, well which radios do you suggest for something not too expensive, but still good?

 

[ka3jjz]

Nominally I have seen lots of reviews that the Tecsun PL-660 works quite well - however -

Living in LI, you have got so many broadcast stations (AM, FM and TV) in your immediate vicinity that any of these smaller portables are going to suffer from these stations interfering in the HF spectrum.

I would save my money for a Icom R75 or Alinco D8T (which is soon to be superceded by a D9T, if the latest radio news is to be believed). If you want an older radio, then do some homework - watch the used lists from places like Universal Radio in Ohio. In fact, looking at their list, I see 2 Drake R8s (a VERY fine radio) for under USD600. Yes, that's out of your current price range, but those small portables are not likely to cut it where you live.

The real push these days is in the field of Software Defined Radios or SDRs. There are a couple - notably the AFEDRI and the Funcube Dongle Plus (unfortunately that's on back order right now) which are much closer to your price range (although you'd still need to save some bucks to do it)

We have a number of places where you can do some research on reviews of these radios- take the time to inform yourself. Start reading up and you can make a much more informed decision...and don't ignore the various Yahoo groups either as a source of information

Category:Receiver Reviews - The RadioReference Wiki

Software Defined Radios - The RadioReference Wiki

And as for antennas, one doesn't need to Google anything - we have a pretty extensive article on HF antennas as well. It's a good place to start...

HF Antennas - The RadioReference Wiki

Finally there are a number of sites that allow you to connect to online receivers and play with them. It's a good way to get your feet wet without a whole lot of investment. Global Tuners and WebSDR are quite popular, but there are others too

Live Tunable Receivers - The RadioReference Wiki

We have a number of dedicated forums for topics like this. There's one for SDRs, and a whole section on HF stuff - if you have questions on either, please feel free to use them

Software Defined Radio - The RadioReference.com Forums

HF / MW / LW Monitoring - The RadioReference.com Forums

HTH...Mike

 

[bob550]

You may also want to consider the Sangean line of SW portables. They've been in the business for many years, and their radios have been very good performers. They'er a bit more costly than the Tecsun. In any case, find one with "continuous coverage" rather than x number of SW bands. There'll always be stuff to listen to "between" the bands. You can also check out eBay for older SW radios of all types including portables and table tops. Portables in general will receive better using their built-in whip antenna. Coupling a longer outdoor antenna to a portable invites signal overload, and causes a general desensitizing of the receiver's reception. At the most, you could attach a thin gauge wire of 20 to 30 feet to the whip antenna using an alligator clip, or connect it to an appropriate jack on the radio. Run the wire around the room, or toss it outside and attach to a nearby tree. That would certainly provide an improvement in reception, and minimize the risk of overload. I've used an outdoor random wire of about 30 feet for many years. But, when coupled to my Sony 2010 (a portable), I generally needed to attenuate the signal to eliminate the overloading. I now use an old Icom R71A receiver, and I could probably couple it to a 300 foot outdoor antenna without problems. If I understand your desire to monitor PB as being police band, you'd be better off with two radios: a SW radio that covers 100 kHz to 30 MHz, and a scanner that covers from 30 up to 1200 MHz for the police communications. Other than that, you'd probably be looking at a wide-band communications receiver that covers 100 kHz to 2000 MHz continuous. But, you'll be spending $2000 or more for a new receiver, not including the outdoor antennas required for reception for these beasts.