Basic HF Reciever

[lil_jimmy_norton]

I am looking for a basic (i.e. cheap) HF reciever, with will do USB and LSB. any suggestions? I don't want anything high end, and the less expensive the better, I would like to keep it under $100.

 

[WILSON43]

SONY ICF - 7600 GR. Nice little portable radio that will do USB and LSB, but will run you 120 - 130. Under 100 bucks and you're wasting your time.

 

[Navairboss]

I am looking for a basic (i.e. cheap) HF reciever, with will do USB and LSB. any suggestions? I don't want anything high end, and the less expensive the better, I would like to keep it under $100.

Sorry, but you just are not going to get any great performance in the under $100 crowd.

It is obvious that you are wanting to listen to ham/utility type comms using USB/LSB. While you will hear some stuff on any receiver, you aren't going to do well. I have been doing a series of reviews in Monitoring Times testing all the under $150 portables and so far, none and I mean none make it to any meaningful level for utility/ham type listening. They fail in every major catagory - sensitivity, selectivity, dynamic range and audio (the big four).

I also put the wideband hand held radios in this same catagory. None of them do HF and ute reception well.

Bottom line if you are serious and you want to do some good ute monitoring or really chasing stations in the ham bands, you need a good receiver. It doesn;t take much of a radio to hear a 500 kW SW broadcast transmitter from Ascension Island carrying the BBC. But you have to have a good receiver to hear my 100 watt transmiiter in the 20 meter ham bands. Most ute transmitters are not high power and that needs a good antenna and receiver combo to monitor their transmissions.

Those reviews of the low receivers (Kaito KA1102 and Eton S350DL) will be on the Monitoring Times website soon and subscribers/readers can see these first two in the February issue. We will look at all the popular under $150, but nothing measured up for any reasonable ute band reception. Sorry

73 de Larry

 

[lil_jimmy_norton]

Oh well, maybe somethime down the road. I have a hard time justifying spending $150 for a HF reciever when i could pick up a PRO-97 for less than that.

Thanks for the help anyway.

 

[ryangassxx]

Hey Jimmy,

Hold up now.... There is in fact a very good HF radio that can be had on the cheap...

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2486269&cp=2032052.2032073&parentPage=family

Has everyone forgotten about the Grundig Mini 300?

By all accounts, this is a fantastic radio and only $30!

This will be an excellent entry level and affordable radio for you...

 

[ryangassxx]

Whoops,... looks like you said you wanted usb lsb support... If you do indeed require that, then this radio might not be for you...

But if you really don't need it that bad, I really do recommend the Grundig Mini 300.

I don't have one actually , but from all accounts, this radio far exceeds expectations for a $30 radio and is highly rated..

 

[Navairboss]

Hey Jimmy,
Hold up now.... There is in fact a very good HF radio that can be had on the cheap...
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2486269&cp=2032052.2032073&parentPage=family
Has everyone forgotten about the Grundig Mini 300?
By all accounts, this is a fantastic radio and only $30!
This will be an excellent entry level and affordable radio for you...

Now "ryangassxx" you need to reread what lil Jimmy wanted ---- SSB support. There are a lot of great SW broadcast portables in the marketplace if that is all you want to monitor. It does not take a lot of radio to hear a powerful SWBC transmission. Now listening to the much weaker ute/ham transmissions is a trick. It is when you throw in the SSB and ute/ham monitoring that these low end radios started to lose their low cost luster.

Jimmy the Kaito KA1102 is not a bad radio and an excellent starter radio at under $100. Again the SSB won't be great, you will hear some stuff (i.e. during testing Gander and New York VOLMET station were monitorable). We had no major problem with some ground stations and a few mobile types, but the majority of the air traffic wasn't heard because of their weaker power levels and the lower sensitivity specs of this low end portable.

73 de Larry

 

[Mischief810]

I picked up a "gently used" Realistic DX-400 for $30 last week. It's not a bad receiver, but it does have a few drawbacks. It only tunes in 1 Khz steps, and its sensitivity is only moderately better than small handhelds. All radios represent tradeoffs between performance/features and price, though. This unit retailed at $250 when it was first released in 1985. In 2007 dollars, that comes out to about $475.

The radio I picked up has faulty Up/Down buttons and corroded battery terminals, so I got it cheap. I've seen this radio from $50 to $100 on ebay.

I had a random-length longwire antenna hung outside to test a different SW receiver, and hooked up the DX-400 Friday night. I spent a good bit of the weekend chasing DX signals in the 80, 40 and 20 meter bands. I was pleasantly surprised with the DX-400's performance. It is an old radio, and it does have its limitations, but it does Ok.

If you can find a DX-400 in decent condition for $50 or so, you'd probably be happy with it.

 

[SAR923]

The Kaito 1103 is even better than the 1102 and is much better at utes than either my DX-398 or Grundig YB 400. It picks up New York air traffic on USB and is very stable and sensitive. It's also one of the least overload-prone receivers I've had. I know that more expensive receivers will do a better job on SSB but the KA 1103 is more than adequate for a new user.

 

[Highlander_821]

Passport to Worldband Radio gives the Kaito 1103 high marks.

 

[gcgrotz]

lil_jimmy:

I've had a Sony 7600 for years. It works very well on ssb with 20 or so feet of wire clipped on the whip. I've carried it all over the world. It is also a very good AM broadcast receiver. Don't be a cheapie, you won't be happy with the result and your $100 will be wasted where an extra 50 will make it worthwhile.

 

[SAR923]

lil_jimmy:

I've had a Sony 7600 for years. It works very well on ssb with 20 or so feet of wire clipped on the whip. I've carried it all over the world. It is also a very good AM broadcast receiver. Don't be a cheapie, you won't be happy with the result and your $100 will be wasted where an extra 50 will make it worthwhile.

Which model 7600? If you look at http://stephan.win31.de/sony7600.htm, you'll see that the 7600 came in models from dreadful to good. Now, go to http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/1534 and see what some users who have both the 7600GR and the DE 1103 have to say. The DE 1103 is at least $50 less than the 7600GR and that's only if you get a really good deal on the 7600GR.

There seems to be a rather odd idea that some people have. If you don't buy some $300 or $400 receiver, anything else is just junk. It's not true. Yes, if I was going to spend hours with the phones glued to my head trying to pick out weak ute signals I'd want an R75. But most folks don't do this - they just want a portable receiver that performs reasonably well on SSB and AM, is portable, and doesn't cost a week's pay. If we want to get more people interested in shortwave, we have to give advice about models across the board and not be SW snobs. Degen is producing some great radios and, for less than $100, it's a good way to get newbies hooked on shortwave.

 

[Highlander_821]

I agree, the little portables are a great way to see what HF is all about before you plunk down several hundred bucks for a "real" HF set.

 

[patrolman123]

Help with HF operations

I was in a Radio Shack the other night and was looking at the Grundig Mini 300. I am interested in being capable of listening to HF operations during major emergency events. Such as the Red Cross during hurricanes and tornadoes. Is the radio for me to begin with or should I look elsewhere. I want something inexpensive to start out. Im would be a new hobbyist to HF operations so any help would be greatful.

 

[Bill_White]

Universal Radio still sells reconditioned Grundig YB-400 PE for $89.00
http://www.universal-radio.com/catalog/portable/0400.html
I think this will be your best bet.

Bill

 

[zz0468]

First, the background: swl for 40 years, in 'the business' for 30. I started with a WW2 surplus BC-342. I now have an ITT Macay locked to an atomic standard. I've run every price class in between. First thing to do is identify your needs. If you want to see what HF is about, getting a cheap (>$100) radio is likely to leave you disappointed and abandoning a wonderful aspect of the hobby before you can give it a chance. You won't hear much of interest. Most of what you will hear is going to be domestic sw broadcasting with religious programming, and wwv time signals.

If you're interested in english language shortwave broadcasts, yes, the cheapies will do the trick. But the fun of hf is digging out the weak ute stations, which almost invariable use some form of ssb and/or digital modulation. That steps up the stability requirements substantially, beyond a cheap radio's ability to perform.

My best suggestion is to either start looking in the $150-$200 price class, or perhaps try ebay. Most of the early Realistic sw receivers were quite decent for a beginner to get his feet wet, and can be found used for CHEAP. If you're lucky enough to find a BC-342 or BC-348 that works, you can get a nice little piece of radio history along with decent performance.
The more recent synthesized models in the lower price ranges suffer from noisy synthesizers, which will detract from their performance.

 

[Declared_Hostile]

Navairboss was the guy who assured me that I was making a wise choice in purchasing a used Icom R-71A from grove quite a few years ago pre-internet days and gave me several freqs like 11175 8992 9025 etc to try out as my interest was milcom and I wanted to get my feet wet in the HF side of things. Never regretted the choice.

The R-71A is still right here in the shack along with it's newer stablemates.

 

[mbird97x]

Having owned a Degen/Kaito DE/KA 1102 for nearly 2 years, I find them to be an excellent beginners radio. I listen to Hams on 80 mtrs. all the time. Sure, it's not the best SSB reception in the world, but it works. I bought my DE1102 off ebay for 47.90+18.00 air shipping(7 days) direct from Liypn(V-Com collections) in Hong Kong. You just can't go wrong with this radio. I have a lot of radios in my collection and listen to this the most. My second choice would be finding a good used Realistic DX-150(a,b) series or DX-160 even though the 160's a a bit drift prone. But what the heck, kinda fun touching up the trim on those old analogs anyway. Those can be had for about 50-75 bux. I have a DX-160 and love it. Try this link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260074875100

 

[SAR923]

I was in a Radio Shack the other night and was looking at the Grundig Mini 300. I am interested in being capable of listening to HF operations during major emergency events. Such as the Red Cross during hurricanes and tornadoes. Is the radio for me to begin with or should I look elsewhere. I want something inexpensive to start out. Im would be a new hobbyist to HF operations so any help would be greatful.

The Mini 300 does not have single sideband capability so it would be useless for HF during disasters since most agency communications are done on SSB. You would be much better off getting a Kaito KA1103. As I have mentioned previously, it's a good, sensitive unit that you can get for less than $100 and will work just fine on SSB for the things you're wanting to monitor.

 

[SAR923]

Having owned a Degen/Kaito DE/KA 1102 for nearly 2 years, I find them to be an excellent beginners radio. I listen to Hams on 80 mtrs. all the time. Sure, it's not the best SSB reception in the world, but it works. I bought my DE1102 off ebay for 47.90+18.00 air shipping(7 days) direct from Liypn(V-Com collections) in Hong Kong. You just can't go wrong with this radio. I have a lot of radios in my collection and listen to this the most. My second choice would be finding a good used Realistic DX-150(a,b) series or DX-160 even though the 160's a a bit drift prone. But what the heck, kinda fun touching up the trim on those old analogs anyway. Those can be had for about 50-75 bux. I have a DX-160 and love it. Try this link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=260074875100

The KA1103 at http://cgi.ebay.com/KAITO-KA1103-AM...ryZ15051QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem is an even better deal for a few bucks more, not that the 1102 is any slouch. I don't think the SWL community in the US is giving Kaito and some of the other Chinese manufacturers the credit they deserve for producing good quality radios. I'd sure rather have a 1102 or 1103 than a YB400. There's no comparison for either sensitivity or selectivity between the two when I've had both running off the same antenna at the same time of day.

I have to disagree about recommending a DX-160 to a beginner. I had one that I bought new when they first came out and it drove me nuts for almost two years until I finally got rid of it. "A little drift prone" Is an understatment. It's fun to play with some of those old radios but a newbie would go crazy trying to tune in anything close to an exact frequency on a DX-160. They do look pretty cool though.