Best Shortwave Portable recommendations for a beginner

[Milopup04]

Hello, I am new to this forum and looking for some advice on what the experienced folks here would recommend for a beginning shortwave listener. My budget is about $300.

The C. Crane Skywave portable on Amazon has caught my eye as one option. I was also wondering what I could expect for reception ( I am in Iowa). This C Crane unit comes with a tiny reel antenna.

Thanks in advance!

 

[TomLine]

RTL-SDR Software Defined Radio USB stick (25$)
SDRSHARP (free software). This will let you scroll up and down the bands and visually see everything: big fat shortwave stations, AM, FM, USB, LSB, CW... wIeRd sTuFf.... everything... very educational.

 

[ka3jjz]

Yes, SDRs are a good way to go - the various SDRPlays fit in your budget. However if you want a portable, a Tecsun PL660 would be a good choice, and the Belka is another. We have a wiki on that radio here..

Belka DX and DSP Receivers - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

We have a separate forum for receive antennas, but just to ask - can you put anything outdoors and away from the home? That's always best....Mike

 

[ab3a]

If you're just looking for a radio that doesn't require anything extra, such as a laptop or tablet to operate, there are a number of good choices out there. The PL-680 or PL-660 from Tecsun are fairly inexpensive, decent portable radios that do pretty well. The audio from these radios could be better, but the synchronous detection feature is great for picking one sideband over the other. Not all Tecsun radios have decent sync detectors, but those two are reasonable performers. Sangean has a newer radio the ATS-909X2. Earlier versions of that radio were known for being a little "deaf" but this one seems to have overcome most of that problem. C.Crane has decent radios as well. The Skywave SSB is a very nice small radio.

The swling post has radio reviews. If you like to spend time playing on MW AM broadcast bands, you may want to read RadioJayAllen's reviews. He also looks at SW and FM performance.

In terms of SDR receivers, I suggest that if you want to purchase one, get one that has better performance than the RTL-SDR. I have one and it is a a bit disappointing. For $170-ish you can get an Airspy HF+Discovery receiver from Airspy.us. I also suggest getting a portable YouLoop antenna from them as well. The whole deal will set you back a bit over $200 with shipping. The receiver performance is frankly amazing given the price. The YouLoop is nice because it is small and is great for travel. The SDR# software is free. It is a great starter package. A word of advise: don't go this route unless you have a decent computer equipped with an i5 or better and plenty of disk space. You'll probably want to record spectrum of what you hear.

Spend some time looking around. You may value audio quality over portability. If that's the case, you may want to look at larger radios such as the Tecsun H.501. There are many offerings and generally the competition is such that you usually get what you pay for if you buy a new radio. Note that if you want a good price direct from Hong Kong, Anon-Co is a reputable company to deal with. I have purchased from them before and was happy with the transaction.

Good luck!

 

[Boombox]

Whatever you get, if you can afford it get a radio with SSB, as the SW broadcast bands are relatively dead lately. The Tecsuns, CCrane and Sangean mentioned upthread are good radios.

 

[WA8ZTZ]

^^^^^^ yes, SSB is a must
also, direct keypad entry is nice... saves a lot of otherwise possibly clumsy manipulation of the controls

 

[dlwtrunked]

RTL-SDR Software Defined Radio USB stick (25$)
SDRSHARP (free software). This will let you scroll up and down the bands and visually see everything: big fat shortwave stations, AM, FM, USB, LSB, CW... wIeRd sTuFf.... everything... very educational.

Only some RTL-SDR cover AM broadcast band and HF (shortwave)--the original ones did not and some sold today do not.

 

[TomLine]

Only some RTL-SDR cover AM broadcast band and HF (shortwave)--the original ones did not and some sold today do not.

Bought mine about 3 years ago. Have to toggle it from "direct" to "quad" sampling when going above/below 25mhz. Works great.

 

[majoco]

The OP said "portable" and all you guys have told him is SDRs!

I can personally recommend any of the Tecsun portables - starting with PL-600 if they're still available and if you want to go top line then there's the S2000 which is the Grundig lookalike - although I haven't used one of those, they get good reviews.

 

[ka3jjz]

Not quite - the OP said he 'had his eye' on a portable and gave his budget. That opens the door to SDRs as well as portables.

Mike

 

[Omega-TI]

Hello, I am new to this forum and looking for some advice on what the experienced folks here would recommend for a beginning shortwave listener. My budget is about $300.

The C. Crane Skywave portable on Amazon has caught my eye as one option. I was also wondering what I could expect for reception ( I am in Iowa). This C Crane unit comes with a tiny reel antenna.

Thanks in advance!

I'm going to take a different path than most people here. First, I'm going to ask what you would like to listen to, (that is very important) and that can make all the difference in how much you NEED to spend. I don't recommend a radio that expensive to beginners as you might lose interest right away and be stuck with a $pendy radio. Sometimes simply buying a cheap radio (at first) can help you get your feet wet, then later you'll more informed about what you really want to buy.

 

[ka3jjz]

That is a fair point, although HF has such a broad range of interests that getting a specific answer might be difficult for a newcomer

Mike

 

[dlwtrunked]

Bought mine about 3 years ago. Have to toggle it from "direct" to "quad" sampling when going above/below 25mhz. Works great.

3 years ago is a recent one; bub above 25 *MHz* ones only are also still being sold.

 

[mitaux8030]

For a quiet portable receiver with excellent sensitivity, I really like the original Degen DE-1103. When I say quiet, I mean there isn't a loud background hiss when there's no signal being received, and that the background hiss also isn't audible when a signal is being heard. Some cheap portables suffer from this effect, and it becomes fatiguing to listen to like that.
The drawback with the Degen DE-1103 is that the ergonomics are not the best, especially when it comes to changing volume... but you get used to the two step process quickly enough. They have SSB and AM, as well as FM and have a pleasing, well rounded sound output.
With sensitive portables, the location you use them is critical. Inside a home where you have loads of potential interference sources in close proximity (cell phone chargers, PCs, TVs, cable modems etc etc) then expect a lot of noise to be picked up from them. Portables excel when you can get away from all that noise and use them outside, in the park or something. Combine that with good sensitivity and you can get very good results, hearing signals from around the globe with ease.

 

[N2IXX]

I am partial to the Tecsun PL-880 great audio good sensitivity and decent SSB reception. Next would be the Tecsun PL-660 good receiver and very good Synchronous Detection which can help with some fading signals. The PL-680 is an upgrade to the PL-660, don't have one so I can't say how much or little improvement it has over the PL-660. And for the price of one of these radios you can also pick up a PL-380 as small easy to carry radio, minus SSB, and still be way under budget. Check out this review of the PL-600 PL-660 PL-680 shootout. A review of the Tecsun PL-680 with reader survey results

 

[ka3jjz]

If you want to research reviews of portables and under USD200 SDRs you have a couple of resources to help...

Category:Receiver Reviews - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

SDRs with HF Coverage - The RadioReference Wiki

wiki.radioreference.com

(reviews of the Airspy and SDRPlay SDRs can be found here, among others)

Mike

 

[LCRay]

The OP said "portable" and all you guys have told him is SDRs!

I can personally recommend any of the Tecsun portables - starting with PL-600 if they're still available and if you want to go top line then there's the S2000 which is the Grundig lookalike - although I haven't used one of those, they get good reviews.

I was thinking the exact same thing.
A beginner might enjoy the traditional radio experience at first. ( like most of us did).

SDR will still be around if the interest there.

 

[jazzboypro]

I have a Eton Elite executive and it works good. SDR are a good alternative but contrary to ab3a i would not recommend the youloop antena. I have one. Performance wise it does works well but the construction is not impressive. The feed line is much too stiff and too short in my opinion. One of the connector on the feedline broke off after a few install/uninstall on the radio side. Rotating the antenna as a tendency to loosen the connections. Maybe i had a bad unit of was not careful enough.

 

[pnw73]

It isn’t uncommon to get analyzation paralyzation when shopping for a SW radio. I’m guilty. My advice for you is to go for the Skywave SSB. When I began SWL many years ago a compact radio like this would have been considered a starship. I avoided the first generation Skywave because it lacked SSB but jumped on it with that upgrade and haven’t been disappointed. You can spend a lot more on a larger receiver with fancier bells and whistles, but they won't guarantee success. Gather up some alligator clips and a spool of insulated stranded wire and experiment with different lengths and directional placement of the wires and you will be amazed what the Skywave can hear. See this A review of the C. Crane CC Skywave SSB ultra compact travel radio

 

[Boombox]

I think most of the portables mentioned probably are quite similar in performance. Most modern portables use DSP chips (instead of the older, analog IF chips) and they're pretty good at bringing in signals and filtering them for adjacent interference (should there be any). It's not 1980 when the SW bands were so crowded with broadcast stations you needed selectivity to hear a station. Selectivity comes into play more on SSB and MW DXing. And most of the DSP portables I've used, or read about, are adequate for MW (I don't have a DSP radio with SSB).

I think if the OP goes with any of the radios mentioned here -- Skywave, Tecsun 660 or 880, or the other ones mentioned -- he will do OK. A lot with SW right now depends on the solar cycle increasing, and that won't really kick in for another year. Until then, it's good nights vs. poor nights. But usually there still is enough to hear to make it interesting. And then there's always DXing on MW or FM, and DSP radios (like most of the ones mentioned) do well on MW and FM, too.