Curious about this Radio Shack radio you asked about, I decided to buy one. From what I've been able to find out over the net, this radio is a newer version of Radio Shack's DX-402 -- the Sangean ATS-505 that Radio Shack sold under their own name and model number in the 2000's.
I've had a chance to use it over the past two days, and so far, I'm impressed.
It's picked up practically everything my DX-398 picked up, and it has better sound (esp. through headphones). I tuned around the SW bands, ham bands (both CW and SSB sections), and MW and it seems to work well. FM seems to work well also.
When you consider that this new DX-402 only costs $80 and the DX-398 cost over $200 new (although that was a few years ago), you’re getting a lot of radio for the money.
On MW it performs basically the same as my DX-398. It seems to have less splatter from strong stations than the DX-398 on MW, even though it has a wider filter. I have a local splatter master on 710 khz., and hearing a distant ESPN station on 700 is nearly impossible on most of my radios without using a narrow filter. This radio was able to pick it up with just the standard filter, with very little splatter.
On SW, I tuned into the BBC on 6005 khz., and I was able to reduce the interference from Cuba on 6010 by switching the radio's tuner knob to 1 khz., and tuning the radio to 6004. So, even though the radio doesn't have a wide/narrow filter switch, you can still get readable signals from a QRM'ed station that way.
On SSB it works pretty well. Once again, I was surprised that it heard everything my 398 heard. The 20 meter band wasn't crowded, so maybe that made a difference. But this new radio picked up one weak signal ham from Australia, and another weak signal ham from Belgium, with the same readability as the DX-398. The only drawback on SSB is the radio tends to distort slightly on hard peaks. The AGC is moderate and doesn't pump like it does on some radios.
On SSB, this radio's clarifier knob has a detent so you can center it back on frequency easily, and it wasn't hard for me to tune in hams or utilities with it. When I tuned the 20 meter ham band, I switched the tuner knob to 1 khz. (by pressing it in once), and the tuner stayed at 1 khz as I tuned up and down the band. The tuner will go in 1 khz. steps until you press the up or down buttons, then it will switch back to 5 khz. tuning.
I used a 30 ft. wire with mine on SW, without it overloading the radio. Here in the NW, using wire antennas with portables (at least those with external antenna jacks) usually is not much of a problem, because of low overall signal levels. My guess is the radio would probably pull in signals off the whip rather well in your area of the U.S.
So from my impression of two days of use -- I’d say this radio is well worth the money.
