Shortwave Receiver

[ka3jjz]

I had a 2200 for quite a while. Decent enough radio but terrible problems with crosstalk on the bandswitch. This would cause false images of legit frequencies showing up all over the place. It's been reviewed in many places. I don't think that one had a BFO so no utilities that use sideband could be heard clearly. That rotatable AM antenna is virtually coped on the S220X.

Mike

 

[Grunddiigg]

I had a 2200 for quite a while. Decent enough radio but terrible problems with crosstalk on the bandswitch. This would cause false images of legit frequencies showing up all over the place. It's been reviewed in many places. I don't think that one had a BFO so no utilities that use sideband could be heard clearly. That rotatable AM antenna is virtually coped on the S220X.

Mike

If you are talking about the rf-2200 it does have BFO.

 

[ka3jjz]

That radio isn't quite as stable as one would hope; like the RF2900 it does tend to drift. Still for an analog radio, and particularly if you want to do MW DX it's ok....MIke

 

[spongella]

I had mine cleaned up and refurbed and honestly it's the one that I listen to the most. Great sound and reception on all bands. Listening to it right now!

I love my Grundigs and Tecsuns too so this might just be a phase for me lol.

View attachment 172535

Nice unit you have. It's an excellent AM radio for the broadcast band DX'er (like me) with that rotatable ferrite antenna.

 

[ditto1958]

It would be nice if a waterfall display would be on these SW receivers. Could be a good update for sales.

Radio designers in 2024 face some big challenges. You‘ve got shrinking consumer demand to fewer and fewer SW stations to small portable $40 DSP radios that are as sensitive or more so than $200+ portables from a few years ago. Add to that your suggestion, and what do you do if you want to make and sell a new receiver? Yes, there potentially are buyers who want a waterfall and a radio thats more like their iPad or PC… but a lot of others want a receiver that looks and works like a traditional radio.

 

[shirsch101]

I was able to get a great deal on a Dx-394 on eBay. Lowbander will do his magical modifications for me to make it a better radio.
Next question any recommendations on an antenna?

 

[Boombox]

I was able to get a great deal on a Dx-394 on eBay. Lowbander will do his magical modifications for me to make it a better radio.
Next question any recommendations on an antenna?

Start short and work your way up. And/or get ahold of, or build, an antenna tuner or preselector if you use a longer antenna.

I do OK with a 25-30 ft indoor, second story wire with mine. Not much overload. Only get that, or crosstalk, if some ham is running high power on a good prop day, and it's 20-30 kHz away. Otherwise, I do well with my DX-394. But I'm in a hole, a narrow valley, so 25-30 ft doesn't overload the front end, most days and evenings. I get more overload on a couple MW channels than I do on SW. On SW it's rare here.

If you're in a higher signals area than where I live, you may do well if you have a preselector or antenna tuner to reduce overload.

The attenuator on the back of the radio can help. I've never used it, though. RF Gain has a lot of range to it. You still have a lot of gain with it set at 9 or 10 o'clock, but it does tame stronger signals.

The radio is actually pretty good for hamband monitoring. I hadn't used mine in maybe 8-10 years and after getting it out of the closet, firing it up, I was surprised. Even the CW1/CW2 'modes' (they are narrow audio filters, actually) can cut down some static, depending on type.

Use headphones. The audio will be better than the speaker.

If you're monitoring a section of a hamband, like the CW section, hanging out on a couple adjacent frequencies trying to ID faint, polar path signals from the EU or whatever, use the LOCK button. One slight jarring of the tuner knob will jump it up or down 15-30 kHz easily. It's fairly easy to do and it's frustrating. I never thought a LOCK button would be needed on a SW tabletop. Now I know.

The VLF trick works, too. You have to have the radio in Longwave before you do the button press. It's LONGWAVE > LIMIT > PGM > 1 > FREQ > ENTER.

Depending on the extent of the mods, USB is add 1 kHz to what you see the frequency readout, LSB is within 10-20 Hz. The fine tuner tunes in 50 Hz steps, the lowest regular tuner steps are 100 Hz. Works well enough for most ham band monitoring.

Have fun.

 

[Boombox]

It would be nice if a waterfall display would be on these SW receivers. Could be a good update for sales.

It would also boost the price, and possibly keep some newbies from trying out the hobby.

Waterfalls are only moderately useful on SW anyway. To really hear what's on a band you have to actually tune the frequencies and listen. A lot of DXers miss stations by depending solely on what they see on the waterfall.

It wouldn't surprise me if a Chinese company doesn't come out with a waterfall SW radio within the next year or two, even if it's a limited waterfall display (like 100 kHz across or something like that) as the waterfall tech drops in price. There are some fancy new models with colorful LCD readouts that sell OK, even though they're over $100. There is still a market for $150-$200 price range SW radios.