What is by far the cheapest, smallest or worst radio you've ever owned?

[Omega-TI]

We're always talking about the most expensive, or best receivers here at RR... but what about those "dog radios", we've all had one. What was yours? Include a photo if possible.

 

[dispatchgeek]

The GE searcher. No selectivity to be found. Every VHF frequency in the area had the ability to stop scan, regardless of where the tuning knobs were parked!

 

[Omega-TI]

The GE searcher. No selectivity to be found. Every VHF frequency in the area had the ability to stop scan, regardless of where the tuning knobs were parked!
View attachment 165232

Wow, neat concept, even if a flawed implementation.

 

[dispatchgeek]

Wow, neat concept, even if a flawed implementation.

It was neat. I was bummed that it was a dud.

 

[trimmerj]

Ar2500. Worst scanner ever.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

This radio was probably all of the above. However, with a diode removed, it could scan literally everything and no analog cellphone, cordless phone or baby monitor was safe from its very sensitive receiver. It was a passable ham radio as well. I sort of miss it as the radios that replaced it did not provide as many hours of fun.

RigPix Database - Standard - C-508A

 

[hill]

The GE searcher

My grandfather had this scanner with his large amount of ham radios back in the day.

Our county was on low band, but the city fire was on high band along with modat tones and I would listen when would play with it.

No idea if he got new or used.

 

[Blackswan73]

I have had the pleasure of owning and/or using many HF radios. Some very good, some not so good, and one in particular just plain awful

B.S.

 

[MiCon]

I don't have a photo, but my worst receiver was a TENNELEC scanner. I don't remember the model, but it was one of the first synthesized programmable scanners. I got mine around 1978 I think. Very loose receiver. Terrible selectivity and sensitivity.

 

[KE4ZNR]

Handsdown the Uniden BC-350a.

RigPix Database - Bearcat/Uniden - BC-350A

Using it was torture.....no direct frequency entry and if your freq was 15x.xxx you had to hold down the up or down button until your finger bled and it finally came across the freq before you could save it into memory.
Now add in the memory bank structure was stupid....you had to lock out hundreds of search frequencies before you could save frequencies into the 20 ch police bank and 10 channel FD/EMS bank or else risk getting the scan stuck on one of those search freqs.
Now add in the fact that the scanner had a tendency to loose all settings if removed from power for any length of time which mean you had to redo all of the above.
Now top it off with poor selectivity/sensitivity and you have a POS scanner destined for failure.
God I hated that damn thing with a passion.

 

[spongella]

By far the cheapest hihi. RIP my mother bought me one of these in the late 50's which began my lifelong interest in radio. Thanks Mom and God bless.

 

[dispatchgeek]

Handsdown the Uniden BC-350a.

RigPix Database - Bearcat/Uniden - BC-350A

Using it was torture.....no direct frequency entry and if your freq was 15x.xxx you had to hold down the up or down button until your finger bled and it finally came across the freq before you could save it into memory.
Now add in the memory bank structure was stupid....you had to lock out hundreds of search frequencies before you could save frequencies into the 20 ch police bank and 10 channel FD/EMS bank or else risk getting the scan stuck on one of those search freqs.
Now add in the fact that the scanner had a tendency to loose all settings if removed from power for any length of time which mean you had to redo all of the above.
Now top it off with poor selectivity/sensitivity and you have a POS scanner destined for failure.
God I hated that damn thing with a passion.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, that scanner series is a PITA to program. They are EVERYWHERE though. For being such a pain to program, everyone bought them. An ambulance agency I worked for even had one wired into their dispatch consoles to monitor fire/PD.

 

[hanlonmi06]

Regarding the Uniden BC350, I came across a very inexpensive BC1 model some time ago. I'm superstitious and old school and when taking road trips I toss a CB in and had added the BC1 for giggles. When riding co-pilot I'd play radios and the BC1 was actually pretty cool. I decided to try a 355N (with the CB) and again, found one for a good price.

For idling tapping a few buttons when staring at the trees going by, it was cool to see what it would pick up. As for a desktop radio to actually scan, monitor, save and store things....that would be a nightmare. Its a neat niche item, but definitely has a very narrow use case in my opinion.

Also, the DX 394, I'm torn. I saved. and saved. and saved to get one back in the day. I was so disappointed with it at first but never got rid of it. Blew the dust off a few years ago to discover it wasn't working properly due to the brown caustic "glue" that created an open on ribbon cable for part of a VCO circuit. Got it working again but it' still not correct...but I just cant part with the dud. Are there any good counselors on the site?! lol

 

[a727469]

The Bearcat BC100…first programable handheld. Unbelievably bad…bad programming, bad buttons, bad batteries…HOWEVER, I give it a pass since it was the first and the effort was there and frankly we would not be where we are today without a first..

 

[KC3ECJ]

Handsdown the Uniden BC-350a.

RigPix Database - Bearcat/Uniden - BC-350A

Using it was torture.....no direct frequency entry and if your freq was 15x.xxx you had to hold down the up or down button until your finger bled and it finally came across the freq before you could save it into memory.
Now add in the memory bank structure was stupid....you had to lock out hundreds of search frequencies before you could save frequencies into the 20 ch police bank and 10 channel FD/EMS bank or else risk getting the scan stuck on one of those search freqs.
Now add in the fact that the scanner had a tendency to loose all settings if removed from power for any length of time which mean you had to redo all of the above.
Now top it off with poor selectivity/sensitivity and you have a POS scanner destined for failure.
God I hated that damn thing with a passion.

I like mine for traveling out of the area.
The dislikes are, the BNC jack was made imperfect, so it has a tendency to disconnect from the board.

Plus mine lost sensitivity and I don't think it was exposed to strong RF which makes me think one or more capacitors are going bad.

 

[prcguy]

Worst performing POS receiver I’ve owned is the Yaesu VR-5000, it would overload on all bands with anything but a small whip. Worst ham radio has to be the CommRadio CTX-10. Its receiver would also overload if someone was on the same band in the same town and the transmit audio had a gate that would cut off soft spoken words, you had to yell into the mic to get anything out of the transmitter. This one ended up rock bottom on Rob Sherwoods receiver performance list and the Yaesu VR-5000 is not that much better.

 

[Omega-TI]

The Bearcat BC100…first programable handheld. Unbelievably bad…bad programming, bad buttons, bad batteries…HOWEVER, I give it a pass since it was the first and the effort was there and frankly we would not be where we are today without a first..View attachment 165349

I cannot say anything about this radio, but it's big brother the Bearcat 200XLT was a decent portable scanner for the time. The only thing I didn't like about it was the fact that you could only use it with the battery attached and they offered no docking port. If you only had one battery and wanted to charge it and use the radio at the same time you would not get anywhere fast.

 

[LesWurk]

worst radio I ever owned was a 2 transistor am radio, got it for Xmas in the 60's

 

[a727469]

Lovely radi🤪. I‘ll bet it was not too cheap even with only 2 transistors!

 

[Blackswan73]

I’m not so sure. Most of the 60’s transistor radios were 5 or six transistor, costing around $20. I built a two transistor radio back in ‘62. I think the parts were around $2-3.

B.S.