On Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:34:37 -0600, Sam Morgan wrote:
>Anyone care to recommend a cheap (around $50) AM/SW receiver
I STRONGLY recommend the vintage GE Super Radio. Do NOT buy the
knock-off version of this radio after Thompson bought the rights
and put the RCA name on it -- while it LOOKS the same, it is a
greatly cost-reduced piece of crap.
The GE Super Radio was designed about 20 years ago by a consortium
of AM broadcast engineers to encourage AM radio. It has excellent
AM and FM front ends for a low cost consumer product, switchable
wide/narrow IFs for both AM and FM, a quite nice 2-way loudspeaker
system, runs quite a while on D-cells (four, as I recall), and on
120V mains power. It's midway in size between a portable and a
boom box. It's a mono radio, nothing digital in it, with a dial
cord. The built-in loopstick will work for AM DF-ing.
I own three of the III-version. They originally sold for about
$40, and are still available on the used market. I paid about that
for my third (for the XYL's art studio) about a year ago, and if I
found another, I'd buy it. When I designed the sound system for
the Northwestern University football stadium (about 12 years ago),
I needed an AM RX to put the broadcasts (from WGN-AM) into the VIP
suites. I asked several of my broadcast engineer friends what they
would use. The only recommendation, from engineers of two 50kW
stations, was this product. The sound contractor thought I was
crazy -- this boom box sitting on top of the equipment racks --
but it worked great.
Of current, compact products, check out Kaito. I have a model
KA008 that has some HF coverage and works OK. Another ham friend
and EE retired from Bell Labs owns a higher priced model and likes
it.
73,
Jim Brown K9YC
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