[Elecraft] The KX3 as a shortwave broadcast receiver

[Mike Morrow]

Jim wrote:

> Those looking for a broadcast receiver would do well to look at the 
> Tecsun product line... 
> About half of them are DSP radios using a Silicon Labs chip, and yield 
> excellent performance on both AM and FM. Most of them cover LW (below 
> the AM broadcast band), all of them cover "short wave" broadcast bands, 
> ...AM bandwidth is switchable to provide audio bandwidth in several
> steps between 1 kHz and 6 kHz.
>
> I have three radios using the Silicon Labs chips -- ... a Tecsun 380 
> ...The RF performance can only be described as amazing.

I agree.  I expected only passable performance...but AM and FM broadcast
band performance is better than anything I've used in 45 years as an
avid AM listener (and FM is equally impressive).

The 390 is noticeably better than the 380 on AM.  It is a wider radio
than the 380, so it has room for a significantly longer ferrite rod
antenna.  It also has FM stereo and a very handy line-in jack, both
of which the 380 lacks.

> The Tecsun ... radios run on AA batteries or a wall wart...

I found it better to use NiMH rechargeable batteries and take advantage
of the built-in recharge-from-USB circuitry.  The radio allows one to
specify that NiMH cells are installed instead of normal AA-cells.

The 390 comes with a case with bottom pocket to store: (1) Stereo ear buds,
(2) USB charging cable, (3) Clip-on wire antenna, (4) 3.5mm stereo cable
to connect an external AF device to the 390's line-in jack (Great for
using with an MP3 player).

> I also own three of the GE Super Radio III, which is one of the best AM 
> broadcast receivers around.

I have an *original* Super Radio (not model II or III), plus a model III.
My original model always performed much much better than the III, but the
model III had a terrible history of significant QA problems.  All are very
large portable radios by modern standards.  My small Tecsun 380 and 390
grossly outperform these old units.  

I haven't been much concerned about the AM broadcast performance of the
KX3.  When a rather small SDR AM/FM broadcast radio like the Tecsun 390 is
available at trivial cost, I don't require a ham rig to attempt to match
it for broadcast reception.

There are now many SDR radios available for give-away prices that have
outstanding performance, ranging from these Tecsun BCB receivers to the
Baofeng micro-size VHF/UHF HTs.  Both are useful SDR-technology radios
to supplement the SDR KX3.

73,
Mike / KK5F