[Elecraft] The KX3 as a shortwave broadcast receiver

[Jim Lowman]

I'd agree with you about the Tecsun radios, Jim.  I bought a PL-660 last 
year, before Christmas.

The only gripes that I have are:

a)  the cheap Chinese batteries that came with it had a short life. I 
topped off the charge after installing the batteries, and the next time 
that I tried to use the radio, they wouldn't take a charge.
b)  no BFO.  I was going to listen to the "Night of Nights" transmission 
Friday night, and I discovered the hard way that it doesn't do CW.  Good 
thing that I had the K3 and KX3!

73 de Jim - AD6CW

On 7/16/2013 7:37 AM, Jim Brown wrote:
>
> Those looking for a broadcast receiver would do well to look at the 
> Tecsun product line, imported by the same folks who import Kaito. 
> There are a dozen or so models ranging in cost from about $45 to about 
> $100. 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, and a few cover the part of the VHF spectrum used by 
> aircraft.  A few models have detectors for SSB. 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 $100 Sony 
> (discontinued, selling for $500 used if you can find them), a Tecsun 
> 380 ($45), and an Insignia FM-only HD radio sold by Best Buy ($50). 
> The RF performance can only be described as amazing. Here in the Santa 
> Cruz mountains, I wanted to hear KQED from San Francisco, with a 
> mountain between us. With a long Yagi pointed at it, KQED was noisy on 
> both my Technics ST9030 and Carver TX11B, but nearly full quieting on 
> all three DSP radios. More impressive, the Technics and Carver heard 
> full quieting signals from 1,000 W stations 50 miles away on 91.5 and 
> 91.9, and nothing but noise on 91.7.  All three DSP radios hear a 
> station on 91.7 nearly full quieting from near San Luis Obispo, and 
> off the back of the Yagi!
>
> The Tecsun and Insignia radios run on AA batteries or a wall wart, can 
> be connected to an external antenna with a clip lead, and have a 
> headphone output that can feed a high quality audio system. .BTW -- I 
> also own three of the GE Super Radio III, which is one of the best AM 
> broadcast receivers around. It was designed by a consortium of 
> broadcast engineers in the 70s, when they were trying to "save AM." It 
> has a 10 kHz notch filter, and the IF bandwidth is switchable to >20 
> kHz. It's been out of production since the marketing turkeys who 
> bought the RCA name bought the division of GE that made it, but the 
> original GE Super Radio is still around on the auction sites.
>
> Very thorough engineering reviews (and a lot of other great material)  
> by Brian Beezley, K6STI, of the Technics, Carver, and Sony receivers 
> can be found at http://ham-radio.com/k6sti/index.html
>
> 73, Jim K9YC