For $10 you get a frustrating piece of junk.Question 1:
I see many makes and models of SW radio on the web. The price ranges from 10 dollars US to several hundred dollars. What can i expect to get at 10 dollars, and what can i expect to get near 100 dollars? Are some radios really so awful you cant get much SW on them? Also, any particular radios or brand names to stay away from?
Depends what you want to listen to.Question 2:
I understand we need to be able to detect single side band as well as regular AM on the SW bands. How important is this, and do some radios just not have this?
Meaningless non technical sales twaddle.Question 3:
I also see a number of radios with 'bands' described in certain ways that are NOT in meters or even in Hertz, but things like "receives Bands 1 to 9", "receives SW1 and SW2", "World band SW".
These receivers were probably just designed for coverage of the shortwave broadcast bands.I do however once in a while see the actual frequencies listed, like 3 to 20MHz, however sometimes the frequencies listed 'skip' several 'bands' like:
"receives 5 to 6MHz, 7 to 10MHz" where obviously they skipped 6 to 7MHz for some unknown reason.
So the question is, are there any bands that are more important than others, or do you really need to get all of them to have a good experience with this kind of radio reception?
Not sure that I can give much advice here.Question 4:
Part of the reason im looking into this is to be able to listen to local channels for emergency broadcasts. Any standard channels for this (like channel 9 is for CB radio)?
Possibly.I also wonder if the computer running will interfere with it badly? I had PIC chips interfere badly with standard AM radio already.
Question 4:
Part of the reason im looking into this is to be able to listen to local channels for emergency broadcasts. Any standard channels for this (like channel 9 is for CB radio)?
But this is far from an ideal solution!Perhaps an added high gain front end would help a cheaper radio? After all it's all under 30MHz im after really.
Hello again,
Thanks for the great replies. This is definitely helping me understand this hobby more and more.
So it looks like you have to spend the bucks to get the clucks, ok, well i'll have to think about this
How about a manufacturer named "MFJ" ? They have catalog on the web with an 80 dollar unit. It's a kit though so has to be constructed.
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