Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Portable Shortwave Receivers

Today practically all of the cheap portable shortwave receivers are digital. When I started shortwave listening in the 1980's, only the more expensive table top receivers were digital. My fist shortwave receiver was a Soviet portable receiver of model Selena B212. The model is still legendary for its good performance for the price, but it was rather difficult to use without a separate digital frequency counter.

Most beginners should be happy with any portable receiver in the price range between $99-$199. Sangean, Sony and Grundig have produced shortwave receivers of decent quality in this price range. I myself use a Sony ICF7600 and I have been completely happy with its performance. I have very pleasant memories of sitting under a palm tree in the Dominican Republic while listening to icehockey match broadcasted from Scandinavia a few years ago...

The shortwave receivers in this price range usually perform quite well with the in-built whip antenna. If you are interested in listening to more exotic stations with weak signals, you might need an external antenna and/or a better receiver. But for most shortwave listeners it is enough to have a decent portable receiver.

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