Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Korchin (K2WNW), for sharing this short video demonstrating the shortwave receive capabilities of the Icom IC-92AD handheld transceiver:
Click here to view on YouTube.
Frankly, I’m quite amazed at the clarity and fidelity of the Voice of Turkey interval signal on this handheld. Goes to show that with a proper antenna, and decent conditions, wide-band handhelds can certainly be used for shortwave radio listening! It also helps that David is outdoors, away from RFI, and was located on the coast of Long Island, NY.
Post readers: Have you had good fortune SWLing with wide-band handled transceivers? Please comment!
I’ve had some success with the Yaesu VX-6E, attached to a SOTABEAMS end fed wire and manual tuner. Voice of Turkey, Voice of America, and CRI all came in reasonably well. Sometimes need to use the attenuator, and it doesn’t deal with adjacent stations too well, but good enough.
You can also do this with the Kenwood TM-F6A tri-band HT. You certainly won’t hear any HF DX with the VHF / UHF duck antenna, except some close 27MHz CB’ers. Yep, you need an appreciable antenna for that as well, and I’d say that it works just as well as when I had a Sony ICF-SW100S pocket portable on all modes LW, MW, and HF, plus it’s nice to have all modes for monitoring VHF and UHF (Like 6M SSB, AM aviation, and 10M FM repeaters.) However, it is good not to have a MW station broadcasting close to you since it will overload and bleed into the HF bands on it. Perks and jerks to everything.
i tried to tell Mr. Tokuzo Inoue to add ssb/cw to the 92ad and call it the 93ad but he told me that Kenwood already did that so i picked up a TH-F6A in akhibara
With the new Kenwood handheld announced they have a new IF for ssb/cw for better signal rejction and yeah D-Star….could be the category killer for 2016
The kenny likes a 10 foot wire as well for shortwave reception because the included rubber duck is useless
this radio although I have had it for more than ten years it seems has been one of the best handhelds I own
I recall listening to Radio Australia in the morning on 9.580 Mhz with a short 8 foot wire
When I was in Japan and Australia, this trusty handheld provided comms but also SWLing in a small and compact package.