Sangean ATS-909x on eBay
For those who might be interested there is a black version of the 909X on eBay with an auction end day of Monday early afternoon. The condition looks good from the pics (of course buyer beware!) and current bid is $127.50 with two bidders. I have one of the white series which bought several years ago from another ham right at this price, so needless to say I was happy (and lucky!)
Seller information
(No connection to seller – just included for search purposes!)
Robert Gulley, AK3Q, is the author of this post and a regular contributor to the SWLing Post. Robert also blogs at All Things Radio.
I have used my black 909X for SW every day for a year now. It’s a nice radio. The 6 kHz (wide) ceramic IF filter has pretty sharp skirts and is an excellent first choice for SW broadcast stations. Other favorite SW features are the control pot for RF gain, powerful 1 watt audio and memory pages which I use a lot and have heavily modified. There has been controversy about SW sensitivity on the 909X. True enough, it lacks a little in this department if only the whip antenna is used. But, with an external random wire or long wire antenna the 909X has great SW sensitivity. Right now I have the 909X keeping me company at the work bench while spiffing up a Hammarlund SP-600.
This eBay listing lacks the AC/AC wall wart. This is an essential accessory for me as I use it to charge four AA Eneloop batteries inside the 909X. I don’t advise trying to listen to SW on a 909X while using AC power. It introduces too much household AC line noise.
A couple of white ATS-909X receivers have sold on Ebay this month for $139.00 Buy-It-Now prices. I almost pulled the trigger on the second one, but decided I didn’t really NEED two of these fine radios.
…But I did just buy a nice vintage Magnavox D2935 for $68 in a moment of weakness :^)
There is always a good selection of Sangean ATS-909X receivers on EBay, as it is a current model. The fluctuating availability of older vintage models is a curious cycle however. I’ve noticed that certain receivers won’t be seen on EBay for months, then a number of them come out of the woodwork for auction. I’ve seen this happen over and over with Lowe HF-150 and HF-250 models, for instance.