Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Frank, who writes:
Thomas,
I have asked for and received help from your members a couple of times during the last year. I am sending this to you in an effort to “give something back” to your members.
I managed to stupidly break the built-in whip antenna on my Sony 7600GR and looked for a replacement. Several are on eBay for 5- 60 dollars which is a bit steep.
I eventually tried one (for $20) in the link below from eBay:
It arrived very quickly (under 2 weeks from China) and it simply went into the radio with no problems and it works very well.
I am not a radio HAM or electronics expert so it may not be perfect but to me the reception is at least as good as the original.
If anyone needs one, it would be well worth trying.
Regards,
Frank from England
Thanks so much for sharing this useful tip, Frank!
Does the radio need to be disassembled in order to replace the antenna? Where can I get one? It looks As though you take one screw out of the base of the antenna that goes into the back panel. I’ve read in some places rhat it’s necessary to take the back panel off to get the new one in. Please help.
Antenna repair on portable radios is a subject that merits either a long post, or perhaps a whole book.
I will throw out one tip I find handy:
Wire stripping tools have a series of different sized holes with one side of the hole flat and the other side concave.
To repair an antenna sometimes you need to “swage” a piece of tubing so that it “necks down” to trap the next smaller diameter tube of the telescoping sections.
You can “swage” a freshly cut piece of metal tubing by repeatedly bumping it against the concave side of a hole on a wire stripping tool.
You can also create two swaged pieces of tubing by gently “biting” a piece of tubing using the wire stripping tool to create a 360 degree dent, then cut the tubing with a Dremel tool cut off wheel at the deepest part of the new dent.
Antenna factories must have swaging tools for brass and stainless steel tubing, but they are hard for us radio enthusiasts to find.
…I purchased the older Sony iCF-7600 ( …1990) on the “grey market” for $200..!
…it was not very senistive on AM, LW, although SW was OK! …within 3 months, 3 capacities blew. The newer Sangean ATS-909X2 is reviewed as a much better radio.” ..?
Frank from England needn’t worry about the performance of his replacement antenna. As long as it extends to the same (or nearly the same) length as the original it will perform identically to the original. The only exception would be if the original had a loading coil which it doesn’t. I really like seeing subscribers sharing helpful tips.
Sure wish Sony had continued to produce high end portable SW
receivers. Their ICF 2010 is a very good performer and has synchronous detection which is very helpful in reducing fading. I treasure my 2010. Their SW 100 is also a good very small receiver but suffers from microphonics when using the internal speaker and has the dreaded flex cable failures.
Regards,
Mark
AF6IM
BSEE UC Berkeley
I had the telescopic antenna of my SW7600G broken. It is the same that of the SW7600GR. Someone at the time told me that the telescopic antenna of the Degen DE1103 fits perfectly so I ordered two units. And yes, it does fit perfectly well.