Category Archives: Radios

Digitech AR-1780 on order!

This morning, I bit the bullet and ordered the recently introduced Digitech AR-1780.

I’ve had a massive amount of inquiries about this radio–mainly from readers in Australia and New Zealand–so I thought it would make sense to check it out and compare it to other portables.

This radio is only available from retailers in Australia (so far), so I placed the order with an Australia-based eBay retailer:

The price, with shipping, will equate to about $142 US.

The AR-1780 is being sent via the postal service so I don’t expect it to arrive for at least a couple of weeks. eBay estimates a delivery between August 17-28.

Stay tuned! Bookmark the tag Digitech AR-1780 to follow updates.

Ed’s Homebrew Fruitcake Tin Radio

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed Ganshirt, who writes:

I had an old car radio from the 1940’s I salvaged the parts from, and a rudimentary schematic to build by. I decided to re-assemble in the container I stowed away the parts in. Nothing special just another AM broadcast radio in an unusual cabinet (fruitcake tin.)

I love it, Ed! It’s like a broadcast band version of Rex’s Tuna Tin QRP radios!

It must have been a challenge to mount all of the components on that tin. So how does she play?

Post readers: please comment and consider sharing your homebrew project!

Richard’s initial impressions of the Sony XDR-S41D FM/DAB receiver

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Richard Langley, who recently attended a conference in Paris and picked up a Sony XDR-S41D. Richard writes:

The workshop closed around noon on Friday so I spent part of the afternoon walking around the nearby Darty consumer electronics and appliance store.

I wanted to buy a DAB/DAB+ portable receiver just to see what Europe was doing with digital radio. I bought a recently introduced Sony XDR-S41D DAB/DAB+/FM(with RDS) receiver for 79€ (about 11€ off list price).

I can use it in North America to listen to FM and take it with me when I visit Europe for DAB/DAB+ as well as FM.

It has reasonable sound from its 8-cm speaker and pretty good stereo sound on headphones. It has an automatic search mode on both DAB/DAB+ and FM and creates a list of available stations.

In my hotel room in the 13th arrondisement, I could receive 46 DAB+ stations. One of the stations is World Radio Paris (WRP) and they provide English language programming 24 hours per day from BBC World Service, Public Radio International, Radio France International, and Radio Canada International, among others as well as their own programming.

Another available station was Medi 1, which just dropped its shortwave transmissions. I recorded some of the WRP programming:

Audio Clip 1 (MP3)

Audio Clip 2 (MP3)

There is no line output from the receiver but I was able to use the earphone output and crank the volume to maximum to get an acceptable recording level without noticeable distortion.

Happy with my purchase and can’t wait to go back to Europe again, say to England, to try out DAB+ there.

I also spotted three receivers with SW capability on the shelves at the Darty store:

Panasonic RF-3500 for 45€

Brandt BR200D for 45€

Brandt BR120A for 15€

You don’t see SW receivers in North American consumer electronics stores anymore and I’ve not spotted any in airport duty free stores lately either.

I’ve been listening to the XDR-S41D at home and it sounds pretty good on FM, too, and does a good job of displaying the RDS information although a character or two is sometimes cut off the end of the data but that could be the fault of the station. Need to investigate that some more.

By the way, the radio doesn’t come with a case but I found (just before I was going to toss it) that it just fits in the magnetic-clasp case of one of those Air Canada amenities kits that they give you in business class (see photo below).

That’s the second Air Canada item I have recycled. They used to use full-ear headphones with disposable foam covers. They were a perfect fit for the deteriorating covers on my old Sony noise-cancelling headphones. I’ve since upgraded to Bose. 😉

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, Richard! The Sony XDR-S41D sounds like a keeper for sure and is certainly compact enough to easily accompany you on travels to Europe. I was not aware of World Radio Paris either–I see they’re available via TuneIn, so I’ll add them to my WiFi radio station favorites!

Schematic for the PLL EDUTEC 4-Band Digital Radio Weltempfänger?

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Cezar Vener, who writes with the following inquiry:

I would like to ask you if you can help me with a schematic diagram for an EDUTEC 4-Band digital radio (PLL EDUTEC 4-Band Digital Radio Weltempfänger). It is not broken, but I would like to modify it. Of course, I could spend some time and manually extract the schematic, but I would lose too much time.

While I know that “EDUTEC” is a registred trade mark for technical (“non-food”) products that was sold by “Eduscho Handelsgesellschaft” in Bremen and also I found that it is now owned by Tchibo, well – I would like to kindly ask you for help in this matter? (course, if you can).

It is an old product, probably made in the 90’s and until now, I didn’t find anything on the net about it. I opened it and I found that its core is TA8132AN, and the FM section is made around TA7358AP. The audio stage is built with C1212C, and there is one more integrated circuit there, TA8148S (no datasheet on the net, but I found that is a DC-DC converter for electric tuning – built-in stabilized supply output for biasing VHF tuner variable capacitor / sine wave oscillation).

BTW, I found it also in SONY CFS-W504L 🙂

The PLL chip is soldered with the unmarked side, so I don’t know what type it is.

[See photo at top of post.]

Here is a photo of the rear back stand:

Unfortunately, there is no other model or name written on the radio.

I see there “CENTRON LABORATORIES LTD”, that points to the company with the same name from Gujarat, India. Very interesting :))

In the hope of an answer from you, please allow me to thank you and to congratulate you for the very nice site that you maintain there!

Many thanks, Cezar! It’s readers like you who make this site such a great one!

Post Readers: I hope someone may be able to help Cezar. This radio looks familiar–perhaps I’ve seen it badged with a different company name? Please comment if you can help Cezar locate a schematic.

Mike spots the RCA AR-88 in series “Prime Suspect: Tennison”

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Mike Hansgen (K8RAT), who adds the following to our growing archive of radios in film. Mike writes:

Near the end of the current episode of “Prime Suspect: Tennison” [the radio operator mentions] he was listening on “the RCA 88”.

“Tennison” is set around the early ’70’s.

Great catch, Mike (and thanks to Eric WD8RIF for the screen cap).

According to the Crypto Museum:

The AR-88 was a valve-based shortwave general coverage communications receiver, developed and built by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) in the early 1940s. Although the receiver was initially intended as the successor to the AR-77 amateur receiver, the outbreak of WWII made it evolve into a professional high-end military-grade receiver for which cost was no object.

The AR-88 is a 14-valve (tube) receiver, which covers a frequency range of 535 kHz to 32 MHz. Unlike the National HRO receiver, which had pluggable coil packs for each frequency band, the AR-88 uses a six-position band selector. A special version of the receiver, the AR-88LF, was suitable for LF and MF, covering 70 to 550 kHz (continuously) and 1.5 to 30 MHz (continuously).

Continue reading at the Crypto Museum online…

The Crypto Museum photo of the AR-88 jogged my memory…

Last year, I visited the Musée de la Défense Aérienne at the Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Bagotville (a museum I wholeheartedly recommend, by the way).

I snapped this shot of this display:

I’m sure I actually have a close up of this receiver somewhere. It also appears to be an RCA AR-88 based on dial and control configuration, though I certainly could be wrong.

Do any SWLing Post readers have an AR-88? Please comment!

The Tecsun PL-880: triple conversion architecture

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Larry Thompson, who writes:

There’s been some confusion on my part whether the Tecsun PL-880 is a dual conversion or triple conversion receiver. Amazon and eBay list the receiver as double conversion, whereas Universal Radio doesn’t mention either.

After scouring the Instruction Manual, I was pleased to learn that the PL-880 uses the Silicon Labs si4735 DSP microchip and has 4 Intermediate Frequencies.

1st IF: 55.845 MHz
2nd IF: 10.7 MHz
3rd IF: 45 kHz
4th IF: 128 kHz (exclusively for FM)

To me, that looks like a triple conversion architecture. The combination of the DSP microchip, and the triple conversion would explain why my Tecsun PL-880 is so much more sensitive and selective than my Sony ICF-SW8600GR.

My CountyCom GP-5/SSB emergency portable also has the same Silicon Labs DSP chip and it is almost as sensitive as the Tecsun PL-880, far more sensitive than the Sony. I’ve owned a Japan Radio JRC-525 and a Yaesu FT-900AT transceiver for many years, and the PL-880 digs out weak signals better than both those tabletop receivers, both dual conversion.

To quell the speculation, yesterday I contacted Anna at Anon-Co, the worldwide distributor for Tecsun radios. Her quick reply confirms my suspicions that the Tecsun PL-880 is indeed a triple conversion receiver. That would explain why it blows my Sony ICF-SW7600GR out of the water in senitivity and its ability to pull out weak stations.

Among all the other great attributes, this is an welcome discovery and one never mentioned in the specs by the various retailers of this receiver!

Thank you Larry, for shedding light on this–Anna would certainly know.

Your note makes me realize that I really should order a second, current production model PL-880. My PL-880 is from one of the first batches produced. I imagine I could benefit from some of the firmware tweaks that have been made to this receiver over time. Perhaps it would even be a good time to compare the 1st generation with the current generation?

I just checked and Anon-Co is selling the PL-880 on eBay for $153.99 US shipped.

Have any SWing Post readers compared early and late model PL-880 units? Please comment.

Elad FDM-DUO: now available in camouflage!

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The Elad FDM-DUO (Photo: Dennis Walter)

Many thanks to Dennis Walter who shares the photo above from the 2017 Ham Radio Friedrichshafen convention.

I’ve always thought the FDM-DUO was a cool transceiver, but I must admit it looks even better in camouflage.

I did warn our buddy Clint (Oxford Shortwave) that he should stick with his stock black FDM-DUO. You see, he takes his FDM-DUO to the field…literally. Can you imagine how he’d feel losing his top-notch camouflaged DX rig in the rough? 🙂