A few years back I bought a Tecsun PL-380 that had a thermometer. That was my go to travel radio and the thermometer was convenient. I missed this feature when I traded in the PL-380 on a PL-330. Since then, I’ve accumulated 6 radios (that I know of) with the feature.
Last night I wondered what the temperature was at a spot in my house and I dragged out an XHDATA D-109 with a temperature display. The reading seemed a bit low, which led me to wonder about the accuracy of radio thermometers, so I gathered all my radios with the feature, plus a kitchen cooking thermometer that supposedly covers -40 to 482° F, and tested them.
I did two tests, one indoors and one outdoors.
Back Row: XHDATA D-109, D608-WB. HanRongDa HRD-757 Front Row: XHDATA D-109, Sihuadon R-108, XHDATA D-109WB.
I purchased my Sangean ANT-60 in 2011, 13 years ago. In the intervening years I’ve gotten other similar reel antennas included with shortwave radios I bought.
They’re all about the same except for one very important characteristic — how easy the antenna is to reel in. Some of them stick, and reeling the antenna back in is tedious and frustrating. The ANT-60 works pretty smoothly — and a tiny bit of silicone lubricant makes it perfect.
The antenna terminates in a 3.5 mm phone jack, the almost universal connector for portable shortwave radios. For radios with no antenna jack, the ANT-60 comes with an adaptor that clips onto the end of the telescopic antenna.
The ANT-60 also comes with a short strap and a clip suitable for attaching the end to a tree limb or something else convenient.
It’s a piece of wire with a phone plug rolled up in a reel. This isn’t rocket science, but this model works the best. If mine ever got lost or finally broke, I’d buy this model again.
I made a new year’s resolution to put up an outdoor antenna in 2025 and this article will chronicle the progress.
Previously I had an MLA-30+ on a balcony, but it was in an inconvenient location for where I really wanted to listen to radio, so I took it down. I have a 20-foot wire up a tree, but I have to go outside to connect to it, and the weather is turning cold. I don’t want to stumble down the sloping outdoor stairs to get to it in the dark and it’s not any fun in the rain.
So, the general plan is to put up a straight long wire antenna from a tree to the house, around 25 feet long. There will be an earth ground and a 9:1 balun for impedance matching, plus a lightning arrester. Shielded cable will run from the balun to a window where I’ll use one of those under window antenna strips to get in inside. Everything will be shielded between the wire and a connected radio.
This article will be updated with progress. Maybe it will get finished before the ATS-25 MAX Decoder radio arrives.
Post 1, January 2, 2025
First thing I did was to take inventory, and I decided I didn’t have enough wire for the antenna, so I ordered some from Amazon (nothing on local Ace Hardware website);
I decided on 20 gauge wire for no particular reason, except it didn’t seem too big and didn’t seem too small.
The second question is whether to use a balun, an impedance matching transformer. One typically uses a 9:1 balun matching a long wire to 50 ohm coaxial cable. The problem here is whether the portable shortwave radios I use have 50 ohm inputs. This question will be resolved by experimenting with my current wire up a tree antenna to see whether the antenna works better with or without. That signal strength value on the display will finally be good for something. I’ll also try several radios to see if that makes a difference.
The third question is whether to really add a lightning arrester. I have one, but it will be a little awkward in my design, and I don’t intend to leave radios plugged into the antenna when I’m not using them.
The last piece of equipment I will probably get is a spring. The tree is pretty strong, but it still might sway in a strong wind and I don’t want to snap the antenna.
Post 1, January 6, 2025
Slow going on the project. The middle Atlantic states are buried in snow and it’s 34 degrees and raining right now. The antenna wire is slated for delivery today although I have my doubts.
I’m just thinking about what’s next for this blog.
Blog or Die! was founded in 1995, 30 years ago this month, as a personal blog covering, as the masthead says:
Thoughts and commentary on politics, technology, travel, religion and current events.
Content has evolved over the years. Commentary on religion has gotten its own site. Politics and current events moved to a series a sites (check out the Blog Roll on the right side of the page that includes other sites of mine) when they seemed to be taking over. While I still travel, I’m not really a travel writer. I like photography, but I write about that in a local Facebook group. My writing on technology has primarily narrowed to the topic of radio.
What I have learned is that website readers and YouTube channel viewers like content to stay on a topic and not wander around. While there is a worldwide readership for content about radios, there is not one for “what Kevin thinks about stuff.” It is unfortunate that a blog that has settled on the radio topic has a title that is so generic, but that’s life and I don’t intend to change it. Anyway, I get far more views on social media (as many as a million a month) than I get on the blog anyway. I’m a moderator of the Tesla FSD Supervised group on Facebook and participate in a dozen more.
I’m not sure how the radio topic will evolve in 2025. At this point I’ve completed my first giveaway. I have more radios already than I can share the love with, so I don’t anticipate buying many more after the ATS-25 MAX Decoder, and so new radio reviews will be few and far between. My personal view is that both cheap radios and very high end radios are both a waste of money for someone like me. Right now I’m considering more radio reception report and how-to content for this blog. I have a new year’s resolution to put up an outdoor antenna, and I’ll document that process.
I hope all my readers will have a healthy and prosperous new year.
I haven’t acquired a new radio in a while. I have great radios already and I have been hesitant to buy something that is a step down from what I have. Perhaps not a step up, but something different is the 4.17 (firmware version) ATS25 max Decoder Si4732 Full Band Radio Receiver FM RDS AM LW MW SW SSB DSP Receiver. The difference from what I have already is obvious from the product photo:
ATS25 max-Decoder
One notable thing is the second antenna on the right that’s intended for Wi-Fi network connection. It’s used to get precise time from the Internet for FT8 signal decoding. The other is the touch screen instead of buttons. The one thing I get that I don’t have is the ability to decode some digital signals.
It’s not really a portable radio in the usual sense, but one could travel with it. A disadvantage is the lack of a replaceable battery.
If past experience any indicator, it might arrive in a couple of weeks from AliExpress. They predict January 4-11. The price is $103.53 delivered. I found them much more expensive at Amazon, but as usual, after buying, I found one on Amazon not as much more as I thought, in this case $111.84 — not sure if the software is licensed, though. In any case, the dice have been rolled.
As the year 2024 winds down we had a warmer day (48°F) and I thought I’d head out to the yard on this cloudy Christmas afternoon for a quick band scan.
I use ATS scans on my radios quite a bit to find stations efficiently and then go through the stored memory locations to see what’s on. I have the idea that it saves time. But there are some gotchas with ATS scans besides the obvious problem that some radios have, storing more noise than stations (like my Tecsun PL-660). One of problem is that I have to be careful when scanning close to the hour or half hour; a station on the scan might have signed off by the time I try to listen to it, or another station might have signed on and I’ll miss it. A station might have faded in our out.
Today I’m not using ATS, but rather a different feature of the Qodosen DX-286, AUTO tuning mode. With AUTO mode it’s not necessary to do a band scan first — just tune the radio in AUTO mode and it will stop on the next station. There’s no problem missing a station that just signed on. The DX-286 has a setting to play the station for a set time and then go to the next, but I have set mine to just stop. The radio is silent when scanning, and all you hear is the station found. AUTO tuning can be done both with the tuning knob or the up and down buttons. While technically this is muting, the operator doesn’t perceive it that way. The perception is station, station, station….
I made a video of the scan here near Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. The radio was fed by my 20-foot wire up a tree (WUT) antenna. The scan started with CFRX, 6070 kHz in Toronto, Canada. Lower than that in the daytime doesn’t make much sense because not much is on and there is significant noise below that on shortwave where I live. The clock is set accurately for the video (patting myself on the back for remembering how to set the clock). I also used a tripod this time.
Skip to 2:35 for the stations (the first part just repeats the text above).
