SONY ICF-2001D + ICF-SW77 Wanted

SONY ICF-2001D Wanted

+
Sony ICF-SW77

Will swap 1 of them for a Tecsun PL-880 if interested or a Tecsun S-8800.

deaglan169

would love a 2001d myself also, watched a few on ebay recently made about 140ish one up currently bin 160stg

deaglan169

deaglan169 wrote: »

would love a 2001d myself also, watched a few on ebay recently made about 140ish one up currently bin 160stg

It wasn't this by any chance ?

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/Sony-ICF-2001D-FM-LW-MW-SW-With-SSB-World-Band-Shortwave-Receiver-Radio/114149141264?hash=item1a93d1ab10:g:WEYAAOSwXj1ebQzC#viTabs_0

I just bought it, no box strap or power supply but I can live with that at that price.

deaglan169

thats the one good price, suddenly ebay uk is coming down with them, how do you rate your tecsun s-8800 i would have thought these would blow a 2001d away with modern dsp and what not

deaglan169

deaglan169 wrote: »

thats the one good price, suddenly ebay uk is coming down with them, how do you rate your tecsun s-8800 i would have thought these would blow a 2001d away with modern dsp and what not

A lot of people love the Tescuns, I'm just not a fan of DSP radios, they have their place.

The 8800 is excellent with SW, good on AM and LW and surprisingly the 8800 works very well with an external antenna on MW, the filtering is good and for all your radio needs it's a very good radio, the big area where it and other DSP radios fail to deliver is SSB and AGC issues, the bigger the signal the more distorted the sound because the AGC is too slow to react and it can be quite annoying on SSB. My XHDATA D-808 has the same issue only it's not quite as bad and the Audio to my ears is much better on the ham bands. I saw a review of one of the Eton radios and also the new C.Crane Skywave SSB, same issue.

Next issue is that there is no SYNC on the 880 or S-8800 which is great to reduce fading and interfering signals, for instance, if there is a weaker signal you're trying to listen to and a stronger one is present switching on SYNC USB or LSB can greatly reduce or eliminate altogether this interference or if there is a noise.

So, if your radio has no SYNC another trick is to turn on LSB/USB and it does pretty much the same thing only the audio might not be quite as good as a radio with a proper SYNC like on the ICF-2001D which had one of the best SYNC on any radio ever made.

Now you can turn on USB/ LSB on the S-8800 / PL-880 but due to the AGC issue strong signals can make this very difficult on an MW or SW. With weaker signals this is not an issue at all but it is with stronger signals.

For instance, I was listening to Radio Clube Do Para in Brazil last night on 4885 Khz and on the PL-880 it was coming through pretty well and so too on the PL-880 and switching to Sync on the PL-880 didn't work too well as SYNC is not a strong point on the PL-880 and so I hit USB / LSB to find what sounded the best then used the BFO to fine tune until it sounded as natural as possible. I was using the Bonito MA-305 Whip ( a truly magnificent antenna ) and matches the portable receivers perfectly with no overloading. However I found the S-8800 didn't work too well using SSB on SW.

Next I tried the PL-880, it's SYNC is useless altogether but in fairness it's a hidden feature that Tecsun never advertised, so I switched to USB/LSB until I found what sounded best and it worked fine. Low signal = no distortion.

Next I tuned to a much stronger station from China, can't remember which one, then I connected the 680 and it worked fine on SYNC and USB/LSB then I tried the PL-880 switched to USB/LSB and it worked but had that AGC issue and distorted Audio which I hate, the PL-680 sounds so much more natural and it has a lower noise floor, listening to Hams on it is a pleasure.

deaglan169

yeah i have a cheap tecsun pl310et which for the money its amazing what it can do and hear, no ssb but for sw and mw i find it excellent but i have noticed the agc issue also, i recently got a roberts r861 to replace one i had years ago and its a joy to listen to sw on it and also has ssb, mw is excellent on it also but on a weak signal the floor noise is bad on 861 where as the tecsun with the dsp can pull it out, as you say each radio has its pros and cons, im very tempted by an 8800 just to sit in kitchen and connect to long wire strung on fence just not sure am i crazy spending that money for just something to play around with while making dinner

deaglan169

deaglan169 wrote: »

yeah i have a cheap tecsun pl310et which for the money its amazing what it can do and hear, no ssb but for sw and mw i find it excellent but i have noticed the agc issue also, i recently got a roberts r861 to replace one i had years ago and its a joy to listen to sw on it and also has ssb, mw is excellent on it also but on a weak signal the floor noise is bad on 861 where as the tecsun with the dsp can pull it out, as you say each radio has its pros and cons, im very tempted by an 8800 just to sit in kitchen and connect to long wire strung on fence just not sure am i crazy spending that money for just something to play around with while making dinner

The S-8800 is a good radio on SW with the Telescopic antenna, very sensitive and MW improves considerably with an external antenna connected to the BNC input. LW reception doesn't unfortunately but it's still decent and the remote control is dead handy. And ground the coax well.

A long wire antenna can overload it so I would get or build some form of attenuator, overload will cause images all over the place. Using the radio Local/DX switch does help.