For those of you who really don’t want all the minutia? Simple enough – Go get yourself one – well worth it – they are a click or two away on amazonia . . .
Cute little rascal – ain’t it?
Now for the rest of you folks who are desirous of minutia . . .
This cute little radio works way better than it should for the price point – and I’m not kidding – AM reception is very impressive – one of my enduring loves is daytime AM DXing – the lower the power and the farther away the station is – the more fun it is to find it and listen to it . . .
Before we take a look at this little darling – let’s address something I’ve run across many times – Bruce – How do you find anything to listen to – there just isn’t a lot of AM stations out here – is there?? Wanna bet? To find stations to start looking for and listening to there are multiple sources available, remember the internet is your friend when it comes to lists of “stuff” – All radio stations in the US?? – Here’s your list <<< CLICK HERE >>> This list is AM and FM stations – here now we are only concerned about AM – – FM DXing is another addiction for another day – LOL! A list of just AM stations – here you go – <<<CLICK HERE>>> This site also gives you a nice, simple explanation of what Amplitude Modulation signal broadcasting is – Here is a list of AM Stations in a little different format from Mesa Mike – compiled from the FCC database – might be easier to work with for YOU – then again – it might not be – try these I listed or search on your own – just remember there is a tremendous amount of “stuff” out there to listen to in a variety of formats . . . And conditions do play a part in this – space weather can affect things – how the ionosphere does or doesn’t reflect radio waves is a large factor – although during the daylight hours hunting low power AM it is much less of a factor. Late fall and winter are good listening times – less thunderstorms – lightning can be heard a long, long ways.
For you folks that want to read the instruction manual – here is a link to it – PDF file – you can zoom in to see it much better than the one that comes with it – LOL!
So how does it do? – looking from a “pull it out of your pocket” angle – no external antenna(s) – just the bare radio . . .
Shortwave – it works good enough to listen to stations with the telescoping antenna – NOT a stellar performer – but – for something you can slip in your pocket or pack and listen to on a camping/fishing/just get the hell out of town weekend it works good. The side band is a touch finicky to tune – but with a little experience it is decent. It incorporates “soft” muting – as you are using the tuning knob to go up or down the frequencies the radio mutes the signal – when you stop tuning you then hear it – you really need to know the frequency or frequencies you are wanting to listen to . . .
FM – works like it should – if an extremely portable FM radio is what you want – this will hit the spot – fidelity of the speaker – MEH . . .
Air Band – remember – this stuff is pretty low power – if you are close enough to an airport it works . . .
AM – AM Broadcast Band tuning is where this really stands out – daytime low power stations are there for the listening – and this is just with the ferrite core internal antenna – add an inductive loop antenna into the mix ( you lose some portability – the loop doesn’t fit in your pocket! ) and you will be surprised at the number of stations you are going to hear! – remember 10 kHz spacing – 780 – 790 – 800 and so on – you will hear a lot of stuff – From East Central South Dakota – daytime – 20 or so stations with just the internal ferrite core antenna – too lazy to grab my pile of papers and sort through them ( yes I know – go get a little bound book and write it down in there ) – night time – and these are pretty much every night unless conditions are poor – KOA / Denver – WLS / Chicago – WWL / New Orleans – KFAB / Omaha – and a bunch more – but probably my favoritest is Friday and Saturday nights – WSM / Nashville – Home of The Grand Ole Opry – Good stuff right there! . . .
There are some minus things going on – it’s not all wine and roses . . .
The size is a plus as well as a minus – it fits into a cargo pocket nicely but the buttons are small – really easy to fat finger them . . .
It has a light button – that just lights up the display – the buttons are not back lit – but the manufacturer is trying to get to a specific price point of plus or minus $100 – at retail – so I can really understand why it is not “full featured” – there is a fine balance between performance / features / cost – and I believe they did pretty good here . . .
You push the light button – the display lights up . . .
When you turn the tuning knob – which is a real plus that it has a tuning knob so everything is not direct entry – the display lights up – then 10 seconds (?) or so turns off – makes it easy to scroll up and down the band . . .
Listening to “The Ranch AM 910” this morning – and the battery lasts like days listening 1 to 3 hours a day – and you simply recharge it with a USB cable off your computer or cell phone charger and you are good to go . . .
Little kickstand on the back so it doesn’t have to lay flat and the tuning knob is pretty nice – I use it a lot for tuning AM and it hasn’t loosened up nor has it developed that “Damn – this things gonna fall off” feel to it . . .
So my random thoughts round up? – A lot of these small radios cover a lot of bases – some of them not particularly well in a lot of cases – the D-808 works OK on shortwave and side band and is not a complete struggle to tune on side band – air band / OK – FM / OK – where it really ( at least to me ) is worth the price point is AM broadcast band performance – the nice part is not a lot of cross spatter from local stations on AM – while not quite up to the performance level of say an original GE Super Radio – it is current production and is extremely portable – construction wise decent – the only real ding? The speaker is not the best - but remember – price point is an issue no matter what you are peddling – and if you actually read the directions it even has a thermometer function, and it’s relatively accurate! And yes – YOU can read the instructions – I won’t tell anyone that YOU did!
Bottom line? Great little radio at a very good price point – Go get yourself one – just tell your Chief Financial Officer that YOU deserve it and that I said it’s all right – LMAO!
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
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