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Old 8th Oct 2017, 8:56 pm   #1
WaveyDipole
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Default Nice little car boot find

I don't often get to car boot sales, but yesterday there was one at a local school so decided to go. I had just purchased a Sony ICF-S10 MK2 pocket radio from a member so I didn't really need another pocket radio, but I came across a Roberts R9962 for £3, complete with original box and contents including its soft carrying pouch and even batteries - practically in as new condition. I hadn't seen one of these before, so was quite surprised that something as small as this (just a little over 5in in length and 3in high) could have not only LW, MW and FM bands, but also 9 shortwave bands (60m, 49m, 41m, 31m, 25m, 21m, 19m, 16m and 13m) available! Roberts list this at £39.99 on their site.

The Sony ICF-S10 MK2 is supposed to be quite sensitive and even useful for MW DX'ing. This is not something that I am avidly into, but it will be interesting to compare the two when the Sony arrives and also against the Tecsun PL660. In the meantime I gave it a quick try and found the sound is acceptable given the tiny speaker and the volume can be set comfortably loud before it eventually starts to distort. FM sounds decent enough on headphones although there are no tone controls. There is no local/DX switch, no external antenna socket and no BFO but given the size of the package and the price bracket this is perhaps not surprising. It runs off two AA sized batteries although there is also a jack for an external 3v DC input.

Using just the built in and whip antennas, I did pick up a radio ham on the 40m band (bottom of the 41 band) although as expected the signal was unintelligible. However I was able to pick up several broadcast stations on some of the SW bands. R4 and RTE come in loud and clear on LW and I was also able to pick up the faint Polish station on 225m. On MW the local 1W hospital station from 10 miles away was comfortably picked as well as a number of other familiar stations. Given the small tuning knob, tuning can be a bit fiddly but works reasonably well given the small size of the radio.

I guess this is perhaps nothing particularly special, but I think not a bad find for £3? Has anyone come across one of these?

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Old 8th Oct 2017, 9:51 pm   #2
paulsherwin
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

I think your Roberts is actually a badged Sangean.

The Sony is a perfectly decent pocket radio (I own one) but I wouldn't expect it to be anything special reception wise. It's a good holiday radio though, or you can use it in the bathroom if short of space.
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Old 8th Oct 2017, 10:09 pm   #3
WaveyDipole
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

Yes, the general idea was to have something as a holiday/travel/emergency radio. There are a number of Roberts models that are re-branded Sangean radios (Sangean ATS909/Roberts R821 is one example) so this would not surprise me, although I cannot find a Sangean matching this one. I have attached a pic. Perhaps someone will recognize an equivalent Sangean or other brand. There is at least some similarity with Degen radios I think?

The possibility of MW DX'ing with the Sony ICF-S10 was mentioned here:

http://www.radiointel.com/review-sonys10mk2.htm

It surprised me that such a cheap pocket sized radio would even be considered for DX'ing although the article does state that a Radio Shack loop antenna was used, so I presume it does have an external antenna jack to allow an external antenna to be connected. It would probably not be that difficult to make one.
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Old 8th Oct 2017, 10:14 pm   #4
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

It may be a special for Roberts rather than simply being rebadged. LW coverage is relatively rare with radios of this type, and may have been a selling point for Roberts (the Test Match Special market). The Sony is an altogether more modest radio, though nothing to be ashamed of.
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Old 9th Oct 2017, 9:43 am   #5
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

You can use a loop with any tranny- just stand the set in the loop with the ferrite rod lined up with the axis of the loop. Better ways are available, but there will be a useful improvement in signal pickup at the loop's tuned frequency.
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Old 9th Oct 2017, 10:52 am   #6
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

Yes, the Sony doesn't have any sort of external aerial connector, though I suppose you could open it up and add something.
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Old 9th Oct 2017, 1:46 pm   #7
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

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Originally Posted by Herald1360 View Post
You can use a loop with any tranny- just stand the set in the loop with the ferrite rod lined up with the axis of the loop. Better ways are available, but there will be a useful improvement in signal pickup at the loop's tuned frequency.
Interesting that a loosely coupling the loop like that is sufficient to have an impact. Apparently I missed the image in that article where they show the correct alignment of radio and antenna. Must give that a try once I sort out an antenna.

I was playing with the Roberts on MW yesterday and it seems that in the late evening the band is crammed with signals. Sometimes I could pick up 2 overlapping and maybe 3 in close proximity and I found that the direction of the radio seemed to determine which signal was favoured. In one case I could fully switch station just by rotating the radio a few degrees. I guess it depends on the direction that the broadcast signal is originating from, perhaps maybe even the country of origin, although since this would presumably be skywave propagation, I'm not sure whether that would still apply?

In a couple of places on the band I noticed a rather odd effect, whereby the signal would reverberate rather as if it the sound was originating from a bucket. At first I thought that maybe the same signal being received from multiple transmitters, but since this also happened on a foreign signal as well, this seems rather unlikely. Anyone know what this might be caused by? Roberts does not seem to mention DSP, but might this be some sort of weird DSP effect?
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Old 9th Oct 2017, 2:11 pm   #8
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

The sound you describe is usually a multipath effect either from multiple transmitters or from odd propagation effects. The fact that the transmitters are a long way away doesn't make this any less likely.

I believe your Roberts is a conventional analogue superhet and doesn't do any digital processing.

Ferrite rod aerials are directional for all reception, both ground and sky wave.
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Old 9th Oct 2017, 5:48 pm   #9
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

I though it might be based on at least some of the Degen which are DSP radios with analog style tuning. I have to say though, that the Roberts behaves very much like a radio with analog tuning.

Regarding multipath, I was thinking that if say several transmitters were in another country (e.g.I think this one was Spanish speaking), then the distance to the UK would render the distance between the transmitters negligible by comparison and hence the effect would be negligible. However I have not experienced the effect before. What I perhaps should have done is compare with another radio. I will try and record a few seconds of it.
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Old 9th Oct 2017, 10:01 pm   #10
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

I have one of these Roberts, they are analogue and performance is quite good but build quality leaves a bit to be desired.

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Old 10th Oct 2017, 7:18 am   #11
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

Quote:
Originally Posted by WaveyDipole View Post
Regarding multipath, I was thinking that if say several transmitters were in another country (e.g.I think this one was Spanish speaking), then the distance to the UK would render the distance between the transmitters negligible by comparison and hence the effect would be negligible.
Surely, the delay would be the same regardless of how far the signals have travelled.

By the way, as far as I can see, nobody's commented on this, but the multiband radio from Tesco looks remarkably similar.
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Old 10th Oct 2017, 8:13 am   #12
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

Quote:
By the way, as far as I can see, nobody's commented on this, but the multiband radio from Tesco looks remarkably similar.
The looks a re similar but the circuitry is completely different, the Tesco being DSP and the Roberts being analogue superhet.

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Old 10th Oct 2017, 9:33 pm   #13
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

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Originally Posted by Dave Moll View Post
Surely, the delay would be the same regardless of how far the signals have travelled.

By the way, as far as I can see, nobody's commented on this, but the multiband radio from Tesco looks remarkably similar.
You are probably right and its just my lack of understanding of the phenomenon. I compared with the Tecsun PL660 and a Roberts R200 and both picked up the same effect so this is not down to the radio but the broadcast signal.

Is the effect cased by the differences in the time it takes for the broadcast signal to reach the listener, or delay in the transmission from source to transmitter due to processing etc?

Maybe tomorrow I will open the radio up and have a look inside.
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Old 10th Oct 2017, 9:53 pm   #14
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

Can't speak for medium wave but for shortwave short path and long path is a distinct possibility.

Lawrence.
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Old 10th Oct 2017, 10:16 pm   #15
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

Medium wave AM is subject to selective fading across its passband due to it relatively wide bandwidth. This is why SSB suffers much less from the effect.

I have not read it all but this seems to explain the problem.
http://www.radio-electronics.com/inf...ath-fading.php
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Old 10th Oct 2017, 10:40 pm   #16
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Can't speak for medium wave but for shortwave short path and long path is a distinct possibility.
Was written in haste... Should have said ref delay/echo, my apologies>

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Old 10th Oct 2017, 11:47 pm   #17
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Default Re: Nice little car boot find

I just got an R9962 today. It came to me as a non-worker. The previous owner had broken the aerial, and attempted to replace it themselves. Inserting a 'much larger than necessary screw' to secure it. This resulted in them screwing into the PCB, and cutting the volume control track completely. I have resolved the damage, and replaced the aerial, and am happy to now include it as a 'keeper' in my travelling bag.
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