Big five daytime MW comparison on Radio Lesotho 639 kHz
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- čas přidán 9. 06. 2024
- These are four popular portable radios for MW Dxing, plus one outsider. While the Sony ICF-J40 is not that well-known outside Asia and Africa, it is an excellent MW radio. The others here, including the Sangean PR-D4W, the Qodosen SR-286 and the XHDATA D-808 have a loyal folllowing among MW Dxers. I added the XHDATA D-608WB as an outsider.
I am comparing these radios on a relatively distant MW signal during daytime. It is Radio Lesotho on 639 kHz from Maseru, the capital city of the Kingdom of Lesotho. The transmitter in Maseru is 350 km (220 miles) from my location in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Some people are unaware that Lesotho is another country, it is not part of South Africa, although it is completely surrounded by South Africa. There are only three countries in the world that are completely surrounded by only one country. These are San Marino, Vatican City and Lesotho.
00:00 Surprising comparison
00:39 Sangean PR-D4W
01:29 XHDATA D-808
02:47 Qodosen SR-286
03:56 XHDATA D-608WB
05:30 Sony ICF-J40 - Zábava
I agree and is not really surprised since the good old radio does not have PLL tuning to produce noise. My best radio on the low frequency happens to be an old ITT tiny electronic 106.
The Sony really impressed me here! Seems to be a great radio for MW.
I like to think of the ferrite bar as being analogous to a telescope, bigger lenses gather more light; larger ferrite bars gather more radio energy (RF).
Hi Henry, for sure, the bigger the ferrite antenna, the more signal it pulls in! That's why the Sony ICF-J40 is so good on MW, it has a 5 inch ferrite bar. The XHDATA D-808 has 4 inches, and the Sangean PR-D4W also 5 inches, but quite a thick one, thicker than most.
Andre; Great comparison, I am not surprised that your old Sony came out on top with you. When I dig my old Sony 6800W out it really shines on MW but it takes up over half my radio table outside for MW and turning it means I half clear everything else off including my lights, so I rarely use it for that. It also is a champ on SW if the preselector is tuned correctly.
The little coming second also didn’t surprise me, but with its huge ferrite bar I thought the Sangean would trump the “Q”. That TEF6686 chip makes the difference. If only it would give the battery a chance….😊!
XHDATA needs to redesign the D808 using what they are putting in their lower cost models such as the 608-WB. The lack of hiss would greatly help in SSB reception too.
Have a great day! 73!
Thanks! I also expected the Sangean to do a bit better, but it still performed quite well. I kind of rediscovered the Sony in this test, I must use it more for MW! I had forgotten how good it is on MW.
The ICF-J40 is not that big, more or less same size as the Sangean, so it is quite portable. I agree about the D-808, it did surprisingly poorly here. The D-608WB has an annoying whine in the background, but still picks up the signal better than the D-808.
Love your videos - thanks for taking the time to put together this good information. I'm learning a lot from you.
My pleasure, and thank you for your comment!
Interesting video as always 👍🏼
Thought the Sony would perform the best and it did. They were manufactured at a time customers wanted good MW reception (and LW in Europe). These days digital broadcasting and online listening suits most people, some modern radios include MW just as a sideline, not many perform too well. The Qodoson is a breath of fresh air for this reason, be nice to see another company produce something for us MWDX’ers 👍🏼
73 Franco
Hi Franco, thank you for your comment! You are right, I think this Sony radio really shows that it was made with MW listening in mind, the reception is excellent. It has quite a big internal ferrite antenna also, 5 inches. I agree with you about the Qodosen also, great to see some innovative radio technology. And not just innovative, but really good!
Am I right in thinking that the XHDATA D-808 is the noisiest in this comparison?! 😮
You are right. It is. It was not a very good performer in this comparison.
Interesting, thanks
My pleasure!
ICF-J40 is a clear winner.
Definitely! Clearly a radio that I need to use more for my MW DXing.
What’s surprising is that the xhdata d-608wb performed better than the xhdata d-808, less noise.
Very surprising indeed! There is a bit of a whining noise on the D-608WB, but it definitely picks up the signal better than the D-808.
Reception ability versus listen- ability. A real decision.
Hi James, that is true. Although, I think they do overlap. The Sony seems to have both the best reception and the best listen-ability here.
Also, I think when it comes to MW reception size of the loopstick should be the constant. As we can clearly see size matters..
I wouldn't have included J40 in the shoot out.
@@Sankara2000 Indeed, the size of the ferrite antenna matters. But it's not all that matters, some radios with smaller ferrite antennas (like the Qodosen) still have very good reception. I am curious, why wouldn't you have included the ICF-J40?
I would be curious to see this repeated, but using a passive loop antenna on each radio. The Qodosen will actually allow direct connection of an external MW antenna, and some passive loops will also allow direct connection to a radio.
That is a very good idea! I will do it, maybe next weekend. I do have a passive loop and I have used it on the Qodosen (plugged in) and the Sangean, and other radios. There are some recent videos on my channel. But I haven't done a video with the loop with a whole bunch of radios like here, I will certainly do it.
Your Sony does very good. I'll stick with my old Zenith. The modern radios 'should' do better than our old analog bricks. But they seldom do.
Thank you, and I agree. There are some excellent old radios with good analogue technology that just seem to keep beating the modern radios. It does help that some of these old radios also have much better antennas, the Sony I used here has a 5 inch internal ferrite for MW, it makes a big difference.
Yep, My Transoceanic Royal has great internal antennas. And very sensitive AND selective.
Sony ICF-J40 is the beat one.
I agree! Its reception is clear and stable, and sound is good.
bro is são tõme is a brazil state
@@kuyogime2025yogiruiz I don't know such a state in Brazil. But anyway, the São Tome that I usually talk about in my videos, where the VOA transmitter is, is the country in Africa.
While I imagine the electric fence, ( heard on the qodosen mainly,) is necessary, I wonder if there is a way to suppress its constant tick? While the size of the ferrite antenna is of importance it's the smallest radio whose signal is interfered with mostly by the electric fence.
Hi Terry, I was actually surprised that the fence was heard on the Qodosen mainly. Usually, I don't hear the fence on the Qodosen, but in this video, during daytime, it is quite clear. It is not present in any of my other Qodosen MW videos though, so I don't know why it happened here. On my Kenwood R1000 there is a noise blanker, which works very well to suppress the ticking from the electric fence. It's a strange thing though, sometimes I hear the ticking from the electric fence while DXing on various radios, but most of the time I don't actually hear it.
Hello André. Well, it's difficult to say if the Sony actually wins here IMO. Its reception does sound like it could be clearer, but it's so low that I couldn't hear much. Was the receiver set at max audio level? If so, this would be an annoyance and in such a case it's hard to say that it's the winner.
Apart from this one, to me the (expected) winners are the Qodosen and the Sangean. The D-808 has a lower signal/noise ratio but it's purely white noise so less annoying than on the D-608.
Hey Alain, thanks for your comment! I am a bit surprised though that you say the Sony volume is low, on my side it sounds like more or less the same level as the other radios. It was not set at maximum level, the Sony has very loud sound, in this video the volume was at about 30%, so I could have turned it up much more. But I did not realise that the volume might sound a bit low, which is why I did not turn it up more. I still prefer the Sony though, for me it is the clearest and the Qodosen in second place. Then the Sangean. So on those two we agree 😁
would be interesting to hear them all with using an external loop antenna for MW like the one tecsun sells. that should kind of even out the differences in internal antennas. i still think the sony would win. something about the quality of the audio signal that is being generated within the signal processing in the radio. the analog goodness or whatever people call it ;) but maybe the qudosen would have had a better performance and it might actually have the same sound quality as the sony
I have actually already done some comparisons with the AN-200, between the D-808, the Qodosen and the Sangean. Usually the Qodosen won. But I have not done comparisons with as many radios as in this video, all on the same signal, and not with the Sony. I will do such a comparison. Like you, I think the Sony might win. Because of the analogue quality :-)
@@swlistening looking forward to that video
with me analogue quality usually wins. i have got some vintage radios and some recent radios and i feel like the older the radio, the better to understand speech in transmissions. my old tube radio always has the best, most enjoyable audio. even when compared to transistor radios of a similiar cabinet and speaker size
@@KekmanForTheRestOfTheWorld You have a good point about analogue radios there! I have been thinking of buying a new radio and one of the choices is the Tecsun PL-680, which is one of the few analogue portables still available. This result with the Sony actually convinced me that the PL-680 will be a good choice.
I will make my comparison between various radios with the AN-200 and the Sony as soon as possible, will be interesting for me also!
The analogue Sony blew off all the others in this comparison followed by Qodosen. XHDATA need to pull-up it's socks and improve both the D808 and D608. Thank you for this lovely comparison.
Cheers!
New Delhi
My pleasure! I agree with you, the Sony really did well here, and the two XHDATA radios struggled. I need to use my Sony more :-)
I don’t have an electric fence nearby and it has the same “impulse noise” as your 286 on MW. I think it is internal to the 286. Sony beats them all.
Hi Tom, thanks for this information! That would explain why it is only heard on the Qodosen and not the other radios. The electric fence around my housing complex is actually quite far away from my own house, so I rarely hear it on any of my radios. I was surprised this time and, for lack of another explanation, thought it was the electric fence on the Qodosen. But its internal then, as as you say. It still picks up the signal very well though!
I have only heard it on MW.
@@tomki6asp Same here actually. Today I did another test in the park, and I heard it again.
Good morning Andre
Did you chck the chanal before 639 frequency and chanal after 639 frequency,, I have noted in analogue radio, Usually one channel comes at the expense of another one
Hi Eyad, I'm a bit confused by your question. Do you mean if I checked that there are other stations on nearby frequencies? There are none. Very few signals on MW around here during the day.
Yes, that's what I meant
The next step of639 is 648
And what you can find on Sony and sangean
I mean maybe you can find something on sangean and on the Sony nothing
@@eyadabusharar2457 OK, that's what I thought, just wanted to make sure. In daytime there is literally nothing else. There is a local station on 657, and one on 1548. And that's really all, during the day. At night Radio Botswana is on 648.
What is the language being spoken? Is it Sesotho?
Hi Paul, it is Sesotho indeed!
bro is saõ tõme part of brazil
Hi Miguel, no, it is an independent country in Africa. It consists of two islands to the west of Gabon.
@@swlistening Good explanation! Greetings from Brazil!
@@swlisteningthank you man