RE: Top 10 list radio related holiday gifts

["Hakim Madjid" <HMadjid@earthlink.net>]

Rod O'Connor writes:

>The Sangean AT909 was on sale at
>Radio Shack a couple of weeks ago for $149!! I almost bought it. My
>older smaller Sangean 303 basically died about a year ago. Not
>especially sensitive, but small, portable and cheap. I think I paid $80.
>for it about 7-8 years ago.

I can't find the DX-398 (ATS 909) cataloged any more on the Shack's web
site.
If I search there for DX-398 it only comes up with tech support info
This leads me to believe that The Shack has decided to drop the 398.
So, it might the $149.95 sale price is to liquidate remaining inventory.
If that's the case, get 'em while they're hot.

Radio Shack seems to have drastically paired down their selection of
SW receivers, besides the crappy $99.95 all band stuff. I wonder if
it has anything do to with the BBC decision last year, and thus the
market for this type of gear has gone down. Especially with the
economy these days.

>One thing I'm glad you don;t have on your list is the much ballyhooed
>Sony ICF2010. I have one of the first ones that came out, vintage 1987
>and I must have got the lemon of the litter. Nothing but trouble and
>hassle. Antenna jacks all messed up. Batteries inside always coming
>loose.  Another one of my Alaskan buys,, and it was such a pain in the

As far as the Sony 2010 goes, I just think by now it's a little
long-in-the tooth. It was a great radio in 1980s but now there
are a myriad of better alternatives, including from Sony.

Back in early 80s I bought  one of the very first Sony 2001s
(the predecessor of the 2010) when they went on sale in the US.
It was of dubious build quality also - especially the key pad
felt cheap. Not withstanding the pioneering (for a portable) key
pad tuning on the 2001, I thought that my Panasonic RF-2200 back
then was overall a better set.

But why did you have to ship the 2010 to Alaska for repair? I would
think the nearest Sony repair depot, such as the one in the Boston
area (Westwood), would handle it. Unless you bought like a grey market
version or something they didn't want to touch.

>NOAA WeatherRadios. Neat receviers that tune into weather broadcasts
>from National Weather Service and some even have SAME encoding (Specific
>Area Message Encoding) for local weather alerts. Prices start at $20 for
>basic receivers up to $100 with SAME and text messaging, tones, lights
>and other features.

Yea next year perhaps I'll list weather radios and perhaps
a BBJ (only or something.

Note that the Radio Shack Pro-95 Scanner I listed will decode and
display SAME messages. It even has a weather standby mode
just like most dedicated NOAA alert receivers, when an
alert comes in it will ring an alarm un-mute the audio and display
a SAME message.

However, with the Pro-95, you can *NOT* program in FIPS local codes,
as you can with a dedicated NOAA SAME receiver, thus it will display the
messages for everywhere from the particular station that's been tuned in.
Also when in the weather standby mode on the Pro-95, you're locked out of
monitoring anything else at the same time.

73, de Hakim (N1ZFF)