Still Do AM Radio DXing?

[Jim Hall]

It's really hard these days to find a decent portable radio that has decent
sound and a decent AM section. I too used to use a little GE transistor to
listen to Woo Woo Ginsburg when my parents thought I was asleep, and I just
don't believe the sound on portable radios then was as bad as it is now. 

I have bought (and tossed) numerous small radios that just sound awful and
either barely pull in the local AM stations or get overloaded from them. I
live in the Andover area, and I had one digital portable from a certain
national electronics chain that received WLLH from 1050 to 1600 kHz.

I finally broke down and bought a Sangean ATS909 all band radio at YouDoIt.
What an improvement! Much better sound and much better DXing on AM. But it's
fairly expensive.

More recently I bought a CCRadio 2 for my mother for Xmas, and that sounds
even better (AM/FM/WX only though). It's a little bulky for a portable
though even though it runs on batteries (4 D cells) as well as wall current.
The sound quality especially on voice is much better, and the reception is
great on AM. It was about half the price of the Sangean, but still over
$100.

I think programming also affects the loss of DX as a hobby. With so many
stations carrying only national programming these days, there's not much
point listening just to hear the top of hour ID when the same program is
also on your local station.


-----Original Message-----
From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
[mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Ted Larsen
Sent: Friday, December 04, 2009 10:36 AM
To: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org
Subject: Still Do AM Radio DXing?

I remember as a kid in the 50's doing it almost every night with my
"Hi-Tech" GE transistor radio tucked under my pillow. I had a ton of QSL
cards from all over the Nation. Is this a lost hobby? I imagine with all the
changes in FCC allocation and power rules it's tough. I hadn't thought of
this question in years.

Thanks.
Ted