Best RX's for long distance anorak signals....

[FMEnjoyer]

I think a great deal of my TECSUN 310 and 310ET. If you know of very good FM receivers then list them it can help people find more stations to listen to. I am pretty sure most of the signals would be in the noise on lesser radio's.

List anything you like FM radio receiver wise.

[King Croccy]

Sony XDR-F1HD, XDR-S3HD, XDR-S10HDiP they are the best for dx'ing weak signals.

Any handheld radio with a tef6686/7 is pretty good also.

[Albert H]

I use an old school Sony ICF7600GR as my portable receiver, and a Technics ST-GT550 tuner on my desk. Both are synthesised and both don't suffer from overload from a nearby rig under test. Both receivers have exceptional sensitivity and selectivity, and both give a particularly low distortion audio output.

The '7600 looks a bit tatty these days because it has been all over the world since I've had it. I bought it new in the 90s.

The Technics tuner is a late 80s product from my time designing stuff for Panasonic / Technics, and has a slightly unusual front-end circuit, with a varicap-tuned cascode RF amplifier, which accounts for its sensitivity.

[Uksoundz]

Tef6686/7 units are now the best receivers IMHO. You can even hook them up to computers and have them scan 24/7 and upload logs etc

[shuffy]

Tef6686/7 units are now the best receivers IMHO. You can even hook them up to computers and have them scan 24/7 and upload logs etc

I've done exactly that. I bought one of the "desktop" TEF's on a whim and when I realized what it could do and how good the receiver was, I bought some bits from aliexpress for a few quid and made a headless one. It's connected to a discone and scans the whole band every 15 mins doing a "delta" on certain empty frequencies (not many of those up here sadly).

Otherwise, TECSUN PL-310ET, was my main radio for pirate listening until recently but mostly for portable use these days.

[Uksoundz]

Tef6686/7 units are now the best receivers IMHO. You can even hook them up to computers and have them scan 24/7 and upload logs etc

I've done exactly that. I bought one of the "desktop" TEF's on a whim and when I realized what it could do and how good the receiver was, I bought some bits from aliexpress for a few quid and made a headless one. It's connected to a discone and scans the whole band every 15 mins doing a "delta" on certain empty frequencies (not many of those up here sadly).

Otherwise, TECSUN PL-310ET, was my main radio for pirate listening until recently but mostly for portable use these days.

I’ve actually got a couple of headless units running myself. I use a plugin which scans the band for any changes and logs those changes. Good for tropo and E events.

[radionortheast]

Yeah the tef86 is all you need and someone called Taylor in your dm's, I suppose theres a difficulty when it comes to getting pocket radios for this purpose, ones that use the headphones have good selectivity and sensitivity, that don't have a protruding telescopic aerial. I kind of use one here that i've repaired many times, its 13 years old, unfortunately they don't make a replacement now. It was an anjan, cool little thing, I used to get christmas cards from the seller as I go two and a tecsun , I had problem with it, there was a large difference in volume between a weak signal and a strong signal, so it couldn't be used. I've had quite afew other pocket radios that have this problem too, the sensitivity is good you can't walk around with them without been deafened.
The sangean dts 250 is your next best bet, both good reception on fm and mw, you can tune to the dutch pirates on it at night, since it goes all the way up to 1710khz.
I used to have a big bulky hifi tuner separate years ago, with these you could mess about with them and get alot of sensitivity, you could get them going for sure, I don’t have room for those tuners here, its hard to get the same selectivity you get with a dsp/tef radio

[teckniqs]

Yeah you definitely want something with the TEF chip inside, they are the best out there especially for FM and very affordable.

....I am currently using both a QODOSEN DX-286 and a TEF6686.
I also have a Sony XDR-F1HD but prefer to use the DX-286 for everything now.

[shuffy]

Yeah you definitely want something with the TEF chip inside, they are the best out there especially for FM and very affordable.

The AM performance isn't bad either. There's one amongst the cluster of Bedford SDRs I was playing with recently off the back of the "270" thread. On medium wave it was as good or better than the webSDR.

http://remoteradio.changeip.org:8087/

With different TEF receivers though there seems to be some variation in how they connect the AM antenna, and in the electronics between the antenna and the chip. The ubiquitous aliexpress module I used is "all-in-one" and the FM performance matches other TEF receivers. AM is pretty grim but it is around a lot of noisy kit. Also the prices are currently lots higher than when I bought mine.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008196759859.html

....I am currently using both a QODOSEN DX-286 and a TEF6686.

I clocked the DX-286 on aliexpress a while back and thought it looked great - like a PL-310 but with a TEF6686 rather than a Si4734. I'm now extremely tempted.

[FMEnjoyer]

Nice suggestions thanks.

[FMEnjoyer]

I Stumbled on these using that chip, I like the screen and what not if get some spare cash my have a go at one.



DP-666 DEEPELEC TEF6686 Radio High Sensitivity Full Band FM AM LW MW SW Shortwave ESP32 RDS 2.8 inch IPS LCD

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008 ... in_prod%3A

Quodosen sounds more full in think in this youtube video but also less crisp.

[shuffy]

My DX-286 arrived. Not really a proper review but first impressions. I did a quick comparison with my PL-310ET making sure the RF gain, bandwidth and attenuator were set to comparable values and they're pretty close in terms of pulling in stations but (whisper it) I think my PL-310ET has a slight edge on the DX-286, both on FM and MW.

Otherwise, the functions of the DX-286 are more comprehensive and there's quite a bit to be going on with in the manual. The RDS stuff works well. The 286 is slightly smaller but the audio is bassier than the 310 which sounds brighter. DX-286 battery is a single 18650, probably a better option than the 3 'AA' NiMH's in the TECSUN (mine at least - I've had it for a few years now so I suppose they might have changed this). This is hard to do a proper comparison and probably meaningless anyway but on FM, I'd say the DX-286 signal meter consistently reads about 3dBu lower than the PL-310ET.

Can't comment on things like battery life yet but if The Qodosen matches the TECSUN I'll be pleased.

So, in terms of the functionality the DX-286 is a step up on the PL-310ET, a bit more modern. As far as the RX performance and sensitivity go, for me the jury's out but I'm leaning verrrrry slightly towards the PL-310ET.

IMG_20260119_134959.jpg

[King Croccy]

I Stumbled on these using that chip, I like the screen and what not if get some spare cash my have a go at one.



DP-666 DEEPELEC TEF6686 Radio High Sensitivity Full Band FM AM LW MW SW Shortwave ESP32 RDS 2.8 inch IPS LCD

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008 ... in_prod%3A

Quodosen sounds more full in think in this youtube video but also less crisp.

The DP-666 is very eye catching and I like the design. However, reason I never purchased one is because I realized the Chinese have made the case out of FR4 (pcb material). I reckon one drop and it will all be in bits lol

I have seen a similiar one in a metal case, might go for that as I'm always dropping things

[FMEnjoyer]

My DX-286 arrived. Not really a proper review but first impressions. I did a quick comparison with my PL-310ET making sure the RF gain, bandwidth and attenuator were set to comparable values and they're pretty close in terms of pulling in stations but (whisper it) I think my PL-310ET has a slight edge on the DX-286, both on FM and MW.

Otherwise, the functions of the DX-286 are more comprehensive and there's quite a bit to be going on with in the manual. The RDS stuff works well. The 286 is slightly smaller but the audio is bassier than the 310 which sounds brighter. DX-286 battery is a single 18650, probably a better option than the 3 'AA' NiMH's in the TECSUN (mine at least - I've had it for a few years now so I suppose they might have changed this). This is hard to do a proper comparison and probably meaningless anyway but on FM, I'd say the DX-286 signal meter consistently reads about 3dBu lower than the PL-310ET.

Can't comment on things like battery life yet but if The Qodosen matches the TECSUN I'll be pleased.

So, in terms of the functionality the DX-286 is a step up on the PL-310ET, a bit more modern. As far as the RX performance and sensitivity go, for me the jury's out but I'm leaning verrrrry slightly towards the PL-310ET.

IMG_20260119_134959.jpg

That's quite nice to hear as all 3... yes 3 of my Pl-310 ET and non ET's are all working. So I will hold off.

They all have "new" antennas of some kind on them either insulating taped telescopics to lengthen the silly too short one on there.

It is pretty obvious it needs to be a full 80cms for FM band.

If you make the Tecsun 310 antenna about 80cms long (just add a bit of wire to it....it works better and better still if you literally tape another 80cm bit of wire directly under the plastic bump where the telescopic meets the radio... it acts as a kind of ground plane/other side of a dipole. I suspect plugging minijack antenna plug with no centre pin connect (solder 80cms wire to earth side) would also do it, just as ground side of antenna...experiment a bit if you like extracting the last bit of signal out of the air

Just taping 80cms wire on works for me.

Enjoy the new radio nonetheless.

Good advice on the deepelec materials

[radionortheast]

Maybe a problem with some of these if you want to listen to mw, they lack a ferrite bar antenna, don't know how you'd put up a long wire get it away from noise generated from power supplies, so maybe an older radio might be better if you want mw, unless i'm missing something and they have a ferrite bar attachment.

[Albert H]

My MW (and higher) aerial is a short spring-steel whip (about 1m long) with an impedance converting, phantom-powered amplifier on the end of it. It's hanging by a length of fishing line from a tree about 10m from the house, and is connected with a length of RG58 coax. The amplifier power comes from a little adaptor at the house end, which injects 15V DC into the coax. The aerial is painted with acrylic paint to prevent it corroding, and the amplifier is in a small, plastic, tubular pill box that's completely waterproof. It doesn't suffer too much from noise from the house and I get useful signals up at 14 MHz and beyond. The most expensive part of the whole project was the coax!

Whip-Aerial.png

[shuffy]

Enjoy the new radio nonetheless.

Definitely will, the RX is still very good and close to the TECSUN. There are other things I like a bit better about the Qodosen too, it's easier to tune, the keypad is more responsive, there are more bells and whistles due to the TEF feature set and it's slightly more portable. Given how impressed I was with my other TEFs (even the ones I built myself) I was surprised the TECSUN shaded it a little performance wise but actually I guess it's an endorsement of the Si4734. I suppose I could have got a DX-286 that's not quite as sensitive...? can anyone else here do this comparison?

If you put your hand flat on the back of both radios with the telescopic antenna up, there is an improvement so I'd expect an earth coupled like you mentioned will definitely make things better. The antenna on the Qodosen is very short (around 50cm) even shorter than the TECSUN at 55cm. So, I will try your suggestion with the extra bit of wire making both radios' antennas 80cm long and see how that affects the comparison and get back.

Maybe a problem with some of these if you want to listen to mw, they lack a ferrite bar antenna, don't know how you'd put up a long wire get it away from noise generated from power supplies, so maybe an older radio might be better if you want mw, unless i'm missing something and they have a ferrite bar attachment.

I can confirm that both the PL-310ET and DX-286 have internal ferrite bar aerials which work fine. Haven't tried LW on the DX-286 yet, it's disabled by default but easy to switch back on. I don't know about the TEF radios like the one in the picture on FMEnjoyer's post above, but the "desktop" TEF I bought which started off my interest in this chip has an internal antenna which is switchable on the back. Performance is nothing to write home about in fact you won't even be buying a stamp - I think the unit itself generates too much internal noise to bother.

[EFR]

Whip-Aerial.png

Thats a quite classic one!

[FMEnjoyer]

I can use a horizontal 20m long dipole with balun on my fence @2m off the ground for MW but it kept falling down so removed it. That was superb for AM Dutch pirates. They were there every night with that antenna. Noise was really low, with balun and the horizontal mode.

Albert has given me ideas here. It would be very interesting to put some kind of outdoor FM RX antenna up. The obvious just being a wire dipole sealed up somehow on the cheapest flag pole I can get my hands on with a run of coax.

Does anyone know if the TECSUN external antenna sockets really work ?

Is this essentially a mono mini jack + and - and would 50 Ohm coax run be ok ?

That could reduce some noise issues from indoors (from neighbours mainly) the house when I really want a good listen about.

[Albert H]

Whip-Aerial.png

Thats a quite classic one!

It is. The only (minor) problem with it is that the FET can be killed by static. It also runs warm because of the low value emitter resistor for the 2219. We had some snow about 2 weeks ago, and the aerial was covered with snow and ice in the morning, but the little tubular can that contains the amplifier was clear of snow!