[HCDX] Cell. phones around 800 MHz, Sanyo MCD-S830 portable radio review

[Aurel Chiochiu <chiochiu@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello !

I maked a review of the performence of the Sanyo MCD-S830 portable receiver a couple oh hours ago this afternoon, for both the AM and FM bands. Those of you who make a web-site may be
interessed in putting this review on the web and maybe buy the radio to use it when on travel, etc... I hope every one is interessed down here.

Before I let you reading this article, I want to let you know that my father buyed for me an old black and white portable TV set from the early 1980s or so wich he found for only 40 $. It cover
the 70-83 UHF channels wich are no longer used for UHF Television, but for GSM Cellular Phones. I tuned above ch.-69 and I found numerous private phone conversations, one of it was beetwen a
boyfriend and his girlfriend, another was a man calling "Banque Desjardins" to know how many money he has in his account. Why most of these cellular phones use only a couple of watts, they
could propagate several hundreds of miles during extremely intense tropo ducts.

Into the receiver review now:
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                                  Sanyo MCD-S830 review
                                                               by: Bogdan Alexandru Chiochiu

Many that are new to the DX hobby often have trouble finding receivers that are up to the job. Today, many Hi-Fi stereo portables often have trouble to pick up even the most closer and
powerfull local stations, let alone the weak and fading DX ones. It is because most manufacters carry mostly about how good the CD player is and how clear the tapes are played, but do not carry
much about the radio it`s self, his sensitivity, selectivity, dynamic range, how long the internal ferrite bar AM antenna is it or how sharply directional the telescopic FM antenna is when
trying to separe semi-locals from co-channel sporadic-E or tropo DX.

One exception is the Sanyo model no. MCD-S830 Hi-Fi chain. For this receiver, the manufacters has concentrated on both the CD/tape performence and the radio it`s self. It has a verry large AM
ferrite bar antenna that might be at least 3 cm of lenght and a nice telescopic antenna for FM.

The selectivity is also quite nice. It apparently use a 6 kHz filter for the AM band. I often hear RFO in St.-Pierre et Miquelon on 1375 kHz, despite they ar only 5 kHz away from powerhouse
short skip skywave WFEA signal. I also heard a few caribbean splits with this gear. The only big problem with the filter is that 6 kHz remains fairly wide, if you live in a crowded urban area,
within 10 miles of most locals. Using this set-up, I constate that the locals tend to splash up to 20 kHz away from their nominal frequencies, and if the local is really extremely strong, this
splash can extend up to about 40 or even 50 kHz from his frequency. It is therefore important that this receiver is used in a quiet QTH, far from the 50 kW transmitter towers. By using this
receiver near high-powered AM transmitter, overload may not happen, but slops all accros the dial may happen, so be carefull. Fortunately, it is possible to replace the 6 kHz filter for a
narrow one if you find splash is too intense.

On FM band, the selectivity is also quite good, as long as you don`t live VERY close to high-powered FM stations. On FM the worst thing that can happen with this receiver are "mixing products"
wich basically consist of 2 verry strong local TXs that mix in the internal circuits of the receiver and wich you can hear both at the same time on some clear FM frequencies. Fortunately, where
I live in Pierrefonds, there are few strong TXs so I hear maybe only 2 or 3 weak mixing products. When I lived right in Montreal, there was a mixing product on almost every channel. However, I
must say that the dynamic range on FM is still well above average of most Hi-Fi Stereos and it is still one of the best radio I have for FM DX-ing.

Another good point is that the tape works excellent. If you want to tape a weak, fading signal, you will be able to do this without problems that the signal will be too weak to tape it out,
unlike some radio-cassetes, when they tape out something from the radio, even from a local station, they bring this signal slightly more distorted that it actually is. The only problem with the
tape is that on a few frequencies on the AM dial, there are a few birdies created by the tape it`s self wich can make 5 or 6 channels useless to tape, but otherwise it works verry well.

Some incovenients can be considered: this receiver do not have external antenna connector. That means that you can only DX using the built-in antennas. I must admit however that it is possible
to attach a MW loop or even a random wire to the ferrite bar, but it is totally non-recommended to do this in the big cities due to nearby transmitters.

Another inconvenient with it, is that if you decide to use that set on a travel, you will need verry large batteries that are often quite expensives. This portable is loud and it will no work
with little baterries. Also, coving the people at the airport to let you take this relatively loud radio with you may be quite tough.

In all, the Sanyo MCD-S830 portable it is the perfect solution for the beginners to start DX with, and even for the more experienced DX it is a nice radio to DX with. I have logged 12 countries
on MW from my listening post in south-eastern Canada, most Ottawa and Quebec City FMers via tropo and a number of FM mid-west and southern US domestics, during sporadic-E conditions. And it can
be found at a reasanable price at stores like Radio Shack or Future Shop. Buy it now and you will not regret the stuff that this DX machine will make for you !

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