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[IRCA] Two Yellow-Colored Lemon R9012's Received
Hello Guys,
Apparently some of the newly manufactured Tecsun R9012 AM-FM-SW analog
portables have some QC variations compared with others, and if you are still
"sitting on the fence" about purchasing this $9 portable, you may wish to wait
until the Ultralight DX group sorts out the serial number variations.
Two new yellow-colored R9012's were ordered from the eBay seller "tquchina,"
and both of them were highly substandard out of the box. One of them could
only receive two local AM stations, before alignment. The other managed to
receive four stations.
Confident that I could get them up to peak sensitivity, I performed the
alignment procedure described in a file recently uploaded to DXer.Ca.This was the
same procedure that was successful in bringing the two black R9012's from
eBay seller "dpmega" up to a high level of sensitivity, with 530-1700 kHz
coverage.
The first surprise was finding that the upper AM frequency limit trimmer
(the trimmer at the lowest spot on the tuner) extended the upper band limit to
1700 by turning in a clockwise direction, not counterclockwise as in the black
R9012's from "dpmega." After getting the upper limit set at 1700, I checked
the lower frequency limit, and found that the radio would not tune below 550
kHz after adjustment to 1700 on the high end. This was a new issue, never
experienced with the black R9012's.
Peaking the loopstick on the 600 khz weak signal brought up sensitivity in
the yellow R9012's, as did the 1400 kHz peaking, but the final sensitivity of
the radio is still significantly less than that of the aligned black R9012's
from "dpmega." Apparently Tecsun has made some changes in the R9012 models,
like it did in the E100 models with "old" and "new" variants.
The serial numbers of the yellow "lemon" models from "tquchina" are
08920051011317 and 08920051019103, while the two good black R9012's from "dpmega"
have serial numbers of 08920081014137 and 08920081014170 (much later numbers).
It's just a guess, but my impression is that the black R9012's were
manufactured in 2008, not only because of the "2008" in the serial numbers, but because
of the Chinese manual dated October 2008 included with the units. The
yellow-colored lemons would then have been early models from 2005.
For those having interest in the Tecsun R9012 AM-FM-SW analog model, my
interim recommendation would be to avoid the yellow-colored models from
"tquchina," at least until we can sort out the good and bad serial numbers. Order the
black R9012's from "dpmega" instead (which are the cheapest ones, at $9.90
plus shipping, anyway).
73, Gary DeBock
**************Feeling the pinch at the grocery store? Make meals for Under
$10. (http://food.aol.com/frugal-feasts?ncid=emlcntusfood00000002)
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