Re: [Swprograms] Bell & Howell radio $9.99 from Haband.com

["William Martin" <wgmartin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

For what it's worth, that radio is now $8.99 from Carol Wright Gifts/Dr. 
Leonard,
another mail-order-doohickey catalog firm.

I've several times heard or read mention of these radios as gifts for 
foreigners
to hear home-country news or as intros to SW listening for newbies. 
Actually,
that is a terrible application.

They work so poorly on SW that they will be a turn-OFF for any such
recipients. They work OK on AM, and moderately OK on FM, but SW is a
sea of noise and squawk. Here in St. Louis, I got just about nothing but
roars of FM-squawk with now and then Brother Stair or Gene Scott at
odd places on the dial (no relation to the actual frequencies on which
the signals were transmitted). One of my senior-citizen ladies in the
local group uses one for just listening to a strong local AM. I gave the
one I had to a friend of mine as he left on a cross-country dirive in order
for him to test it out in areas far away from local transmitters, but his
report of its performance was not encouraging.

I wrote a mini-review for gh back when I first got one, and it is in an '03
DXLD somewhere. I used mine as a in-hospital radio back in '03 when I was in
for surgery because it was something that wouldn't matter if it was lost, 
stolen,
or smashed. It functioned OK then for local listening, but I switched back 
to
a decent SW portable for listening as soon as I went into the recovery phase
away from home.

What this and the other really-cheap SW radios are good for is for us
experienced SWLs/DXers to play with just to see how a minimal piece of
equipment will function. If we get anything identifiable and listenable
it is a triumph and an amusement. For a non-experienced person to use
these is an exercise in frustration and annoyance.

There's a Coby tiny digital-readout one that Big Lots sells for $8 (if you
can find one) that is actually better. (It's the one that Passport reviewed
and rated as "unacceptable" in the '05 edition.) Still lousy, but you can
actually get a signal now and then on the displayed frequency. I have one
other analog model that's a smidgen better than the Bell+Howell but
has absolutely no name or model #; it uses D-cells so it is much fatter.
It was from another of the mail-order catalog houses and in the same
price range. But I think you have to go up to one of the Degen or Kaito
models now coming in from China in the $20-$30 price range to get
something that actually works on SW in a usuable (if limited) fashion.

Regards, Will


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