[IRCA] Two Yellow-Colored Lemon R9012's Received

[D1028Gary@xxxxxxx]

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
 
      
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