Kiwi DXer in Asia

Receivers I Have Owned

This is a further exercise in self-indulgence.

When I began DXing I was 14 years of age. I came from a family with little money but we did have a kitchen radio I could use – a Phillips Cordless Continental – a model used so well by Sutton Burtenshaw down in Southland.

I could sit in bed at night and without an external antenna I could log the Aussie ABC stations at the bottom end of the band. I thought hearing the likes of 2CR was exotic. My first verie from Aussie was 2KM on 530 kHz.

A little later an elderly neighbour up the road gave me an old valve radio to use. I have no idea what make it was but it came from Britain – the dial gave that away and it basically didn’t have a cabinet. My father being a builder built me a cabinet and mounted the speaker. It was hooked up to a thick piece of bare wire which went up through a hole in the ceiling and was connected to some chicken mesh under the corrugated iron roof. Surprisingly I heard quite a bit on that.

The problem was that we lived less than a mile from the NZBC masts in Henderson. But in those days you could expect some splash around 1070, 760, 880 and 1250 (1ZM at the time) and that was it. Everything else was fine. I even built my first loop. Problem was I stripped the covering off the wire meaning that the strands crossed to the next loop and shorted the whole thing out. Why did I strip the wire off? I have no idea – nobody said I shouldn’t! Years later I made a loop that actually worked and I could then see what all the fuss was about!

My father bought me a new radio when the old one finally packed in. It was a radio he found goodness knows where that had come out of a Wellington bomber. It worked very well and I heard a lot on that too – all on the AM bands of course. He went crazy and bought me a ZC1 as well. With that I did quite a bit of tropical band DXing and heard all sorts of interesting things.

Once I finished university I was given a Barlow Wadley XCR 30 by Bryan Clark. This was a difficult radio to operate, but the rewards were great. From that I moved to a National Panasonic DR28. This was a gem of a radio and on this I heard many very good stations. I finished after 4 years at my first school and went on a trip to the UK. On the way home to New Zealand I stopped off in Singapore and in Orchard Road I bought a DR31 because I thought it would be an improvement. What a load of rubbish – it was hopeless. I regretted giving my DR28 to a friend. My DXing went backwards. I remember being at the Auckland Convention at Whangaparoa and being staggered at what I couldn’t hear compared to what those who had decent sets were hearing.

I lasted with the DR 31 for a few more years as I couldn’t afford anything else. I then moved to the UK and a new radio came onto the market. I was determined to have it and so I purchased an AOR7030 at £600+. When I returned to New Zealand I had it upgraded to an AOR7030+ and I have it still. Nothing has been proved to be better.

I had the opportunity to purchase a Drake SPR4 off Paul Ormandy. This is just as good as the AOR except the sound quality is very bassy. However, Bill Marsh has invented a circuit board which overcomes this. He has promised me one, so we shall see how it goes.

Being one who likes new things I recently managed to purchase a WinRadio G313e relatively cheaply, but unused. This is a Software Defined Radio (SDR) and it works as well as the AOR. The only problem with it being that it can only record one channel at a time. I live in a very noisy location and so I cannot get a truly reliable guide as to what can or cannot be heard.

Having spent time listening at Bryan Clark’s in Mangawhai I am sold on the WinRadio SDRs and my plan is very shortly to purchase an Excalibur receiver, like Bryan’s. The quality of reception, the things you can do to enhance reception and its recording capabilities make it a very attractive option. That should see me done for life!

The point to make about all this is that while a good radio is important, it is how you listen that is more important. A good listener combined with a good receiver has the world at his/ her fingertips – literally.