Tecsun PL-310ET Ferrite Rod

Tecsun PL-310ET Ferrite Rod - Part II

So I decided to try the mod originally documented by Laurie Mann to utilise the spare connections on the antenna jack to bypass the internal antenna when an external one is plugged in. I suspect this is how the Tecsun PL-360 works which has the option of internal or plug-in external ferrite antennas. The PL-606 also has the external antenna jack so maybe it is mod-able too.

Rather than remove the rod and swap wires, I drilled a hole and mounted a 1.3mm pcb pin to use as a solder point for the wire from the ferrite rod.

Run the first wire:

Then the second wire to the new PCB anchor point:

Showing the new wiring in position:

Don't forget to cover the base of the whip antenna with some insulation tape to prevent it shorting across the new connections.

So now I can connect my new external ferrite monster rod, with a selector switch for MW and LW sections of the coil. I found that it was necessary to change the coil switch before the Tecsun MW/LW band change otherwise sensitivity was poor. I presume this is because the SI Labs DSP chip calibrates the tuning when the band is selected and expects to find a certain inductance value thereafter.

Here are some results using the LW coil:

Next step will be to find a suitable enclosure to protect that monster piece of ferrite. They are extremely brittle if dropped!

Comments

Tecsun R-9700DX Teardown

I've seen a lot of favourable comments on this analogue SW radio via various YouTube channels, along with it's sibling the R-9710. Sold in some (USA?) markets as the Grundig Yacht Boy 250. Exact specifications and schematics have evaded me so far, however I did find a teardown and comparison at RadioIntel.com from which I've borrowed this photo: Photo from http://www.radiointel.com/review-review-tecsunr9700dx.htm It appears to use dual-conversion on shortwave with a fixed crystal local oscillator (see the 10 crystals above the bandswitch). One feature is that the tuning on the short wave bands tune the opposite direction to the AM and FM bands. Here's my (incorrect) guess of how it works. AM band IF is 450kHz (from the orange block filter) AM local oscillator tunes 975kHz - 2160kHz. The image of the AM band (1425kHz - 2610kHz) is used as a tuneable first IF for the shortwave bands. Each band is 600kHz wide so it probably uses 2000kHz - 2600kHz. The SW ba...

Tecsun R-9710 Teardown

Although I've been itching to get my hands on the Tecsun R-9700DX, I wasn't really aware of it's smaller sibling, the R-9710 until I saw this review on the Two Hands and a Radio YouTube channel. Two Hands made the observation that the shortwave bands tune in the opposite direction to the AM and FM bands, which made me go and do a quick check other Tecsun analog radios. I found the R-9700DX also has this inverted tuning feature so some Googling later and I've located a teardown of the R-9710 plus other sets. The original article is in Chinese but you can view it through the magic of Google Translate . R-9710 teardown from http://www.leowood.net/sbdp209.htm Note it has eight crystals around the bandswitch for that fixed-crequency first local oscillator. Add the schematic found at http://www.fmdiy.com/ReadNews.asp?NewsID=305 More dead links to maintain unfortunately.

Tesco RAD-108 AM/FM/Shortwave portable radio review - American Style

I sent one of the RAD-108s over to Two Hands and a Radio for a YouTube review. Update - looks like 2H has taken his YouTube channel down so this is no longer available. Here is mine, a poor substitute. It didn't do too well on the American AM broadcast band, probably due to tuning in 9kHz rather than 10kHz steps!

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