Nick B's SWL Blog

   New toy for this summer. Order placed with Anon-Co on 21st April with expedited shipping (which included the battery), delivered on  28th April. Arrived with a UK Royal Mail postage label and a return address in Manchester, maybe it was shipped from stock already in the UK? I paid $71.44, inclusive of shipping and tax, which worked out at 53.44 of my British Pounds. Undocumented functions Press and hold 3 with power on: CH-S displayed selects whip antenna, CH-A displayed selects internal ferrite bar antenna. Press and hold 7 with the power on: Sets maximum volume for selected band using volume knob. Press and hold 9 with power off: Alternates between ON and OFF. Unknown. Press and hold 9 with power on: Number adjustable between 1 and 30 using tuning knob. Unknown. Press and hold VF/VM with power off: Segment test followed by firmware version. Mine is 3305.  I'll update the article when I figure out what they all do. Performance Early days but initial performance o...

After carrying out the external antenna connection modification to the PL-310ET, I built an external antenna coupler for MW and LW.  The coupler uses (obsolete) Toko 10mm inductors which are tuned on the primary side by the varicap diode on the SI Labs IC. The secondary side provides a low-impedance coupling to an external antenna. MW uses a Toko RWR331 230-300μH primary, 1.75μH secondary. LW uses a Toko 98299 2.9-4.0mH primary, 46μH secondary. Some excellent results have been achieve, particularly on Long Wave.

As I've collected a few Sangean-built sets over the years, I've put together a list of badge-engineered equivalents. In the US sets were sold under the Radio Shack brand. Here in Britain they were sold under the Roberts Radio brand. In Germany, sold under the Siemens brand. You can download the list in PDF format and it will get updated as I discover any new re-badging.  For example:   ATS808 was sold as the Roberts R808 and R809 (CE marked)