cobalt pet shortwave / mediumwave weblog

24 January 2008

my tecsun dr-920 replacement arrived

My Tecsun DR-920 replacement arrived on 15 January 2008, alongside the Redsun RF1201 that I ordered from China. I installed two alkaline batteries, set the clock, and tuned to several AM and FM stations to give the radio a basic workout. So far, so good.

If you didn't read it already, here's a link to my April 2007 review of the Tecsun DR-920.

This DR-920 has very good build quality, like the unit that I had before this one. The knobs, buttons, and switches are all in excellent condition. The telescopic antenna is as durable as can be expected for its size. The audio quality, both through the built-in speaker and through the headphone jack, seems the same as before. Hiss is audible on all bands through headphones, even with the volume at zero.

I noticed a difference between this radio and my original DR-920: this radio's backlight is yellow while my original radio had an orange backlight. The orange backlight looked better.

One issue I previously complained about with the DR-920 was the frequency display rapidly alternating between adjacent frequencies (such as 739 and 740 khz). When that happened, it kept the LCD backlight on unnecessarily. With this new unit, the frequency jumps a bit sometimes, but often it quickly settles on a frequency and shuts off the backlight. There was one instance where the frequency was unstable just after turning the radio on, requiring adjustment of the tuning knob to calm it. I'll keep watching to see if this DR-920 shows improvements over my previous one.

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