MySwag.org The Off-road Camper Trailer Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: sol on May 07, 2017, 07:35:44 PM
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Hey guys, does anyone know of a good radio to take camping?
The one in the van is useless once I'm around 5ks from a town or city.
I used to have a Superadio but it was needed more by someone else while we were camping at Murray Falls. I've tried a few but most won't work that well away from populated areas.
:cheers:
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Find a second hand goods shop and get a portable radio manufactured before 1980.
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Most will work away from populated areas, just you need to know the local frequency not try to auto tune
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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The one in the van is useless once I'm around 5ks from a town or city.
:cheers:
What aerial do you have ?
I installed a radio in the van at xmas and it came with a short stubby aerial. Useless.....could get heaps better reception by holding the aerial ?
Make up a 3 or 4m long lead from any sort of small wire, put a lug on it and unscrew the aerial and sandwich the lead under it. Then throw the lead over the top of the van....if that solves the problem, do what I did and buy a longer aerial ( 1.5m ). Only downside is you may need to unscrew it when travelling, which is a 5 sec job for me !!
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I have a Degen shortwave receiver. Picks up all bands.
Degen (http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/DEGEN-DE1103-FM-Stereo-MW-LW-SW-SSB-SHORTWAVE-Dual-World-Receiver-Portable-Radio-/322291070179?hash=item4b0a0b74e3:g:TpgAAOSwhkRWgkUk)
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Assuming you're talking portable hand held units here?
I have one of these that lives in our little emergency kit, it's nice and compact and has worked perfectly everywhere that I've needed it to for the last 5 or 6 years.
https://www.roadtechmarine.com.au/pll-world-band-radio/p/TDA033 (https://www.roadtechmarine.com.au/pll-world-band-radio/p/TDA033)
When I went in to buy this one I thought I would want the bigger $200 unit, but it is really big and we really only use AM/FM radio very rarely or when there is an emergency weather event happening.
So pumping sound quality is not that important for us in a hand held radio, that's what a smart phone, Spotify and bluetooth speaker are for... ;D
What aerial do you have ?
I installed a radio in the van at xmas and it came with a short stubby aerial. Useless.....could get heaps better reception by holding the aerial ?
Make up a 3 or 4m long lead from any sort of small wire, put a lug on it and unscrew the aerial and sandwich the lead under it. Then throw the lead over the top of the van....if that solves the problem, do what I did and buy a longer aerial ( 1.5m ). Only downside is you may need to unscrew it when travelling, which is a 5 sec job for me !!
The previous AM/FM camping radio that we had before we bought the one linked above, was just a really cheap little unit, the FM reception was rubbish.
Until one trip I snapped the antenna right at the base trying to get it in just the right position to get half decent reception. I stripped it down while camping and found a bit of medium gauge tie-wire that I bodgied up to make a 'temporary' fix.
After connecting my dodgy antenna the bloody thing came alive!! All of a sudden it had crystal clear sound and picked up every station far better then the car stereo.
So from then on I used to wrap the wire around the main spreader bar under the tarp or even better twist it onto the single strand fencing wire that the Nation Parks guys use at a few sites around the country side and I could enjoy absolutely perfect reception. :D
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^^^ Thats real handy to know about the linked radio Pete, Bought the wife the exact same for her desk at work, Was going to take it to Fraser to see if it works better than the SW MW FM AM Dinosaur ..
My only small real gripe is, I now have to try and get a USB style power plug for the small solar panel [ shed light type ] we use to power the Dinosaur ..