Tag Archives: shortwave radio

RDS / RBDS: FM on Display

Posted on March 21, 2024 by Kevin

The Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS), as it is called in the North America, or simply RDS in the rest of the world, is a protocol for embedding data in an FM/VHF broadcast. The data can include the station name, … Continue reading →

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Thunderous Clash of the Weather Radios

Posted on March 20, 2024 by Kevin

Weather radios are an interesting genre of radio. Some of them are specifically designed as emergency radios and some are general coverage radios with a weather feature added. I seem to have accumulated 8 weather radios. Here’s the photo array: … Continue reading →

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Before the battle: iRonsnow IR-688.

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Kevin

I have a new radio this week, an iRonsnow IR-688 emergency radio. I bought it on sale for $34.99 from Amazon, not to collect or to test, but to sit in the window and get weather alerts. It did arrive, … Continue reading →

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Qodosen SR-286 Tuning Tutorial

Posted on March 9, 2024 by Kevin

I’ve never seen a radio with more tuning modes than the Qodosen SR-286. I thought it might be worth the time to go through everything related to the topic in a tutorial. Broadly speaking there are 5 areas in tuning: … Continue reading →

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Sihuadon R-108: an overlooked radio

Posted on February 11, 2024 by Kevin

I’ve seen nice things said about the Sihuadon R-108 radio for some time, but I never bought one because it seemed redundant for my personal use. The radio is quite small (5″ L x 1.2″ W x 3″ H), it … Continue reading →

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Incoming Radio! Qodosen SR-286

Posted on January 30, 2024 by Kevin

If all goes well, I’ll be receiving a Qodosen SR-286 (aka Xiaoqiang SR-286) radio mid-February from AliExpress. I learned about it from RadioJayAllen’s review and it pushed a few of my buttons. First off, the SR-286 is small: 128 x … Continue reading →

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Battle of the under $50 shortwave radios: Take 2

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Kevin

It’s only been 5 months since 13 shortwave radios did battle in the original Battle of the under $50 shortwave radios, but things have changed. There are new contenders. XHDATA D-109WB The XHDATA D-109 (shown above) was the winner of … Continue reading →

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