Category Archives: Radio

Radio Collecting and listening

Rambling on some old and new radios

Posted on September 20, 2025 by Kevin

I usually talk about radios I’ve used or intend to buy. This is is different, mostly about radios I didn’t and won’t buy. Retekess V115 The Retekess V115 radio has been a very popular “starter radio” because of its low … Continue reading →

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The Battle of the Sixes (DX-286 and DP-666): Part 2

Posted on September 17, 2025 by Kevin

Continued from The Battle of the Sixes: Part 1. In this part I discuss reception performance and audio quality, with my final conclusions. Performance MW The first barrier in comparing MW performance is that the DP-666 doesn’t have an internal … Continue reading →

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The Battle of the Sixes (DX-286 and DP-666): Part 1

Posted on September 10, 2025 by Kevin

A Comparison of two radios based on the TEF6686 DSP chip This post title was inspired by my new Sparkelec DP-666 radio based on the NXM TEF6686 DSP chip. That’s a lot of sixes. Here I compare two radios based … Continue reading →

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Upgrading the Sparkelec DP-666 Firmware

Posted on September 7, 2025 by Kevin

Don’t That’s my advice. There is a newer version with the Megatron M17 mods and I was led to get it from the Deepelec website. After installation, the new version showed a Deepelec logo when I boot the device, but … Continue reading →

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Radio Silence

Posted on September 5, 2025 by Kevin

No posts for a while. I have two projects in the works and they aren’t progressing as fast as I would like. One is a comparison between the Sparkelec DP-666 and my other TEF6686 radio, the Qodosen DX-286. The other … Continue reading →

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First Impressions: Sparkelec DP-666 (Updated)

Posted on August 26, 2025 by Kevin

My DP-666 finally arrived today. It’s based on the NXP TEF6686 chip, designed for automotive applications. The contents of the box bore an uncanny resemblance to the seller photo (what we call a “good thing’), and here it is:

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Checking Out the Unbranded Signal Generator

Posted on August 20, 2025 by Kevin

I am happy to report that the signal general generator does work (turns on and outputs RF), despite all the YouTube repair videos. My first experiment was to hook up the Signal Generator to an SDR, the RTL-SDR Blog V4, … Continue reading →

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