My listening preferences include talk radio, news, music, digital transmissions, and ham radio voice/data. Each person has different tastes when it comes to shortwave radios and I will try to generalize my list of must haves. but know there is some bias in my opinion. I am also interested in hearing about your opinions in the comments!
Must Have Features:
- Physical Attributes
- Sturdy, tactile feedback on the controls
- Feels durable, not flexible
- Ergonomics designed for frequent operation
- Direct entry keypad
- Rotary tuning knob
- Tuning in 1KHz steps
- RF attenuator (local/DX)
- Frequency Coverage
- Can listen to all commercial broadcast bands and amateur radio bands up to 29 MHz
- Audio
- Clear and intelligible sound from internal speaker for talk and music
- RF Selectivity
- Ability to reduce interference from nearby stations +/- 3KHz
- RF Sensitivity
- Ability to pull in signals at 2% over the noise floor (this is subjective as some radios measure sensitivity in dBµ/m or µV/m)
- Adequate built-in antenna(s) to receive weak signals
- Double conversion receiver stages
- Single Sideband (BFO or true LSB/USB)
- Station Memory Recall
- Ability to store at least 10 frequencies for quick access
Nice To Have Features:
- Large, bright, clear, and readable digital display
- Selective backlight on/off toggle
- Dimmable backlight
- RF Gain Control
- Triple Conversion receiver stages
- Reputable internal components including filters
- Dual power sources (house power and battery)
- Recharging circuit to charge user supplied batteries
- Line out jack
- External antenna input
- Audio filters (bandwidth, notch,tone)
- RF Sensitivity to pull in signals below noise floor
- Built in DSP signal decoders (DRM, CW, RTTY)
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