R9700DX 12-Band Dual Conversion AM/FM Shortwave Radio

I have had this radio for 3 years now. I have been an avid SW listener for going on 30 yrs. I am not a ham but I was a MURS and Hurricane NET operator in the military so I know a little about HF. I am not going to compare this to a ICOM or Drake ham rig. I will review it on its merit for what is is compared to other consumer grade receivers. I own or have owned Sangean 803A, 818, Grundig S750, S350, DEGEN 1102, 1103, WRX911. First off If you want to listen to utility signals skip this because its SW segments only cover the SW broadcast bands with exception of 120, 90 and 11 meter bands. That being said it covers most of them. This is hands down in my opinion one of the best portable SW travel radios made. This is the reason I purchased it. It controls are extremely simple. It as nice dial that lights up the dial. It is auto shut-off after 20 seconds but has a switch that bypasses that and allows you to leave it on constantly. its has a music news tone switch and an ext ant jack nd a DX local switch which is an attenuator in the local position. This pads the whip as well as the ext ant attached. It has a nice speaker that kinda raises your eyebrows when you 1st hear it because it lacks the tinny, tiring sound most portable this size have. It has a fuller, richer sound. The radio takes 4 AA batteries and they last what seems like 4-ever due to the miserly analog circuitry of this radio. Volume is a slide switch and tuning is a thumb wheel on the right hanf side of the radio. Supposedly you can charge the batteries in the radio and it slow charges the 4 Nmih batteries that come with it even though there are no details in the manual or the box on how it does it. I take the radio with me only when I travel with the exceptions when I get it out to compare to other radios. The FM on this radio is excellent and the stereo thru the headphones is superb, especially when you use a better grade of music headphones. The selectivity and sensitivity on FM are outstanding. The AM portion of this radio is where the people will find it lacking or so it seems. Its AM selectivity is good but sensitivity is mediocre. This not a lost cause though because like a lot of new portable SW radios that don't have a lot of room for a large proper AM antenna you can place an AN100, 200 MW loop antenna near this and the AM band comes alive with signals seeming to leap from the noise floor. I have never a portable SW receiver AM section benefit from this type of AM loop antenna as much as the R9700DX. While packing an AN200 along with isn't in the travel recipe if you have this on your office,study desk or kitchen table with an AN200 loop antenna this is an AM performer. SW selectivity and sensitivity are excellent. It hears signals off the whip that any of my other portables her as long as the R9700DX. The provided long wire should be able to bring in a signal if enough of it is there to bring in. If prefer to use the long wire because it lowers the noise floor so much. On the stronger signals I just use it in the LOCAL position and the pad tames any overload. A roll up long wire is the perfect travel companion. I have a long wire and a multi band long wire in the attic that I run my S750 and 803A on and with the DX/LOCAL switch in local postion this radio pulls any signal pulls any signal the others can as long as it is on the tuning dial with no overload and a super low noise floor. This radio has none of the synthesizer noise that a PLL radio has even though it is dual conversion. I have read reviews on this radio where people try to force the tuning wheel to tune a signal. Don't do this! This will break it. I it can't be tuned it can't be tuned. This radio dial is relative in that with the AC power adapter, Alkaline batteries or Re-chargeables plugged into its analog circuitry the dial will tune in slightly different positions per the the different DC levels fed to its analog circuitry. 1.5VDC AA alkalines vs. 1.2VDC Nimh AA's. With that in mind the radio radio will require about 10-15 minutes for the internals to stabilize but will require a slight nudge from time to time to peak your tuning, not nowhere near the amount an S350 requires. If you are as old as I am and remember the audio that came from the old higher end stereo receivers this radios audio has the same purer sound to it that the pre digitally processed audio use to have. My ears can tell the difference. This radio (or some of the other SW portables) connected to a decent attic antenna and the headphone/line audio piped thru a decent set of powered bookshelf or computer speakers you have a very decent analog SW BCB listening station that will make an S350 green with envy. An AN200 MW antenna completes it. This is a Great BCB radio and hats-off to the engineers who designed it. This is one of the best travel radios made for someone that has no need to receive utility signals. It also has a very, very nice travel case. It's analog tuning is perfect for band scanning in a new area you may be visiting or over staying over-night in. I highly recommend this radio. I am not going to take away from it due to no SSB and the things it doesn't do. You buy it for what is supposed to do and that it does extremely well. This radio is a keeper. If Tecsun reads these reviews it would be nice to see an 803A size radio, analog tuner and dial with fine tuning with S350 speaker audio depth/quality with 120/90 and 11 meters using this technology would be a winner. I don't think SW is going to die and see it as resurgant into the future. A portatop radio with out the hissy digital signal processing and grate audio would be nice. Hopefully they have the engineers who designed this are coraborating on other projects.

I’ve been into radio since my teenage years and for nearly two decades I’ve been an amateur radio operator. I feel my experience and background will make my review valid. For under $100, you WILL NOT find a better performing shortwave radio. It just isn’t going to happen. The audio clarity from the good sized speaker is superb for a radio in this price range. While the tuning is analog and not fancy digital, I prefer analog tuning because I’m able to “slide” through the band easily without the tuning steps associated with digital. The display does light up for use in the dark. You get access to all of the major shortwave bands, which will provide hours of entertainment. There are some gaps in frequency coverage between the bands, but nothing that would warrant deducting a star. It's just worth mentioning and to most users, isn't a big deal. Now on a more technical note, the receiver in this is dual conversion. For simplicity sake, this means there are “two” stages to the IF circuit which allows the user to better finely tune in stations and increases rejection from interference. A feature you normally only find in really high end models. If you’re on the fence, let me knock you off of it. Buy this radio. You will not be disappointed at all. Included is a nice little case/cover, a long-wire antenna, and AC adapter.

So after receiving 3 separate radios and finally getting one that works properly here's my take. First off I love the style and construction of the radio. If you like "old school new tech" then this is definitely satisfying. The FM and MW/AM band is very sensitive and the DX function works quite well picking up a lot of faint stations. I look forward to trying out the MW with a loop antenna. I haven't had much luck picking up many SW stations but it's probably due to unfair weather lately. Sound quality I would say is good, stereo and mono sound switch is drastic between the two and preferences may vary. Build quality feels good, especially the tuning dial, nice resistance for fine tuning without worry of skipping past those faint signals and holds the station well. Also the tuning dial is quite accurate on my particular radio. Very nice getting the AC adapter and FM/SW wire antenna included, at least a $20 value. Case is also pretty nice, a stiff seemingly well made canvas type material that fits nice and tight over the radio. Overall I'm very satisfied with the radio and look forward to further testing. The bad is the fact that it took me 2 replacements to find one I was satisfied with. On one radio, the tuning dial was WAY off. If I tried tuning to 92.3FM for example, it would read 95-96FM. The other radio had a loud popping noise when turning the backlight on, loose tuning dial, scuffs on the station backplate, very loose band selector switch etc... I'm sure most people would be fine with some of these nitpicky things, but for a $50+ radio I expected a little better. As long as you get a good functioning radio and don't expect perfection I would recommend this radio for the styling, sound quality and sensitivity.

El único defecto que le encuentro es el movimiento del disco para sintonizar, está demasiado apretado. Por ser de metal y de filos duros, al cabo de un rato lastima a los dedos. Por lo demás es un aparato excelente, con muy buena sensibilidad, buen sonido, gran resolución en el dial. He podido escuchar estaciones de varias partes del mundo, con SW. Usando AM logré captar una estación de San Francisco, desde Ensenada, unos 950 Km, de manera clara y fuerte.

This is probably one of the best analog radios available today. Sensitivity and overall functionality is great. The only complaint I have is that the tuning wheel is a pretty stiff. If your use case is to tune to a station and then listen to it, it is all good, but if your use case is to constantly scan and tune to different stations, then you may find the stiffness of the tuning button pretty challenging. Personally, I am happy with my purchase and find the sound quality and selectivity of this radio to be excellent. It is a keeper.

Es bueno que incluya su cargador de pared, solo es importante considerar que el cargador es bueno para uso de FM... para AM y SW es mejor usar baterías ya que el cargador introduce ruido al AM y SW. La recepción en general es muy buena y el sonido es potente para tener solo una bocina, muy recomendado si se quiere un radio sencillo y de buena calidad

Good reception on all bands with decent muting of interference between stations. A good basic radio. However I returned mine because I have arthritis in my fingers and found the tuning dial very difficult to operate (overly stiff). I ordered a Tecsun PL-880 instead (it hasn't arrived yet as of this writing).

I bought this because it had an analog dial as opposed to a digital one. I suppose it reminded me of radios I owned in the past. It is fine on FM, decent on AM and shortwave. It is not a "serious" radio, just something for casual listening. It comes with a nice case, a wire antenna, a charger and earphones. It is a small radio and seems to run for a good long time on batteries. On the back of the radio is a fold out stand so it can be used inclined for easier viewing; on the bottom is a pull out stand to make it more stable in the upright position. The band coverage is interesting. On AM it does not cover the 1610-1700 kHz portion of the band that was added in the 1990s. On shortwave the radio provides 10 bands, each 550 kHz wide. This means that some frequencies are not available. This includes some amateur radio bands but since most amateur radio transmissions are single side band, digital or morse code this is not really relevant - on shortwave this radio only receives AM signals. While not as accurate as a digital display the tuning display is reasonably good, the SW dials are marked in 10 kHz increments. There is a light for the display which can be on continuously or briefly. Unfortunately the only way of telling which SW band is in use is by looking at the tiny dots above the band selector. These are not lit up by the light and there is no other indication of which band has been selected. Not an easy radio to use in a dark room. Overall an attractive and compact unit with reasonable performance at a reasonable cost.