Sometimes, radio becomes an obsession.

In the never-ending pursuit of perfection, I am always tinkering with something around the apartment. Back in the latter part of last year I was reading on a website about how a young lady who is old in the SWL hobby and new to the Ham hobby was twiddling around the dial on her Realistic DX-440 and came across a station she had never heard before: Radio Mauritanie.

That sort of piqued my interest; I had never heard of Radio Mauratanie before, much less DX’d it. I did some investigating on the internet and found they transmit from Nouakchott, Mauritania on 4845KHz. Well, I went over to my first choice at the time for chasing far-away lands, the DX-160, and started scoping it out. After tuning and fine tuning, I came across a signal but it was very weak with no modulation to speak of. I verified it with one of my digital radios and the pursuit began.

As mentioned in some of my previous posts, I live in an apartment and don’t have the luxury of running a few hundred feet of antenna, thus I experiment. About four years ago I built a Helical antenna consisting of a 4 foot piece if PVC pipe wrapped with about a hundred feet of wire and capped with an aluminum disk. This seemed to work okay at first until after a bit of tweaking I was able to pull in Radio New Zealand Int’l. That was my best DX catch to date and it still ranks as my best as far as pure distance goes.

Up until I came across Mauritanie I had only captured one African station – Radio Cairo. Most African stations are low to medium power and don’t aim or relay to North America. Mauritanie was only cooking at 100KW so this would indeed be a challenge.

Don’t ask me why I picked Mauritania as a target. Maybe it was because I’d never even heard of the country…or maybe it was because another veteran DX’er found it to be an untouched QSL. I dunno, but Mauritanie became my benchmark for building an antenna that would not only work, but work well.

Fast forward to February: I had made 10 receptions of Mauritanie, and was actually making progress, but still unable to pull a good enough reception to record for a reception report (I mail tapes of receptions for foreign language broadcasts that have no English service). I was getting good signal, throwing a 9+ on my meter, but the modulation was still low. At that point I was thinking that maybe the TX plates in Nouakchott were bad or that the valves were shot for their transmitter.

While doing some casual reading I came across a person who was having almost the exact same problem. Their solution was more wire. The theory they used was that any wire can pick up signal but the lower you go in frequency the more wire you need to actually pick out the modulation. I knew from experience and learning that more wire gave you better reception in the low tropical bands, but as far as gaining pure modulation…Well, I never really gave it much thought.

Made sense to me though, but I immediately didn’t think that adding more wire to the helical would really work. Just by nature and theory, the helical shouldn’t work at all. No matter how many feet of wire you wrap around the pole you still basically have a four foot antenna. More wire wrapped is supposed to “Trick” your receiver into thinking there was a longer antenna, but radios don’t think, therefore (Logically) they can’t be tricked. I only use the helical for it’s noise canceling properties.

With my current one, I had it wound with about 90 feet of “Zip Cord” and it at least looked good. It was, however, not up to snuff for what I wanted, so decided more wire couldn’t hurt.

I went to the local Radio Shack (TM) and bought two 90 foot spools of 22 gauge coated wire, stripped the old antenna and rewired it with 180 feet of the new stuff.

WHAM! That definitely did the trick. I still wasn’t getting the greatest reception, but I was now able to get an intelligible recording to send off for a QSL card.

I think my wife was more relieved than I was. She probably thought that me getting Mauritanie was consuming my every waking thought, but she didn’t say a word. I am blessed to have such a wonderful and understanding wife. And she rewards me for being the geek that I am. She just bought a radio for me to add to my AA5 collection: A Zenith H615. Well, it actually has the AA6 chassis, but it is in great condition…And it’s the thought that counts.

Okay, the frustration has passed and the will to win has taken over.

I decided to go ahead and take one more look at the RF-2200 without the cloud of aggravation hanging over my head. After perusing for a volume pot that had the correct shaft and unable to determine who had what, I went ahead and removed the pot from the board. When I had tested it previously, I was finding no variable resistence in it. From open to close it had a resistence of 2.7K to 3.1K respectively.

After removal, I decided just for kicks and giggles, to take it apart to have a look-see. Everything appeared to be okay with it, but as you may know, appearances can be very deceiving. I went ahead and did a detailed cleaning of the inside of the pot, just out of sheer boredom, put it back together ans re-soldered it to the board. A re-check of the pot showed it to be working properly, with the resistence working from .08K to 9.7K.

I went ahead and did a partial reassembly and fired it up. The intermittent hum was gone, and I verified it by letting the rig run for about three hours. Feeling confident that the problem was fixed, I turned my attention to the dial calibration. I have already checked the alignment and verified it to be aligned properly, so the problem was with the dial drums.

While being on the inside of this radio extensively and becoming very intimate, I have determined that a previous owner had been inside of it. Luckily, they didn’t take the golden screwdriver to it. It appears they were just farting around with it to see what makes it work.

With a little tweaking, the dial is now dead-on.

As anyone who has owned one of these radios knows, this little thing just blows smoke. I am very pleased with the performance and can say it’s probably the best $50 investment I’ve ever made. The task of getting to 100% is far from over though. With the broken antenna tip and a gyro that is limp, the quest for perfection continues. The whip antenna is no longer available as an OEM part, so the hunt for a parts radio begins. As far as the Gyro, I am going to have to investigate it a little further. Maybe someone can point me to some Viagra for radios.

It’s been a hectic few weeks to say the least. So far, after really working on the RF-2200 and getting it up to par, It has developed a bad hum. I originally thought the hum to be the product of a bad transformer, but after extensive testing it looks like the volume pot has finally given up the ghost. As of this posting, the radio sits in many, many pieces on my dining room table.

If you are novice, or even a journeyman with electronics repair, just buy another RF-2200 if your volume pot goes bad. Just to get the damn thing prepped to get the pot out, you have to basically disassemble the chassis because of the design. Right now, I’m debating finishing the project. Although cosmetically the radio is excellent, it has been nothing but a pain in the you-know-what functionally. I don’t think I can take another reassembly only to have another bug pop up.

Antenna-wise, the experimenting continues but right now is at a stand still. To me, radio is about experimenting and seeing what you can get out of it with what you have on hand. I’ve been pleased with the reception from the 200 feet of gutter that encircles my apartment, but there isn’t anything more I can do with it. I think I’ve done everything I can on the cheap.

I have been chasing Radio Mauritanie since about January, and have been able to at least tell something is there, but I can’t seem to get a good enough signal to actually record it for a QSL. On that same note, I am tired of only finding the same old players on shortwave without any new finds. I know we are in the middle of one the worst sun spot cycles and that activity is almost non-existent, but I think I should be able to do better. I’ve been checking other people’s logs and they are getting some good contacts, so why can’t I get in on the action?

Because I’m cheap. Always have been, and probably always will be. But I think it’s time to invest some money into a better set-up. I may not have the Drake R8, or a JRC rig, but I’ve got some decent stuff, mainly my DX-160. I just can’t justify spending four digits on a radio. Besides, without a decent antenna set-up, no radio is going to get the job done, no matter what the price tag is.

With all that being said, I guess I’m luckier than about 90% of the radio guys out there. Universal Radio is about 20 minutes from my place, so I not only get to buy stuff quickly, but I get the expertise of the guys there. It’s always better to talk to someone face to face than by phone or email. Plus, you can evaluate what your buying right then and there to see if it suits your needs.

So today, off to Universal to buy an MJF preselector. I see a Wagner Antenna in my very near future.

Well, after searching high and low, near and far, I gave up on finding replacement coil-springs for the RF-2200. I found some parts radios, but people think that just because it’s an RF, they can get an arm and a leg for it. Granted, there are some out there that will pay $75 for a radio that’s dead-in-the-water, but not me.

So, ingenuity was the call of the day. I had a friend give me an off brand radio that didn’t work in hope I could get it going. Instead of attempting a repair, I decided it was best suited for a scavenger unit.

I removed the springs and did a MacGuyver on the Panasonic.

First off, the way the springs are mounted and connected on the RF-2200 are unlike anything I’ve come across. They coil from the front to the back like most, but instead of connecting to a plate that’s mounted to the compartment, the near-end straightens-out and goes through the bottom of the compartment.

What I had to work with was an inverted spring attached to a backing plate with a rivet. While engineering the mounting of the new spring in my mind, I realized that the rivet was hollow enough in the center to get a small bolt through.

I drilled a 5/32 diameter hole dead-center where the old spring was and mounted the new spring and plate and tightened it with a nut.

For the connections I simply attached an eyelet connector on the end of some 16 gauge wire, cut it to fit and attached it to the screw. The other end was then soldered to the existing connector.

While not a work of art, the improvised battery compartment serves my needs well. There are probably a lot of purists out there just shaking their head, but the functionality of a radio is the most important point. After all, the battery compartment is out of sight, so it doesn’t take away from the aesthetics of the rig. What I gained though was an already great radio made better by taking the electrical noise of AC out of the picture.

I was on Craigslist Columbus looking for radios, as I am apt to do from time to time. The weeks following Christmas seems like a good time to look at the want ads for all kinds of goodies, no matter what your hobbies or interests are. This is probably due to big boys getting bigger toys. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

While shopping at Craigs, I see an ad for one of the radios that have been on my wishlist for quite awhile: The infamous Panasonic RF-2200.

Although I have never had a chance to actually play with an RF-2200, I had always heard that it is one of the premier portable worldband radios of all time. I’ve heard them described as “The Best Ever”, ‘One That Every SWL Enthusiast Should Own”, and “The Holy Grail Of Radios” (No kidding!).

The description of the radio was basically that it was in good shape but needed some work. The guy posting the ad was asking only $50.00 for it, stating that the same radio goes for 2 to 3 times as much on ebay. I don’t necessarily care much for ebay, or epay as I like to call it, but after checking the used list at Universal Radio and some other internet sites that deal in only Shortwaves and amateur equipment, I found the average to be between $125 to $175, depending on condition. Well, it was off to the races.

I call the guy and he tells me that the main issues with the radio were that it had the antenna tip broken off, it made an awful crackling noise when you adjusted the volume, and the coil springs in the battery compartment were rusted and one of them had acually broken.

Hmmm…Contemplation. I just had to wonder what other “issues” the radio may have, but $50.00 for the radio, especially if it did indeed turn out to be the  “Holy Grail”, was a good price. Besides, I have a background in electronics and electrical repair (Used to be a BMET), and have tools. Hell, I’ve got tools that fix tools.

So, I made a date with the seller, and the road trip to Columbus was on…With the old lady, of course. 

I’ll skip the introductions and get to the point. The guy showed me the radio and, besides the broken antenna tip, the radio was in excellent cosmetic condition. The case was in good shape, no noticable marks except for a miniscule amount of paint splatter on the top, and the lettering on the front wasn’t worn in the least bit. He fired it up and I immediately became aware of the crackling noise in the volume. Being pretty severe, I was thinking it may need a new pot. But once you got it to the volume level you wanted it seemed to sound just fine. So, a six dollar investment in some parts cleaner, or at worst a new volume pot. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem…I am, after all, usually armed with a soldering iron.

He then showed me the battery compartment. Yup, rust. Or what I thought was rust. And lots of it. Plus, the broken coil spring.

Okay, CRC cleaner couldn’t fix that.

I just stood there and looked at the radio for a bit, weighing my options. But, being the fix-it guy I am, I was thinking along the lines of a hybrid radio. If I couldn’t fix this one completely, maybe I could find another RF-2200 that was in excellent working order but that the living snot beat out of the case.

The rational side of me lost to the Tim Taylor side. I bought the radio.

When we got back into the car for the long drive back home (In rush-hour, no less) I was just waiting for my wife to say something. But she didn’t. She has a lot of patience with me for some reason.

After grabbing a bite to eat, we get back to the homestead and I immediately tore into the radio. I disassembled the case and had a look-see. There was some dust, not too bad…but I noticed the area behind the battery compartment. There was no sign of water damage, which was good, but it did show signs of battery corrosion. The reason it appeared to be rust at first blush was that someone had attempted to clean it up. They got the crusties of the corrosion off but left the skid marks. Luckily, the corrosion hadn’t made contact with the board.

Whew! Talk about dodging a bullet.

The whole battery area was placed on the back burner for now. That was going to take some hunting for new springs and I knew that could be a long and drawn-out process. So, I turn my attention to the volume pot. I didn’t have any CRC on hand so this was just going to be a recon mission.

I was a bit dismayed to find that the volume pot was obscured by part of the tuning dial chassis…I got the LED flashlight to get a better look, and it appeared there was no way around the tuning chassis. Okay, now I’m thinking what a dumb S.O.B I was for taking on the project….The tuning chassis appeared to be quite complex in its nature, and I had a gut feeling it would be quite a chore to remove it. So, online I go, in search of a service manual for the steps to remove the tuning chassis.. There goes more money for the book.

Luckily, however, I noticed that there was just enough space behind the chassis to possibly get the spray tube of the parts cleaner in there to get to the pot. Not a lot of room, but maybe enough.

As I was searching, I came across the service manual. It had been photocopied and downloaded in PDF on the internet.

I guess at that point God granted me a favor, however small. He does have a sense of humor, though, I’m sure. I was still a bit leary at this point about my new project. I had the confidence to get the radio repaired, but the main question was did I have the patience?

Patience isn’t always one of my best virtues.

After picking up some parts cleaner and taking a good look at the tuning chassis in the service manual, I became more religious that I have been in quite some time. It’s not that I don’t pray…I’m a cop, and my prayers usually consist of asking the Almighty to keep me safe and to get me home in one piece without any extra orafices. Amen.

But this was entirely on a different level of spiritualism.

To put the removal of the tuning chassis in perspective, I would have to say that Tesla, Marconi, or even Einstein would take one look and go, “What the F%#@ is that ?”. In the name of everything that is Holy, I was praying my six dollar investment in the CRC cleaner would do the trick. If it didn’t I was probably going to be tempted to throw the radio in the trash, count it as a lesson learned, then burn in hell for taking the lords name in vein. Several times.

Any of you who have cleaned pots know the ritual…Spray, turn numerous times, spray, turn, etc. You want to make sure you get any and all of the gunk out before re-assembly. There’s nothing worse than getting it back together and realizing that patience is, indeed, a virtue

After some manipulating I was able to get the spray tube in and access the inside of the pot through the opening. So, I clean until I am satisfied the task is completed, take one more look-see and throw her back together. Crossing my fingers, I fire her up and wouldn’t you know it, most (but not all) of the crackling was gone. I think at that point I was more confident, and relieved, that the pot was dirty-but-good that I didn’t say a word. Why tempt the Lord Thy God?

The pot noise was so faint that I decided to hook up the “Broomstick Special” and give her a test drive. The broomstick special is a homemade antenna that I built using the knowledge of one Arnie Corro of Radio Havana fame. It is an outstanding antenna if you can’t mount an antenna or run a longwire. I live in an apartment so it’s my antenna of choice.

Anyway, I digress.

So, I get the rig fired up and start tuning. After a while I noticed that I wasn’t really getting anything coming in except for the strong stations. I found Jesus several times on the dial but not much else. Now, I know the antenna is good. I’ve had it on my DX-160 and my new C.C., and it just blows smoke. Something didn’t seem right from the so-called Holy Grail of radios. Very disappointing, indeed.

I also noted that the flip switches for the power, BFO, and bandwidth were noisy too. Well, looked like the radio was coming back apart.

So goes the ritual again…Spray, flip several times…Anyway, you get the picture. And for good measure I went ahead and hit the volume pot again as well as the pots for bass, treble, gain, etc.

Then I turn my attention to the signal problem. In the back of my mind, I was thinking alignment issues, so I took a look at the alignment procedures for a quick reference. There were a lot of steps but it didn’t sound too bad, just time-consuming. If an alignment were in order I would have to track down a signal generator to borrow anyway and I didn’t know anyone right off the bat who had one. I liquidated mine, and several other pieces of test equipment, when I quit Bio-Med work and started coppin’. I sure as hell can’t afford one on a cop’s pay.

I checked the incoming connections for the external antenna, the whip antenna and the spots on the board for anything amiss. All appeared to be good with no blemishes on the solder joints and no breaks in the wires. I checked the resistence of the circuits and they were well within specs. I then did a visual inspection of the plates and they appeared to be in good shape.

Hmm…

As disappointment started to set in, I decided to take a break, put on a pot of coffee, and relax for a bit.

I go to the living room and as I was sitting down with my cup o’ joe, my wife looks at me and says, “Who are you and why are you in my house?”

Sometimes, a stout sense of humor from another person goes a long way in relieving your tension.

After watching “Superstars of Dance” for a bit, I decided that I could take no more girly-men and decided to go back to the radio. I sat down and re-looked everything. I saw and found nothing that would lead me to believe that there was a problem in any of the antenna lines, so I decided to go for one last shot and grabbed the CRC and just hosed the dog snot out of the plates. I did this in hopes of not having to really go into a complex series of repairs. After letting them dry for about five minutes, I hosed them again for good measure. I figured that at that point a shot in the dark couldn’t hurt.

And wouldn’t you know it, that did the trick. After all was said and done, the radio performs as well as I had anticipated, and more. It is on par with my old pal, the DX-160 as far as sensitivity goes. I checked all the switches for noise and was pleased to find none. I did notice that the bandspread appeared to be off, so I calibrated it. The main dial appears to be off a bit after the calibration, about .2MHz, but I can live with that seeing as I can verify frequency with a digital radio.

Now the fun part begins. I have to either find coil springs for the battery compartment that are close to the OEM ones or do a MacGuyver and make some fit. At any rate it is worth the effort. I want to see what this puppy can do without the noise of electrical current running through it. Sometimes you just can’t beat a portable running on batteries.

Plus, I like the thrill of the chase.

I like my toys. I mean, what fun is life with no toys?

I wouldn’t say I’m a fanatic, although I have been known to drool over such things as cars, street bikes and such. Some guys I know do fall into the fanatic category…And you know the ones. They spend money they don’t have to satisfy their desires. I try to keep my whims on the logical side.

My wife understands and she supports me in my hobbies. She probably figures that in order to keep me from the fanatic class she should at least let me have fun and humor me in my endeavors. Who knows what she really thinks but she never gripes.

About a month before Christmas we were out shopping and we stopped in the local Radio Shack to check deals on batteries for the load of gifts our five year-old was about to gain that would surely need a truckload of batteries. While perusing the store, I spotted a Grundig S350DL on the shelf, setting out for display. I pulled it down and fiddled with it a bit. Of course, with all the steel, concrete and flourescent lights, I couldn’t pick up a damn thing, but I was confident in the radios ability to pull in stations. Afterall, it was a Grundig.

Whilst fiddling, the old lady comes rolling around and spots me. I briefly laid out the radio, price, etc. She stated that wasn’t a bad price considering some of the rigs that are on my wishlist. Thinking that may have been enough of a hint for a Christmas gift, I put the radio back in its place and meandered out of the store.

Christmas came, and to make a long story short, no radio. Now, I had just watched “A Christmas Story” with the wife and kid a few nights before and the thought started going through my head that maybe it would be a last gift surprise hiding in the corner somewhere. Ralphie got his Red Ryder BB gun against all odds, why shouldn’t I get my radio?

Alas, no radio.

Poo-poo on Ralphie.

Fast-forward to December 28 and we are - where else - but Radio Shack buying batteries. And where else was I but in the last aisle looking at the Grundig. The old lady sneaks up behind me (Just like always) and says “Go ahead and get it”. I told her it could wait and she immediately goes to the clerk and asks for a boxed one. The clerk stated they were out of stock but that we were more than welcome to take the demo.

Floor models, demos, whatever you wanna call them, always make me a bit uneasy, especially when they don’t knock off a few bucks for you. But the radio had that classic look similar to the Panasonic RF 2200 that I have always wanted. It had all kinds of knobs…big ones, little ones, a nice stout antenna. And it said GRUNDIG! Against my better judgement, I took the radio, no box, no manual…nothing but the radio.

The next day, buyer’s remorse set in. As I was tuning around with it I noticed that once you switched to the SW2 band, the frequency started bouncing all over the place. After some tinkering I realized it had a bad switch but I could find a sweet spot and it would stop twitching on me.

After a bit more playing I realized I was getting some bad imaging from a station around 17,000KHz…If that wasn’t enough of a problem, I happened to be in the 8,000KHz area. That was all I needed.

I promptly took the radio back. I figured they would give me some static at the store because it was a demo…kinda like a car from a buy-here pay-here lot with the “As Is: No Warranty” sticker in the window.

I must have looked kinda pissed because the manager promptly refunded my money with a smile. As we were leaving my better half said, “Its a good thing he was cool. I was ready to turn into super-bitch!”.

That man doesn’t know just how lucky he was on that day.

She then suggested we go to Universal Radio up in Columbus. I agreed.

Upon arrival I was greeted by a vast array of toys. Mouth watering toys. I hadn’t been to Universal in a couple of years and forgot how pleasant it was just to be inside there. I talked to one of the guys in there and told him of my story with the Grundig. As I was talking to him I noticed about 5 of the same radio in the used radio area. I thought either they are popular and they like to keep a few on hand or I wasn’t the only one unhappy with the S350DL.

After much discussion he sold me on the new CC Radio SW from C. Crane. He stated that for the price there was no better radio.

I got her home and immediately put some batteries in her and let her rip. Boy, what a radio. I didn’t even have her hooked up to the external antenna and it was picking up stations as clear as a bell.

If any of you out there have kinda blown off the CCRadio SW because it doesn’t have Kenwood, Grundig, or whatever on it, you need to at least test drive this radio. I’m not going to go into a review of it here, but I will tell you that you are doing yourself a disservice by not at least considering one. You won’t regret it.

And wouldn’t you know it, two days later I came across a Panasonic RF 2200 for $50.00. It does have a few issues, like a very dirty sounding volume pot, rusted coil springs for the batteries, and the need for a serious alignment. Fairly easy doings. I have my other radios to listen to, so this one will be my project.

Stay tuned…

Welcome to my very under construction page. My plan is to build a page with all sorts of useful stuff regarding shortwave radio. I have been an enthusiast all my life and still love just tuning the dial trying to catch some DX. Radio seems to be a dying hobby and my goal is to get more people interested.

Right now I have only four rigs, being a Realistic DX 160, a Panasonic RF 2200 (Which is also under construction!), a brand spankin’ new C. Crane SW and some unknown, very small Radio that the only marking is “China”

So, please be patient and check back often. I also welcome input and participation…If you have something to contribute, please feel free to pass it along. And yes, you will get all the credit

73