I want to buy a decent world radio. Do the amount of bands (i.e. '12 band receiver') have any real impact?

Question

Basically, I want to be able to listen to crazy pirate radio stations from around the world when I go travelling this summer. To do this, I'm guessing I need a decent longwave radio? I want to know if the cheaper ones on Ebay are any good before taking them with me... Ideally, I'd like a wind-up one, but I have yet to find a wind-up LW radio. So, any help would be gratefully appreciated!

Answer 1

Depending upon where you are headed, most pirates broadcast on 6900 khz as it's easy to modify amateur (ham) gear to transmit on those portions on the band and are rated for broadcasting for long periods of time without rest.

I find the 12 band receivers sometimes do and sometimes don't feature that portion of the band depending upon who built it and such. Some of the cheaper portables also have a bad track record when it comes to listening performance.

Most go with a basic setup like a sangean, grundig, or such but ETON makes a crankup shortwave radio

http://www.etoncorp.com/product_card/?p_...

But best to get a battery operated one that's good for say 100-30,000 khz

But I do see there are a few LW stations still broadcasting but most are commercial broadcasters due to the power needed and some are experimenting with DRM or digital AM so you may need a radio capable of that also

Answer 2

yes