The Best Budget Shortwave Radio Setup - Malahit DSP2 SDR Receiver & Loop Antenna

I had no less than six emails last week from people wanting a shortwave receiver to listen to number stations and any HF signals on that won't break the bank they see people like me using radios such as the icon 7300 and 705 and get the impression that this is what you need similarly they Envision huge antennas that need lots of space but this isn't the case either you can get into shortwave without breaking the bank and I think I found it ideal setup both this receiver and the antenna this is the malahit DSP 2 and what an amazing bit of kit it's turned out to be I've had mine for a week or so now and I've been blown away by how good it is this is the upgraded second generation version with a frequency range of 10 khz to 380 MHz and 404 MHz to 2 GHz with tunable bandwidths of 192 khz 96 khz and 4 48 khz it receives am SSB dsb CW and both narrow and wide FM it has a built-in preamplifier and a built-in 500 mah lithium ion battery so it's a completely self-contained portable HF radio receiver the receiver has high sensitivity but with built-in noise reduction so it offers a nice listening experience it's completely softwar defined and has the latest firmware version and when you buy this radio it's automatically registered with malahit so you can download and upgrade new firmware versions completely free in the Box you get the receiver itself a telescopic whip antenna which works well a dual ended stylus and brro a metal stand for raising the receiver off a flat surface a USB cable for charging a lanyard a detailed instruction manual and it all comes in this protective padded bag looking at the the receiver itself you can see it has a bright touchcreen and a speaker Grill in CNC machined aluminium this whole case is beautifully machined and put together on the left is a headphone jack a USB charging point a standby button and a power switch the back plate is screwed on and I've mounted the standing place there too on the top are two antenna inputs one for highz and the other for a 50 ohm input and then a volume control and frequency dial which both function as buttons when pressed looking at the main display along the top is various setting indicators as well as a signal meter and the frequency and tuning step both of which can be changed using the right hand dial there's a headphone and speaker indicator the waterfall display and a line which indicates your current frequency and then the menu buttons sit along the bottom going into the radios menus there's a whole host of settings so what I'll do is pick out the highlights but I'll put every fun function on the screen so you can pause if you wish to read through them the radio menu has settings for audio out switching between High Z and 50 ohm inputs the preamp and the attenuator the audio menu has settings for noise reduction automatic gain control and various filters the visual menu allows you to change the display settings colors and LCD sleep timer NR turns noise reduction on and off mode allows you to switch between wide and narrow FM AM LSB USB dsb and CW and there's also a built-in M decoder and finally the band menu allows you to switch between preset bands for quick and easy navigation around the Spectrum and you can edit these too navigating the bands is as simple as clicking a pre-select or typing in a frequency and if you see something you want to navigate to further up or down the band then you click on the screen to go there so before I show you examples of what this radio can hear let me talk you through the antenna I got to go with mine this is the ga800 active Loop shortwave antenna from deso and it's great it's a 10.2 in diameter loop with a small control control box underneath and it works from 10 khz to 159 mahz it's designed for indoor use but you could use it outdoor too for example on a pole but you'd have to weatherproof it as it's not designed for outdoor use another thing to point out is that this antenna is not made for transmitting so it's important that you don't ke up if you're using this on something like an icon 705 as you'll likely cause some damage it's also important to make sure that the control box is fully charged as it has a built-in signal amplification circuit that works best when the battery is full in the Box you get the antenna along with the control box a simple manual a 5 m BNC cable a USBC power cable two more output cables one being a BNC to 3 1/2 mm Jack and the other a BNC to BNC for use with different radios and finally a BNC to SMA adapter the control box is USBC chargeable with a buil in 2600 mAh battery and all you have to do is charge it up connect it to your radio and you're good to go so how does this whole setup do let's take a look me and the wife living a little semi detached Bungalow very small garden it's only um 40 fo by 20 so it really doesn't give me a lot of space to put a lot in I use electronic uh log book hrd there I'll give you a report on the next over and I was sitting kneeling at Ian's feet and he said you know that line light thickens and the crow makes Wing to the rookie wood he said light sickens and the crow makes wound professional gray sealant with high mold resistance easy Cooling and minimal shrinkage choose Bostic proceeds Pep Guardiola says it's easy for managers to get emotional after matches when asked about Mikel arteta's Outburst of the weekend and England will play osar November two Juliet whiskey India very good evening my friend thank the calling me you cover the 5 by9 in Italy just now I think they come with the speaker don't they I thought that was the thing they all come in the to the speaker I to believe you buy them new yeah you can you can get them with without or with yeah that was quite interesting as well yeah looking forward [Music] to [Music] yeah cheers again Bob thanks for your efforts this evening as usual we you and Joan and we'll catch you in the morning morning GF g43 Jax now closing down Cheers Cheers all the best well I'm on there now and there's nobody on there so I'm going to get a coffee I think and I'll see you later John G gfp [Music] te fine fine copy very gooda zul Yan i4x for the fin thank you very much for the counter [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] lady International [Music] AT3 Lo visibility 8 km Cloud near significant Cloud temperature 1 n [Music] 2.16 so as you can see this setup performs remarkably well and if you want something to get into HF and shortwave listening then I highly recommend it it's now my go-to portable setup for receiving if you'd like to find out more then I'll put some links in the description below for both the receiver and the antenna [Music] [Music] now

Channel: Ringway Manchester

Views: 84,770

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Id: S34bo5OmoD0

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 09 2023