The SANGEAN PR-D6, Sony fence DXing, and Summer in September

The Sangean PR-D6, a portable AM-FM radio that runs on 4 AA's and puts out nearly one watt of audio -- and it has good performance on MW/AM, too. I kept the plastic protector over the dial for a while as I started using the radio outside while brushcutting... I didn't want to get it all scarred up so soon after getting the radio... The plastic has since been removed. :-)

I first learned of the Sangean PR-D6 portable radio about six months ago, on a radio forum I read a lot. Apparently a famous radio DXer/blogger reviewed this Sangean radio a while back and gave it two and a half stars.

Apparently Sangean decided to market a small AM-FM radio with good performance and great audio -- the kind of portable you can carry around the house, or take on camping trips. Something that is tough and reliable. They achieved that goal with the PR-D6.

I saw one for sale at Fry's electronics box store priced about 3-4 dollars off (it was a return or a demo) and decided to bite. I was pleasantly surprised. The Sangean PR-D6 is a good little radio. It has a couple minor glitches, but for emergencies, or for taking out in the yard, or taking from room to room in the house to stay tuned to a program or football game or whatever, it gets the job done very well.

The radio that is permanently installed in my car is long shot -- the PR-D6 works well enough on FM and AM to listen to local stations while driving.

First off, the radio is small. It's larger than a pocket radio, but smaller than your average portable AM-FM radio -- about the size of a thick paperback book. Second, it has a fairly good sound: with tone controls and two audio chips, including the final audio chip being rated at over one watt (the speaker is rated for over two watts), the PR-D6 can put out a good sound.

It's small enough to carry around in a backpack, or to toss into a luggage bag.

The PR-D6 runs on four AA batteries. It will also run off of an older style 6 volt wall wart -- so long as it has a negative tip (as most Sangeans and Panasonics have historically used: some newer Sangeans -- like the famous PR-D5 -- have positive tip wall warts -- so be careful with polarity!).

The PR-D6 is a decent DXer on the Medium Wave band. It is better than your average clock radio or Walkman, but not quite as high a performer as a Sony ICF-38, Sangean 909, Realistic DX-375, or similar radio. The IF chip used (a TA2111N/YD2111N) is a good chip but the chip doesn't have a super high gain RF amp inside it, and there is apparently no RF amp transistor in front of the IF chip -- so, like most modern portable AM radios, it's not a "TRF" design (the TA2111N does have an RF amp section -- apparently 4 internal transistors -- but it's not as high gain as some other IF chips on MW).

That said, it works well for DXing, especially on nights when the MW band is hopping. It will also work with an external loop, but you have to have the loop 3-4 inches to either side of the radio (about 10cm). It has a ceramic filter inside which works well: during the late mornings, for example, it would pick up KXTG Portland on 750 kHz when my GE Superadio III (with 4 IF filter stages) was partly covered by local KTTH 770. That's how good the selectivity is.

The ceramic filter is so good you can hear that distinctive ksssshhhh sound when tuning across a channel. The selectivity is good overall because of this: however, during the day I've gotten a station on 1170 kHz (about 90 miles away) covered by some bleedover from local KKNW 1150. At the same time, KIRO 710 doesn't cover CBU 690 from Canada, about 110 km away, so if a regional station is strong enough, it can cut through in daytime conditions.

The Sangean PR-D6 with the front off. The little chip visible in the radio just beneath the dial pointer is a secondary audio chip, a UTC4580, that drives the tone controls. If you zoom into the picture you can see the speaker is rated at 3 watts max. The main audio chip is capable of putting out a watt.

The MW/AM antenna, although it's about 90mm long, seems pretty thick, and is highly efficient. It is very directional, and nulls very well. If you are in a low signals area as I am in (I live in a 'hole', basically) -- an external loop is advisable for serious DXing. If you live in a high signals area, you may not need one to DX with the PR-D6.

On good DX nights the PR-D6 will hear most -- if not all -- of what good portables will hear. On poor DX nights, other radios (like the DX-375 or ICF-38) will pick up a few more stations than the PR-D6 (without an external loop, of course).

Here in this slightly blurry picture you can see the PR-D6's audio chip, located just beneath the tuner cap. It's the same audio chip used in the PR-D5, a UTC2025. The IF chip, a Chinese knock-off of a Toshiba TA2111N, isn't visible in this pic, and it was nearly impossible to get a pic of it as it's buried beneath the chassis of the radio here.

That said, I have heard DX on it that other, better radios receive: recently I heard WCKY 1530 out of Cincinnati, Ohio on my PR-D6, with a preacher talking beneath dominant KFBK Sacramento. It was coming in as strong on my PR-D6 as it was on my Sangean PR-D5 (a MW DX radio I have written about in other blog posts here).

ASIAN HETERODYNE ON UPPER SIDE OF 970 KHZ HEARD ON THE PR-D6

I've even heard a heterodyne from Asia on the upper side of 970 on my PR-D6 (972 kHz, probably the 1200 Megawatt station from South Korea). There was no audio, though. But hearing a het from across the Pacific shows that the PR-D6 is definitely capable of DX. The hill near where I live has slightly better MW reception than my own location, and I sometimes go shopping there. I had my PR-D6 in the car with me when I went shopping one night, and KGO 810 San Francisco came in louder than the local station on 820 kHz right next to it. I was pleasantly surprised. The PR-D6 may not quite be a Superadio, but it will pull in distant signals quite well.

A view of the inside of the PR-D6. This picture of a Clear PR-D6 kind courtesy of Sangean, from their website. In this pic you can see the main circuit board. The radio circuitry is to the left of this picture, the audio chip is somewhere in the lower center, near the speaker. The pre-amp audio/tone chip is above the speaker. You can see the MW loopstick, which isn't easy to measure but seems to be 90mm or so. The radio itself is about 160mm wide (4 3/4" high by 6 1/4" wide). If you zoom the picture, you can see that the speaker is capable of handling 3 watts. The radio itself is only capable of putting out a watt -- still impressive for a small radio.

A front pic of the PR-D6CL, the clear version, courtesy of Sangean's website.  Most of the circuitry is on one elongated L shaped circuit board. The PR-D6 is a fairly simple machine.

FULL, LOUD SOUND

The audio chip in the PR-D6, a YD2025, is the same basic audio chip that is in the PR-D5 -- a chip capable of putting out nearly a watt of audio. The YD2025, like the UTC2025 in the PR-D5, is a variant of the Toshiba TA2025, apparently a well known audio chip. The three inch speaker in the PR-D6 is possibly the same speaker used in other Sangean AM-FM portables -- fairly robust. The radio seems well designed, with and extra audio chip for the tone controls (and probably used also as a buffer amp). The tone controls work well, which are a plus. Many similar radios (my Sony IFC-38 being an example) just have a tone switch. I've never cranked my PR-D6 very high, but the speaker seems to exhibit no distortion at loud levels. 

While clipping brush and blackberries I took the PR-D6 outside to listen to a football game while doing yardwork. The PR-D6's one watt audio makes it handy for listening outdoors.

FOUR AA's LAST A WHILE IF THEY ARE ALKALINES

The radio sounds good on headphones, and if one is DXing for extended periods with the PR-D6 using headphones is probably advised, as the radio has a bit higher battery usage compared to some other similar radios -- the one watt audio chip is the reason. For example, my Sony ICF-38 is very light on batteries -- a set of AA's in a Sony ICF-38 will last more than a month. With the PR-D6, it seemed that after 20-30 hours of use the AA's were fried. I'm not sure if it was the batteries themselves, or the high output AF chip that helps eat batteries. Still, 20-25 hours of use is enough for the radio to be useful during emergencies -- just keep a couple extra sets of batteries handy, and don't crank the audio too high when the power is out for a long period of time. Or use headphones most of the time.

The most recent set of AA batteries (cheap alkalines) I put into my PR-D6 seemed to have lasted longer. So far, maybe 30-40 hours or so later, they're still working.

FM GOOD, BUT CAN ALSO OVERLOAD WITH LONGER ANTENNAS

On FM, the PR-D6 is OK. Mine came without the short rubber-duck antenna attached. The rubber duck antenna that usually comes with a PR-D6 apparently was stolen or lost in the store (hence, the reduced price). Even without the antenna it will pick up all of the local FM stations with decent signals. Terrain shadows and weak spots in the house are a bit more noticeable, but overall it's a decent take-around-the-house or yard radio for FM as well as AM.

I attached a hank of wire to the FM antenna jack, and found that the signals improved slightly but it also overloads easily -- with mine, local FM overload hash appears in blank spots in between FM stations. So I've left the antenna jack bare -- just a 4mm bolt screwed into it, in case I ever want to attach a wire that way.

Obviously, the PR-D6's strong suit is its AM performance, which is much better than expected.

I kept the plastic dial protector on the radio for a while, as I was using it out in the yard, while clipping boughs and blackberries. Here I'm listening to a Seahawks football game, in late September.

GREAT FOR CAMPING, GOOD FOR EMERGENCIES

-- KEEP A SPARE SET OF BATTERIES

Overall, at the price of around $35 for this radio, I think it is a good value for the money. Decent performers at this price range are a bit rare. The PR-D6 looks well built, and it works well. It's a simple machine and it looks like it should hold up well over time. It's probably a good emergency radio, so long as you keep a spare set of batteries. It probably will last longer with alkalines than regular AA's. It's a good budget radio capable of good, loud sound and capable of DX on the MW/AM band.

AN EXPERIMENT IN SONY FENCE DX'ING

My Sony ICF-38 being boosted by a 100 foot cyclone steel fence. It boosted signals on several channels by around 2-3 db. The antenna is underneath the tuning dial.

Late this summer while I was outside a lot working into the night, clipping back a large patch of Himalayan blackberries I realised that my cyclone fence might just act as a signal booster. I grabbed my trusty Sony ICF-38 and brought it out and tested it. Instantly, the fence boosted signals by about 2-3 db on some channels. Here you can see a low signal channel in the mid part of the band pushing the red signal LED on the radio on a medium DX night. The section of fence is nearly 100 feet (30 meters) long.

If you happen to have a steel fence nearby, don't neglect to try using it as an outdoor signal booster.

SUMMER IN SEPTEMBER -- A FEW PICTURES

As I finish this blog post, it is below freezing outside, and Christmas is only two and a half weeks away. It seems this year just flew by. We had a decent summer here in Seattle -- it was 81 degrees F as late as the last week of September. here are a couple pictures from September 27th, when it hit 86 in the afternoon:

I did some major cutting back of a hedge during beautiful, sparkling California-like weather in late September this year. It was awesome working in the sun.

A lone apple in my apple tree in late September. I still have no idea what type of apple this is.

Eddie the Grasshopper hung out inside the house for about a month this summer. I have no idea where he went -- within a week and a half or so after taking this picture of him, he disappeared.        :-(

On some occasions during the summer we have great sunrises -- usually the good sunrises are during the colder months.

I managed to set up my amp and guitars in a better room and had a chance to play them for the first time in a couple months starting in September.

Here you can see the thermometer reads just over 86 degrees F, during the last week of September, 2017. Summer in September -- not common here in Seattle. The blue liquid is a workout drink.

Now we are finally hitting Winter. I close this post with a couple pictures from last year: outdoor Christmas ornaments.

Right now, it is frosty outside.... Not unlike the way the ground looks in the bottom picture.

Hope all of you are having a great December this year.

CC 9-2017 and 12-7-2017

ADDENDUM, August 25th, 2023:

For the last 3-4 years my PR-D6 has been laid up. It's my fault, I inadvertently left it in my car overnight, probably in Summer of 2018, and it ended up roasting on the seat or dash during the next day, which was probably a hot July or August day. Suddenly, the radio wouldn't tune well. The tuning needle was bent from the heat. What had happened was one of the little plastic 'pins', that hold the dial string in place, bent from the head, making the string slacken, and the tuner knob worthless. I still am at a loss as to how to fix it without wrecking the dial string. So I keep putting it off.

Meanwhile, a reader has mentioned that he got a PR-D6 earlier this year, and that his PR-D6 is stereo on FM through the headphones. This is after I answered a question in the comments below, where an earlier reader asked me if the PR-D6 is stereo.

I had checked FM on my radio, by taking the front off and turning the big plastic tuning wheel, and tuning to several, strong FM music stations and noted it was all in MONO.

After the second reader mentioned -- just this week -- that his or her PR-D6 was stereo through the headphones, I took a second look at the chips used by this radio, and yes, the chips themselves are indeed stereo capable. But I just did another test of my PR-D6 and my PR-D6 is still in MONO on local music FM stations.

Sangean must have reconfigured the headset wiring to make the PR-D6 stereo on FM after I got my radio in August or September of 2016. 

So, apparently now the PR-D6's are in stereo on FM through headphones, which is a good feature.

I still have to figure out a way to fix my PR-D6. Maybe I'll cut a hole in the front, attach some sort of mechanism to the wheel and tune it that way. Right now it's easier to just put it off. :-)

Don't leave your PR-D6's out in the heat, guys. They don't like sitting for long periods in hot cars in the summer.

If I fix my PR-D6, I'll post an article on it. I'll have to. :-)

SANGEAN PR-D5 crackling noise? A Quick Fix for loose batteries

My Sangean PR-D5 mini-boombox pulling in a station from Redding, California during the Solar Eclipse, August 21st, 2017. 

One night last week I switched on my Sangean PR-D5, which -- as many of my readers know -- is an excellent mini-boombox that has great FM sound in stereo and pulls in stations like crazy on MW/AM. I listen to mine every night while writing. Usually I have it on the AC adaptor plug, but sometimes I use the batteries only.

This particular night, when I switched on the radio and plugged in my headphones there was a crackling noise. Then it would stop. Then it would start again. It seemed to happen when I moved the radio. At the time I only had batteries in the radio.

Curious, I tapped on the back of the battery door.

Crackle! Crackle! Crackle!

I opened the battery door and saw that the batteries were a little askew. Straightening them caused more crackling noises. Thinking that it solved the problem, I shut the battery lid. I continued DXing. Every now and then there was a crackle. Then I tapped the back of the battery lid.

Crackle!

I opened the battery lid and took a look at the batteries. They were all C cells -- true. But they weren't all the same exact size! One brand was a tiny bit narrower than the other brand.

I decided to try a shim inside the battery compartment, to keep the batteries from shifting around.

Two white plastic shims, cut from a large protein bottle lid, got rid of the crackle from battery movement inside my radio. If you shift the shims aside from each other, the battery door will close securely without having to force it.

SHIMS CUT OUT FROM A LARGE BOTTLE LID

I found a big empty protein powder bottle in my recycle bin and grabbed the top and made a couple small shims, using hand-held pruning shears (scissors weren't tough enough to cut the plastic). I placed the shims in the back of the batteries, and then I shut the door over the batteries and the shims.

Problem solved.

Sometimes if I tap on the back of the radio hard enough, I'll still get some battery noises. But moving the radio around (which you do when DXing the MW/AM band, to 'null out' stations) I'll don't get noises. I suppose some foam would work, but the shims do the job well enough.

Cutting shims from a protein powder bottle lid. The plastic is a bit too stiff for scissors, so I used a pair of handheld pruning shears. Two shims did the trick. You may have to experiment with the size of shims to get it right. I cut three of them, and chose the best two of them -- to hold the batteries tight, but not stress the battery compartment door too much.

BATTERIES AREN'T ALL THE SAME EXACT SIZE

The problem isn't the radio -- it's modern day C cells (and batteries in general) -- they all aren't the same exact dimensions. Some are a half-millimeter or two longer or wider than others -- or for other reasons different brands of batteries don't sit well next to each other (the positive tips being flattened in some brands, and more pointed in other brands; some brands have flat bottoms, others have indentations in the bottom, etc.).

This quick fix for movement crackling noise probably works with other battery powered radios also.

Bagpipes and Turkey go together quite well! And football -- don't forget football.

THANKSGIVING

Right now it is raining out. Halloween has long passed, and it's the start of the Thanksgiving holiday. I plan to go to a relative's house in the northern suburbs of Seattle (affectionately known as the North End), and have dinner. I will take my bagpipes with me and will probably play for the family, as I often do on holidays. When I started out in piping long ago, I played in a band, but those days are long gone. Now I play for my family, or just play at home.

For the past week or so, it's been raining a lot. I still ride my bicycle for exercise, but riding a bike in the rain sure gets you wet! November seems to be our rainiest month -- and stormiest month, for some reason. The leaves are still orange on some of the trees, but most of them are gone by now. :-(

The cottonwood trees had a nice yellow glow during mid-Autumn. The leaves are nearly all gone by now -- washed away by rain and wind. :-(

MW DX season has had good nights and bad nights. Mostly it's been fair to poor -- the band has been dropping off early in the morning, instead of hanging on until late morning as it usually should during the Winter. One day around 2 p.m. I was hearing a few of the stronger stations from Eastern Washington -- which was unusual. But so far, no fantastic MW DX catches.

One of my Halloween pumpkins this year. I will post a Halloween / Autumn pictures blog post soon.

Here's hoping those of you in the Northern Hemisphere are having a great start to Winter, and those in the Southern Reaches of planet Earth are having a great Spring.

How to quickly fix a SANGEAN PR-D5 Power Button malfunction -- and other easy fixes

The Sangean PR-D5, an excellent MW/AM and FM mini boombox radio.

About two years ago I bought a Sangean PR-D5, which I have mentioned several times on several posts here on this blog. I have a blog post about the radio, describing a slight modification I did to my PR-D5 to add a mono jack for better headphone volume, where I also describe the qualities of the radio.

It is an excellent radio -- my best overall performer on MW/AM, and it is very pleasant to use to listen to FM stereo. I use mine for several hours every night while creative writing.

About half a year ago or so, I noticed that sometimes when I hit the power button, the radio would not turn on as instantly as it used to. At first, I ignored it. Then, I tried changing the batteries, thinking perhaps lower voltage messed with the button function somehow -- lower voltage can cause the SiLabs DSP IF chip to not want to fire up, according to the SiLabs datasheet.

Switching to new batteries helped temporarily.

Then after a couple weeks the issue cropped up again. I squirted tuner cleaner down the sides of the power button. It seemed to help, but perhaps it was just me thinking that. The glitch would still happen now and then: I would hit the power button, and the radio would turn to the 'Alarm' setting function. I would hit the power button again, and the radio would turn on.

Finally, I did some research. There is one other guy who mentioned in a review that his STEP/BAND button will sometimes not switch bands but instead will switch stations in memory -- it is as if when he hits one button, the radio thinks he is hitting a different button in the lower row.

That was the same issue my radio had, except when I hit the Power button the radio thought I was hitting another button in the top row -- the 'Alarm' button.

The fact we both were having some button malfunctions -- but the buttons still actually worked -- pointed to a firmware issue, instead of a physical button issue.

THE PROBLEM ISN'T THE BUTTONS THEMSELVES

The buttons themselves still feel solid -- just as solid as they did the day I bought my PR-D5.

As for the buttons, they are installed in a button plate, that is secured to the front panel of the radio, which you can see in this Sangean photo of the CLEAR PR-D5:

Here you can see the button plate, secured to the front of the radio. It appears to be one solid plate, with the buttons embedded in it. Clear PR-D5's sure look cool! (Sangean photo)

The button panel is that white plate in the front-center of the radio. It is fairly well secured to the front of the radio.

Naturally, whenever you press a button and something goes awry, you're going to think it's the button itself. But buttons on digital radios like the Sangean PR-D5 are little more than software toggles.

Because the buttons on the PR-D5 actually work, even when they act up, I don't think the issue is the buttons themselves. If they were to stop working, they would be completely dead. But that isn't the case. The buttons themselves are indeed working. When I hit the power button -- something happens. When the guy on that review hit the STEP/BAND button, something happened. The problem is that what happened wasn't what was supposed to happen.

Here you can see the series of buttons used by the PR-D5 (schematic provided by kind courtesy of Sangean). They can be seen in the upper left center of the schematic here (two 'rails', KEY1 and KEY2). As can be seen here, the buttons work off of resistors. The software 'sees' the change in resistance, which is the way it knows which button is pressed. There is very little that can break. If a button breaks, it's not going to work, period. If a resistor breaks, it's not going to work, period. The fact that the buttons work indicates the firmware can glitch if powered up for months, and all it needs is a periodic reboot.

The front buttons on the PR-D5 are a series of switches, that work with resistors. The microprocessor 'reads' the resistance and then performs the function you want the radio to do. I recently was able to receive a schematic of the PR-D5 from Sangean, and as one can see, the 'Alarm' button is right next to the "Power" button. Unless the switch is actually broken (it isn't) or the resistor is broken (it isn't), the problem is the microprocessor's reading the resistance wrong. 

PROBABLY A FIRMWARE GLITCH WHEN RADIO IS POWERED FOR MONTHS

This hints at a firmware problem -- a glitch with the program in the microprocessor that runs the radio. Perhaps when the PR-D5 is powered up for a long time -- whether you have batteries in it for a while, or have the AC adaptor plugged in for a long time, the firmware can act up.

Re-setting the Sangean PR-D5 is as simple as pulling the AC adaptor plug and removing one battery, and letting it sit for maybe 30 seconds. This fixes button glitches -- at least, it has fixed my radio. The extra jack in the center-left of my PR-D5 is the mono headphone jack I installed -- there is a blog post on that minor modification elsewhere on this blog.

RE-SET / RE-BOOT YOUR RADIO!

The other night, when the radio's power button lagged again, I RE-SET MY RADIO.

I unplugged the AC adaptor, and removed a battery, and I gave it about 30 seconds with no power available to the radio whatsoever. As soon as I plugged in the battery, the radio beeped, the readout went through its re-set phase, and then the clock went blank (it does this during a re-set).

Then I plugged the battery back in and tried the Power button.

The radio came on instantly. Just like the first time I fired it up when I got it at the store! And it has come on instantly the past four days since then (there still is a lag for the audio to come up, which is normal -- the SiLabs chip itself takes 110 milliseconds to initialise).

When you RE-SET the radio, it resets everything, except apparently the memories. My 10 memories are still the same after RE-SETTING it.

To ensure you've had a re-set of your radio, you'll be able to tell because you will see a "POWER FAIL" notice on the LCD readout, and you will hear a BEEP when you re-engage the power to the radio. The display will fill with alpha-numerics, and then give you four dashes (with a colon in between them), or the time (depending on whether the time was set). On mine, because I don't have the clock set, I get a " - - : - - " on the LCD readout when done resetting my radio.

So far, my PR-D5 has no new power button issues. There is no lag before it fires up.  It doesn't show the 'alarm set' icon on the display.

My guess is that the radio needs to be RE-SET now and then. The 'brain' needs its registers cleared.

So, if you are one of the people whose PR-D5's (or PR-D15's, for that matter) have buttons that act up, try RE-SETTING your radio by pulling the AC adaptor plug from the side of the radio, and pulling out the batteries (or even one battery), and give it 30 seconds or more. This fix might work for other similar Sangean and Sangean-made radios with SiLabs chips inside.

I still think the PR-D5 is an excellent MW/AM and FM radio, and worth the money. It seems to be solidly built, and I use mine every night. I would recommend it to any MW/DXer or person who wants a good radio to listen to AM and FM stereo on, whether at work or at home.

THE MICROPROCESSOR IS ALWAYS ON, EVEN WHEN THE RADIO IS 'OFF'

We DXers and radio enthusiasts tend to leave batteries in our radios for long periods of time, or keep them plugged into the wall for a long time -- sometimes the radio is seeing power for months. I know my PR-D5 was. It's been plugged in, or had batteries in it for months. This last time around, it had batteries in it, or the AC adaptor plugged into it, continuously since the Solar Eclipse on August 21st, nearly two months to the day.

This means the radio's microprocessor / 'brain' chip is always working, because with these kinds of radios, the microprocessor has to be already working for the radio to be switched on.

The power button on these radios is always 'on', in a way. The brain of the radio is ON so long as the radio is seeing power, and when you press the Power button, the brain of the radio is reading it and then it actually switches the rest of the radio on when you hit the power button. The power function is a firmware function. All the Power button is, is a toggle which the firmware in the microprocessor 'sees' -- and when the microprocessor 'sees' the button pressed, the microprocessor turns the radio on.

It's possible that some radios just need to be RE-SET now and then, and the newer PR-D5's may be one of those radios. The brain, or the firmware needs a short respite, and a re-boot accomplishes that task.

I'm no expert but that's my guess. And so far this RE-SET fixed has worked with my radio.

The Sangean PR-D5 is a bit bassy at times through some headphones designed for extra bass response. I mostly use a cheap set of dollar store headphones that have a flat response. The station the radio is tuned to in this picture, 790 KJRB The Bear, is an active rock station out of Spokane, Washington that comes in very well most nights.

A pic of my mono headphone jack in use. I have another blog post on the easy installation of a mono jack onto a PR-D5, for easier MW/AM DXing -- but I never placed a pic of the jack in use. Here 'tis. :-)

The blog post on adding a mono headphone jack (along with an overview of the PR-D5) can be found here:

https://interrocknation.blogspot.com/2015/10/fixing-sangean-pr-d5s-low-headphone.html

RE-SET MAY HELP WITH OTHER RADIOS WITH SIMILAR BUTTON GLITCHES

RE-SETTING / RE-BOOTING the radio may work with other Sangean and Sangean-built models that have similar button issues (the famous CCRadio is a Sangean-made model, and I've seen at least one review where a guy said the power button on his CCRadio was acting up).

Remember, we DXers usually have batteries in our radios 24/7, or have them plugged in 24/7. Perhaps re-booting the radios now and then help them act better. :-)

USING JUST BATTERIES MAY PREVENT THE BUTTON ISSUE FROM HAPPENING

For those who run their PR-D5's just off of batteries, this malfunction may not happen at all, because I have found that with frequent use, a set of batteries in a PR-D5 lasts maybe 3 weeks at best. If you're only using batteries, every time you change them, you're resetting the radio. That would mean you are re-setting the radio every three weeks or so. This may explain why many PR-D5 users don't have such issues. For those of us who have our PR-D5's plugged in a lot, and also have batteries in the radio -- the microprocessor may be seeing power for months. Hence, a need to re-boot the radio now and then....

A picture of the two shims I cut out of a bottle lid (from a large bottle of protein powder) using a pair of small shrub cutting shears. The shims keep the C cells from moving around inside the battery compartment, which can cause crackles on the low MW band when you move the PR-D5 around, nulling out stations. I have the shims offset because the battery door closes better, without forcing it shut, and they still get the job done. :-)

USE PLASTIC SHIMS TO REDUCE BATTERY MOVEMENT CRACKLE ON LOW MW CHANNELS

The past few evenings I have used the PR-D5 for DXing the MW/AM band for an hour or so, and I've had two new loggings on the lower end of the band, during partially Auroral conditions (590 KSUB Cedar City, Utah; and 540 KVIP, Redding, California).

While turning the radio to null some stations and increase the signals of others I noticed some crackling during movement of the radio. I opened the battery box and found that a couple of the C cells had shifted.

It turns out it was the batteries -- not all C batteries are the same size, and some can move around inside the radio's compartment. I added two small plastic shims inside the back of the battery compartment, and it eliminated the problem. To allow for the battery door to shut without forcing it I set them a little off center of each other. PROBLEM SOLVED.

Overall, this MW DX season has started oddly. I have heard some unusual stations here and there, but the band fades out way early.

FALL FINALLY ARRIVES

The cold weather began to hit at night during the last week of September, but our Autumn here in the Seattle area hasn't started hitting until the last two weeks or so. September gave us some warm weather, with some days in the 70's F -- but the nights started getting cold, more around 45 or so F.

While the good weather held out, I finished up on some yard maintenance, trimming hedges and brush and cutting some tree limbs with an electric chainsaw. The leaves in the hills didn't start turning until about a week ago -- which is about 2 weeks late. But then, the trees greened out about a week late this Spring, so I guess in a way everything is on schedule. :-)

Here are a few pictures from September and early October. I will put more in another blog post later this week:

Earlier this year, in September, the weather was fine enough outside to do yardwork and listen to a football game on my Sony Sports Walkman, while out cutting brush and a few tree limbs. I had the Sony Sports boombox blasting the game on my front porch, also.

The leaves on an ornamental maple just outside the office I work in, in Seattle. Within a week they were gone, because of wind.

The Oregon Big Leaf maples alongside the Cedar River Trail were more colorful. I took this pic about a week ago. Fall has finally arrived, about a week or two late.

I put up my Mickey Mouse pumpkin early this year.

The leaves are beginning to turn on the trees alongside a muddy Cedar River. Photo taken one week ago, on a Canon digital snapshot camera.

A pumpkin from Halloween 2016.

I hope this article may help some Sangean PR-D5 owners, and I hope all you PR-D5 aficionados out there have a good DX season in the Northern Hemisphere. Also, hope all of you are having a good start of your holiday season. Here in the U.S., Halloween beckons!

Ball Cat says have a great Autumn!

CC 10-27-2017

Addendum, 10-29-2017.
So far the 'fix' for my PR-D5 is still holding -- my power button still works excellently. I am certain that the re-set/re-boot solved the Power button issue on my radio.

Addendum, 11-2-2017.
So far the fix is still working. The power button still goes instantly on.

Addendum, 11-7-2017.
So far the fix is still working. I'm 99% certain re-booting the PR-D5 solved the issue.

Addendum, 11-16-2017.
Fix is still working.... Hope all are having a good November.

Addendum, 5-27-2018.
I added a little clarification to the caption under the schematic, to make it easier to understand how the buttons on the radio works. Also, I have re-set my radio probably twice in the eight months, when I noticed small lags in the radio firing up after pushing the power button. It clears the problem for a few more months.... I still use the PR-D5 nightly and have had no other issues with the radio. :-)

ADDENDUM, 4-20-2022.

I have had this same Power Button issue with my Sangean PR-D14, a radio which is quite similar to the PR-D5, both in performance and operation. A re-set (pull the batteries, pull the AC plug, wait a minute or so, plug back in, making sure all the characters on the LCD display light up and the radio beeps) fixed the problem.

In the case of my PR-D14, the Power Button would tune the radio down a frequency instead of turning the radio off. A second or third push would turn the radio off. Re-setting the radio fixed it.

As with my PR-D5, I was using my PR-D14 a lot and had it either running 24/7 or always plugged in.

To me, these Power Button issues are minor, and easily fixed with a re-set. They probably aren't encountered by most PR-D5 and PR-D14 users. 

I would still recommend these radios to anyone who wants an AM DX radio with excellent FM performance (and in the case of the PR-D5, it's a stereo mini-boombox!).

A SONY XDR-S10HDiP HD RADIO: New Thrift Store Find!

I was recently out driving to and from a small city out in the south county (Buckley, in SE King County) when I passed my favorite thrift store, a Goodwill located out in the exurbs (an area that used to be waaaaay out in the sticks). This Goodwill is one where I've gotten great deals on Sony Walkmen before -- including my Sports Walkman (pictured in another article here).

I went in to check out their books and electronics. Imagine my surprise when I saw a Sony HD Radio for sale there for $12.99!

The radio itself looks like a rounded, plug-in boombox, or massive clock radio. It has stereo speakers and apparently pushes them at a maximum of 4 Watts. It has no provision for batteries, and comes with a long AC cord with a large wall-wart attached.

Just seeing the words "SONY" and "HD RADIO" -- along with the low price, made me want to buy it.

A local HD AM station, KFNQ 1090, which is a CBS Sports Radio station. The little 'HD' icon (in the upper left part of the LCD display) shows that the radio was decoding and playing the station in HD, which sounded very much like FM, or a clean online stream.

A BIT ABOUT HD RADIO FOR OVERSEAS READERS

For those overseas who don't know about HD Radio, it is the version of digital radio broadcasting in the U.S. Overseas, DAB is the digital broadcasting method, and it is fairly popular in some countries (Norway, Denmark, and the UK being examples). In other countries DAB is still in the building stages. No one knows if it will truly replace FM in those countries.

Here in the U.S. DAB was considered but rejected as a digital radio delivery system. There are just too many commercial broadcasters for DAB to work fairly. So they came up with HD Radio instead, a digital means of broadcasting using FM and AM analog subchannels -- the digital signals would share the same channel as the analog broadcast. It is also known as IBOC: In Band On Channel.

It seemed at the time to be the 'best of both worlds' -- Digital Radio would be available, but the regular analog FM and AM broadcasts would be mostly unaffected.

I have been curious about HD radio for a while, as I see it as the ultimate future of over the air radio here in the U.S. The main problem with HD Radio, when it started, was that there weren't many radios available, and the few I saw in the early 2000's were very expensive. Recently Sangean has come out with an affordable model, the HDR-16, which seems to be a decent performer. I've held off on buying one, because, frankly, I need another radio like I need another hole in the head.

The top of the Sony XDR-S10HDiP, showing the control buttons. The power button is underneath the remote that is still taped to the radio. In the very center of the top of the radio is a dock for IPods (remember those?) and IPhones.

THE THRIFT STORE DELIVERS A SONY, YET AGAIN!

Even though I have enough radios, when I saw a SONY HD radio for $12 at the local thrift store, I couldn't pass that by!

At the store, I plugged it in, and it worked. Of course, inside the store, there wasn't much FM or AM reception -- the radio needs an external antenna for both bands, and there wasn't any with the radio. But it worked, and that was enough reason for me to go ahead and buy it.

When I got it home, I set it on my makeshift workstand on the sunny front porch and plugged it in. The model number for this Sony is a long one: XDR-S10HDiP. According to the manual I found online, it is a radio Sony made in 2008.

So, now that we're in the second decade of the 21st Century, I have joined the first one, technologically.

As soon as the XDR radio switched on I tuned the FM band. Even without an external antenna, the XDR-S10HDiP received most of the local FM stations in standard FM -- I needed to rig up an antenna for it to get them better... Touching a 2 meter wire to the center conductor of the FM jack helped a lot. Then I switched over the AM band.

On the AM side a wire connected to the terminals on the back of the radio brought in all the local stations.

A picture of the back of the Sony HD radio. The radio is upside down in this picture. The FM antenna jack is a UHF one at the top; the AM antenna jack has a short piece of wire clipped to it (which I later replaced with 2 meters of hookup wire). I clipped the short length of wire just to see how the AM side works. There is apparently no internal antenna for the MW/AM band. The fan is to keep the radio cool -- the main chips apparently run a bit hot.

No sooner than I tuned to KKDZ 1250, which I knew broadcast in HD, it faded from mono analog AM to HD, and it sounded like an FM station! Then the call letters appeared on the display.

AND... SUDDENLY... BOOM! HIGH FIDELITY AM

I was trying to figure out how to get HD on the radio when I tuned to one of the local two AM stations that have it, 1250 KKDZ, a station that plays South Asian programming from India and Pakistan mainly. KKDZ 1250 came in well. As I was photographing the radio on my front porch all of a sudden the sound of the station went from AM's boomy mono to an FM-like, high fidelity sound!

I was amazed. It doesn't sound 100 percent like FM -- you can tell there is some digital compression. But I was very impressed. The switch from analog to HD was like a quick fade, like fading from an AM station to an FM station.

Then I tuned the Sony to the other local HD AM station, 1090 KFNQ, which is CBS sports.

Once again, the radio was in standard AM mono for about 10 seconds, then all of a sudden it faded into high fidelity, FM-like sound. There wasn't any loss of programming, it was a clean fade. It was quite amazing to hear, at first. Whoever programmed the chips on this Sony knew what they were doing.

AMAZINGLY SENSITIVE RADIO ON MW/AM!!

A couple nights ago, I tuned around on the Sony, with just a six foot (two meters) wire off the back of the antenna terminal, and heard most of the regional AM stations I can get on most of my radios, including stations from Oregon, California, Canada, and the graveyard channels. I didn't have a chance to try to truly DX with it, saving that for the next night.

The next night I tuned across the entire AM band with the XDR. To my surprise, with just the 2 meter wire connected to the AM antenna jack the XDR brought in DX stations like XERF and KCVR on 1570. 1570, like most of the X-band, is a DX test frequency here in the PNW U.S., as it is usually empty except for XERF down on the Mexican border.

To my surprise, XERF's oldies-ranchero music was audible on the Sony XDR, and some Spanish speech from KCVR Lodi, California's Deportes programming was also audible.

At night the XDR detected HD from stations like KSL 1160, Salt Lake City (causing the 'HD' indicator on the display to blink) -- but the signals weren't strong enough for the XDR to actually decode the HD. The Sony XDR has very good selectivity -- there was minimal splash from strong adjacent channels, and good, full sound.

A picture of the Sony XDR-S10HDiP bringing in KBRE 1660 Merced, California during the late afternoon, August 9th. It was just before 7 p.m., but the sun was still in the sky for another hour and a half. You can see one bar of signal in the upper left corner of the LCD readout. This was on six feet (two meters) of wire. The XDR series are very good on MW/AM.

Finally, just this morning I did a quick, short side-by-side test between the Sony XDR-S10HDiP and my Sangean PR-D5. The antenna I used with the Sony was the 6 ft. / 2 meter wire. The PR-D5 was using its own 200 mm internal antenna. It was a poor DX night with typical summer conditions. 1660 KBRE Merced, California (the station is about 850 miles away from here) came in S1-S2 with some peaks of S3 on the Sony. It was S1 to S2 with some peaks at about S2 on the PR-D5. I think much of the difference is the sound: the Sony has a slightly wider bandwidth.

And this test was with the Sony using merely 6 feet of wire.

When I looped the 2 meters of wire and connected each end to the terminals on the back of the radio, the XDR pulled in even more signals, with a lower noise level. The chipset inside this radio is remarkable on MW/AM.

I'm amazed that more MW DXers don't use the Sony XDR series of radios!

THE SONY XDR IS ALSO VERY GOOD ON FM, TOO

I had a chance to tune through the FM band earlier during the afternoon, and the Sony XDR pulls in all the stations my best FM radios will pull in, including three stations from Victoria, Canada, which aren't audible daily -- Victoria is about 100 air miles away, with some hills and other terrain in between them and my location.

With no external antenna only the strongest local FM stations came in. Then I pulled the 2 meter wire from the AM antenna terminal and pushed it into the center conductor of the FM antenna jack.

Bingo! The FM band was full of stations, including HD channels!

I got HD FM on many FM stations... Including 15 extra channels that aren't on the regular FM band. Kidz Bop radio, Radio Saigon, Radio Disney, an Oldies channel, a Jazz/Blues channel, a CBC channel (a Seattle station's HD-2), two extra Classical music channels, a Classic Country channel, and FMHD broadcasts of 5 Seattle area AM stations.

Overall I'm impressed with the Sony's performance.

When you tune into an FM station with HD, there is a 5-10 second lag as the radio tells you it is "Linking" -- then it comes in either in analog or HD. Sometimes the radio brings in the analog signal and then about 5 more seconds into hearing the station you hear a subtle difference in sound as the radio switches from analog FM to HD FM. The display changes from just showing the frequency to showing the call letters, as well as the HD channel number.

As you tune up and down the band on the Sony XDR you tune through the HD channels as well as analog. Tuning upwards you'll go through the station, then HD-2, then HD-3... and tuning downwards the radio will tune down through HD-3, HD-2, and then HD-1. HD-1 is always the FM station's main channel.

Unlike what I've read on the internet about some car radios that have HD, the transition from analog to HD on the Sony XDR is almost non-noticeable (except on HD AM, where there is a distinct change in sound, similar to switching from AM to FM). In fact, you have to listen for the transition to actually hear it.

Perhaps with car radios you can have dropouts, and the buffering causes a silence as the radio re-catches the HD signal. But with a stationary radio like the Sony XDR, there are no dropouts.

A BIT ABOUT THE SONY XDR-S10HDiP

After doing some research, I learned a bit about how the Sony XDR works. It apparently is a cousin of the famous FM/AM tuner XDR-F1HD, which is popular with FM DXers all over the world. I haven't taken apart my radio, but from looking in through the fan hole I can tell that the XDR-S10HDiP has basically the same guts as the XDR-F1HD, except it is in a different box, with a 4 Watt amplifier and two speakers attached. As several radios in the XDR series are reported to have the same circuitry, and my XDR came out the same year as the XDR-F1HD, it's certain that the chips used are probably the same.

A view of the inside of the Sony XDR S10HDiP. It's very similar to the board layout in the other Sony XDR inside-pictures found on the internet. The two large metal enclosed modules (left center of the pic) are the small boards containing the radio chips: one has the TEF6330 / SAF7730 RF DSP chips, and the other one has the HD Radio chips. The heat sinks (right center, sticking upwards) are large because the radio is capable of 4 watts output.

The heart of the tuner section of the XDR series of radios is the TEF6730 DSP IF chip, made by NXP. It is a very sensitive and selective chip, and it tunes itself to whatever antenna you have attached to the radio -- not unlike the famous SiLab's series of DSP IF chips in other radios, which also do this.

There is a large chip that works with it, which also has DSP. Apparently that chip, the SAF7730,  further demodulates the stereo. Another tuner block in the XDR series of radios contains the HD Radio decoder. Both sets of chips apparently generate a lot of heat: hence, the fan in the back of my radio.

I can attest to the fact that the XDR series are DX radios: this XDR Just before posting this, I pulled in KBRE 1660 The Bear when the sun was still up (about 7:30 p.m.), during summer.

Like its XDR cousins, the Sony XDR-S10HDiP has 20 presets for each radio band, which are easy to program: you press the 'Enter' key for a couple seconds after tuning into your station. The radio beeps, a memory location will blink on the display, and you press 'Enter' again.

Tuning the radio is easy -- just use the up and down buttons. On AM you can hear the channels momentarily as it tunes up or down across the band. The volume is switched using the up and down Volume buttons. There are other buttons that are for IPod and IPhone users -- they are easy to ignore if needed. There also is an AUX IN (called "Audio In" on this Sony) that I haven't used yet, but like with the Sangean radios you can plug in a tablet or whatever using a mini stereo headphone jack.

The tone is adjustable, using the "Menu" button. I haven't messed with that yet.

There is a remote that came with the radio. It works. It has come in handy a couple times when I'm sitting at my writing desk and want to quickly adjust volume without getting up, going over to the radio, etc.

A view of the back of the XDR with the new mono jack installed. You can also see the MW single loop antenna (green wire -- both ends of a 2 meter loop of wire) and a stiff piece of wire shoved into the center terminal of the FM antenna jack (it still works well -- brings in all FM HD channels as well as regular analog FM).

ONE QUIRK: SOME 1-2 SECOND DROPOUTS ON AM/MW

There are no major 'quirks' to this radio I've noticed yet, aside from what appears to be a microprocessor glitch, or perhaps it is over-reactive noise reduction: the sound cuts out completely from time to time for a second or two, at least on the MW/AM band. When this happens, the LCD readout still shows operation as per normal, but the "HD" icon blinks. It does this on frequencies that have no HD at all. I think that there is some RFI or noise that must be tricking the radio into thinking there is HD when there really isn't. I haven't had the radio on FM for extended periods of time to see if it happens on FM also.

[EDIT, Nov. 2023: I have since read that this is a natural occurance for this radio, and other XDRs -- there will be slight cutouts in AM reception when the XDR 'sees' some HD somewhere.]

An online search revealed that at least one Sony XDR-F1HD user experienced dropouts on FM, but he never mentioned whether it was also occurring on AM also.

The smart electric meter to my place sometimes puts out a short burst of hash. On the PR-D5 it's reduced in volume -- the Sony XDR cuts it out completely. Whether the dropouts on my XDR were related to that or not, I just don't know.

So far, nothing else quirky has occurred with this radio.

I normally don't listen to KEXP, but this particular morning they were playing a huge block of 90's grunge-era and other 90's alternative music, celebrating the playlists of other major college alternative stations of the late 1980's-early 1990's, when rock music was very active with all kinds of alternative rock artists. It was like a blast from the past. As you can tell from the readout, the Smashing Pumpkins were playing when I took this photograph.

OVERSEAS DXers? Sony XDR's have 10 kHz Steps on MW 

For those overseas, the Sony XDR series would make great FM and AM DX radios, but the main weakness of using a Sony XDR overseas on MW is that the MW/AM band is set to 10 kHz steps only. There doesn't appear to be any way of changing it to 9 kHz.

Of course, the HD Radio features overseas would be useless, as no overseas country that I'm aware of has HD Radio -- overseas digital radio is DAB or DRM.

There are quite a few overseas FM DXers that use the Sony XDR-F1HD, my radio's cousin, which has the same basic circuitry.

A pic of the XDR-S10HDiP with a mono headphone jack installed for MW/AM band DXing and FM-mono listening (I don't listen to FM through headphones much). It was easy to do once I figured out how to get the wires around the speaker baffles, so that the case would close properly (I drilled tiny holes for the wires, as can be seen here). I used terminals off of each speaker because it was easier to get my solder gun/iron in there without messing up other wiring. As with my Sangean PR-D5 mono jack installation, I used silicone glue (and a tiny bit of super glue) to hold the mono jack in place.

NO HEADPHONE JACK -- So I Wired A Mono Jack for AM Only

One minor quirk with these radios is that there is no headphone jack. I remedied this for the AM band by wiring up a mono jack the same way I did with my Sangean PR-D5 -- I wired it in parallel with one of the speakers. In this case, I took the negative side off one speaker and the positive side off of the other (it was easier soldering that way without risking messing something up). For mono AM, there should be no difference. I never intend to use the headphone jack for FM stereo -- the speakers work perfectly fine for that. But for MW/AM DXing, sometimes headphones help.

After testing out the headphones, I found that the wiring makes FM come out through the headphones in FM Mono.

I'm sure that someone with more time to spare and the need could just as easily wire a stereo headphone jack using the speakers... Just make sure in all cases you keep the volume down.

As I mentioned before -- this radio can put out 4 Watts of audio.

A grasshopper has decided to live in my house this summer.

The river is lower than I've seen it in years.

The local trail at dawn.

A 747 in the morning sun. Probably arriving from somewhere far away. A lot of flights to Asia and Europe fly in and out of Sea-Tac.

HD RADIO -- Possibly the Future of AM (and FM) Radio In The U.S.

I realise that a lot of AM and FM radio enthusiasts in the United States HATE HD radio.

I am not one of those people.

I love DXing, but I don't despise hearing IBOC block a couple channels when HD may be the only remaining future for AM in a few years. AM radio is slowly fading in popularity, and HD may be the only thing keeping it alive in 20 years. A majority of modern car radios have HD AM capability, and after hearing the impressive sound of HD on AM I am more fully convinced that it may be the future of AM -- if AM really has any future aside from TIS Travellers information stations and government emergency broadcasts.

A local AM station north of Seattle ran a full-digital test a couple years ago, and apparently the results were promising. Any HD radio will also pull in full channel HD, even on AM. I can see where some day the only surviving broadcast stations on AM may be fully digital. Over-the-air radio and TV may ultimately disappear, but the fact that it is free is something that may keep over-the-air broadcasting alive.

A lot of FM DXers loathe HD radio, as it blocks some of their DX channels. What these guys forget is that HD Radio provides listeners with local programming that otherwise you wouldn't get on FM: Oldies, Blues, Jazz, etc. I know that the local FM stations here have Oldies, Blues, Radio Disney (which left the AM band two years ago), Jazz, and the BBC on their HD channels -- as well as a couple AM station's HDFM broadcasts, and even a 'dead' Seattle station still survives on HD ("Click 98.9", a decent alt-pop and rock station that flipped to Rock a year and a half ago).

HD isn't perfect, obviously, but it works. No radio is perfect: FM has terrain shadows, 'flip-flip' noises as you drive, dead spots, etc., and AM has lower fidelity than most people want, and there is always the coverage issue as well as RFI. HD radio has its issues, too.

But it's free. And overall, it sounds very good.

The moon at the end of August, 2017 (All pics taken on my Nikon L32 snapshot camera).

THRIFT STORES OFTEN PAY OFF FOR RADIO AFICIONADOS

In closing -- once again, a chance trip to a thrift store paid off. I'd suggest that any reader who is interested in checking out HD radio do not overlook one of the used Sony models -- if this XDR-S10HDiP is any indication, Sony's HD radios are very good performers. Some of them may be available used on the internet at decent prices.

And for the MW DXers out there, don't overlook the Sony XDR series of radios!! If what I've seen is any indication, they are excellent performers on MW/AM, even with limited antennas.

I've included a few extra, non-radio photos in this post, most taken over the end of August.

Right now the nights are getting cold (49F) and Fall is in the air. Halloween will be here soon, as will MWDX season. Here's hoping you all are having a great September.

CC 8-2017 and 9-16-2017

 

ADDENDUM, November 10th, 2023:

A reader from India is wondering if there is any way to get the XDR-S10HDiP to receive MW in 9 kHz channel regions outside of North America. Sadly, after several searches, I have found no way that this can be done. The Sony XDRS10 series of radios seem to be 10 kHz stepped only on MW.

Here is a link to the manual, which only lists 10 kHz steps for MW.

https://www.manualslib.com/download/1486722/Sony-Xdr-S10hdip.html

 

Apologies to anyone overseas who has an XDR and can't DX MW with it... But FM is apparently so good that maybe FM DX could make up for that. :-) 

 

RIP, Boots the Cat:

Also, the cat on the bumper of the blue car in the last pic in this post is Boots the Cat. She was a really good cat, and a great little pal. I first got her, as a small kitten, in March of 2007, and during mid-2023 she began to get ill, and she gradually got weaker and weaker. Giving her kitten formula helped extend her life for maybe 6 months. She finally died on the morning of my birthday, in October. It was a tough hit to take, but she did live a long life for a cat -- 16 years and 7 months. God rest my little kitty.