Walkman and other personal headphone radios

I noticed that from the "DAB Ensembles" website...Most DAB stations in the UK seem to run at low bitrates (and in Mono, to boot), which wouldn't promise "CD quality sound”…It does seem like there is a nicer variety though of format choices there, though.

HD radio is nowhere near as popular as I see DAB is in the UK..Here, Satellite Radio (SiriusXM) is more popular--and you have to *pay* a monthly fee to get it.

Many cars nowadays have HD in them--and that's about it..Home and portable receivers--not many.....Add to that the fact that most of the HD "sidechannels" are easily available on analog FM, thanks to a legal loophole which allows you to re-broadcast them on 'low power' analog FM (so there's no real need to get an actual HD Radio). The sound quality is not that much improved over analog FM, particularly when you ‘break up’ one digital FM signal into 2, 3, or 4 streams.

Analog FM continues to be popular in the US--there are more analog FM signals now, since most MW stations are being allowed to re-broadcast on analog FM, not to mention the above "HD stations" that have allowed to open up shop on analog FM, as well.

Here is one of the few recent handheld/portables (on the left)….I don’t think there has been one released since…Not easy to find on eBay. Pictured next to its’ DAB ‘twin’, which of course, is useless to me here in the States (but a nice addition to my collection—since I like to collect ‘variants’ of the same radio).

 

When I have been near London it is easy to hear that DAB makes sense there as FM is jam packed with pirate stations interfering with each other. Here on the South Coast we have a reasonable but sensible number of FM stations. Approximately half are officially national stations that can be received anywhere in the UK. That limits the number of stations that can fit in the FM band as adjacent transmitters have to use different frequencies. Even then there was a couple of days in the summer where Sporadic E propagation was making French stations on FM intermittently blast in over the top of UK ones, despite the UK transmitter only being about 15 miles away.

AM has almost died a death here with only a few Talk based Stations left on it. Bizarrely Smooth Radio is on DAB and AM. I suspect that is something to do with the terms of an old licence condition. My wife does listen to it on AM in her car as her 2014 model doesn't have a DAB radio. My more upmarket 2013 one does.

I have to say that the price of DAB radios isn't really an issue now with the cheapest being around £20 https://www.argos.co.uk/product/8242303?clickSR=slp:term:dab radio:1:56:1
That will get you DAB and FM stations. The reviews are surprisingly positive although people have commented that the sound quality matches the price.

To get an idea of how many DAB stations you can get in a typical town have a look at

https://bestradios.co.uk/dab-radio-stations-in-bournemouth/

 

Another Philips for the collection. This one has a mirror finish front that makes taking photos difficult.

I was the only bidder for this Philips DA1000/05 on eBay so for about £15 it became mine.
It dates back to around 2006 and also has FM.
There were a whole load of similar DAB pocket radios appeared at around the same time with the same
four buttons and a joystick layout, such as this Bush

but it can't be the same PCB as the one in the
Philips is profiled to match the curved top of the case.

When it arrived I thought it was dead, which was a bit strange as the eBay photos showed it working.
I then found it would work off the included mains adaptor. A bit more investigation showed that the
problem is the switch in the power socket, Putting a piece of wire between the switch contacts allowed operation from batteries. That is why it the last photo is of it in pieces.

I'm not sure of the long term plan. Maybe replace the socket or just remove it and wired across the switch contact pads. Although it can recharge a NiMH battery pack it needs a special pack with a third contact to do so, so the socket is a bit superfluous.

Using it on DAB shows the problem with weak signals and DAB. It can be sounding great and then you turn your head and get the infamous "bubbling mud" sound instead of music. This predates DAB+ and having persuaded people to buy DAB radios I don't think they would dare suggest that everyone replaces them all so only the most minority interest stations are on DAB+ here in the U.K.

 

Last week I bought on eBay another Headphone Radio I thought was worthy of the collection. A Sony SRF-16W

• Pastel colours, with a weird pattern on the power switch. Up close it looks like punch tape.
  
  
• Diagonal lines including on the dial and power switch.
  

It could only be from the 1980s and sure enough the service manual copyright is 1987.
That and Radio Museum show a different colour / graphics scheme.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/sony_fm_receiver_srf_16w.html

Unlike most of my radios this one is FM only.
However, it is bigger than most and runs from two AA batteries while most use two AAAs.
Made in Taiwan. It receives O.K. but needs dismantling to put contact cleaner in the volume control.

 

Looks beautiful , I have this one in different color.

 

Are there more colour schemes than mine and the white "brush strokes" one ?

Something else worth posting was this which I spotted on eBay around the same time.

I have this one already but was rather surprised to see it was sold here in the U.K.
The £39.99 price label is either Dixons or Comet who were both similar to Best Buy here.
This one sold for slightly less than the original RRP.

p.s. I just checked the service manual and the SRF-220 card radio is from 1998, although they still had them in the Sony Shop in Tokyo in 2006.

 

I am looking for this Sony card radio SRF-220 , Please let me know if you ever find it in sealed condition.