Lowe Electronics - The SRX50

Rolling gently along the winding lanes between Idridgehay - a name for Scrabble players to bear in mind - and Cromford, I would be aware of the rear-view mirror filling up with BMW. This would wait for the least likely chance to pass and then do so, waving a cheery greeting and vanishing into the morning mist.

By the time we got to Matlock, my Bavarian friend was only three cars ahead. It seems a lot of effort, somehow.

Thirty years have passed since Dad, trying to keep the radio away from the kids, screwed same to the ceiling. In that time I think I've seen 'em all. Ex-service radios like The No. 19, 52, 62 Sets, the hernia inducing R107, AR88 and RA17 up to todays Icom, Kenwood and, to borrow from the beer advert, the reassuringly expensive Racal. For each in its time, some great performers. Today, price and performance are tightly linked - you will get what you pay for, so let's leave the high ground and wallow below. Cheap radios can be fun.

For around forty quid, you enter another world. A world of limited frequency coverage, missing broadcast bands and no SSB. At the time of writing, this sunspot cycle is in rapid decline, some broadcasters going for a mid-season change to lower frequencies in the hope of a usable signal. This means their good efforts can now be heard by those of us who drop off the radio world at 15.5Mhz.

Reception is very variable and will be for a few years yet. When it is good, it's very good, so you don't really need extreme sensitivity. When it's bad, it's bad, rapid selective fading reducing all but the very best receivers to a low common denominator in terms of listening for entertainment.

Better SSB will come to the cheap and cheerful end of the market, but if this is your forte you are best going for a base station with a decent antenna.

Filters seem an emotive subject. Down here we should be grateful we've got one. It will be middle-ranking in selectivity in an effort to be all things to all men, it's quality a reflection of the component buyer's skill. Can he get enough at the right price to be sure of reasonable performance throughout the product life?

In any event in the presence of very strong signals, it will leak allowing one of the joys of reduced selectivity, glorious audio quality. It's only fair we should ask our little radio to pick up only the major broadcasters. DX we can leave to the big boys...

Image rejection produces more emotion. The single conversion radio for the financially challenged will have an IF around 460kHz, so it will produce heaps of images where the big boys can hear aeroplanes and ships. We have no SSB, so no problem. We also know in our heart of hearts that the BBC does not use 8.5Mhz...

Battery life is important to the traveller. If you go to places where battery is teamed with assault, they may be hard to get. The best thing is a dial-and-pointer set as the battery is then running only one, maybe two, oscillator transistors. In the digital synthesised radio, the battery is running hundreds of the things, the price we pay for the convenience of key entry, memories and little glowing numbers. If possible, use the radio whenever you can on a mains power supply. Not only is it two hundred times cheaper than batteries to run, but the mains connection gives a capacitative reference to earth, helping with perceived sensitivity no end.

So, now I've made the case for simple enjoyment of the simple receiver, let's we what the wild waves are saying. Korea on 6560kHz, China on 7780kHz and good old Australia on 13755kHz and even a clock to tell me that it's time to close. The race, it seems, is not only to the swift. Or BMW owners.