Sony XDR series of radios on MW

Hi all. I realise that many of you have different radios, and I was wondering if any of you have used the Sony XDR series for DXing.

I think the XDR-F1HD is the most popular one; I see it on a lot of sites that discuss FM DXing. Have any of you who have one of these radios used a Sony XDR for MW/AM DXing also?

I have one hooked up to a single turn, 3 foot loop. It is an amazing AM performer.

rbrucecarter5 said:

I have one hooked up to a single turn, 3 foot loop. It is an amazing AM performer.

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I have had one one of these XDR-F1HD tuners for almost ten years. I bought it based on hearing of its exceptional FM specs. Unfortunately, I have lived in an very very RF polluted environment with no possibility of outdoor antennas. On the first of Sept. I will be moving to a location across town that my quick test with a portable AM radio showed to be much quieter RFI-wise. I'm REALLY looking forward to this move. I am curious about the single turn loop you are useing. How is it fed to the input of the Sony? I will also, for the first time!, be able to see what my 15 year old-barely used, SAT 800 is capable of. I do have the old Rat-Shack and Selec-Tenna loops, but the Sony is the only AM radio I have that has no internal antenna at all. Im SO looking forward to the fall season!

I recently got the Sony XDR-F1HD's brother, a Sony XDR-S10HDiP, the one that is a small, plug in boombox. Hence the question here about these radios.

I've found my XDR to be a phenomenal MW/AM band performer, even on a few feet of wire attached to one side of the AM terminal on the back of the radio. Looping it makes it work even better.

With just the 6-8 ft. length of wire it was roughly equal to my PR-D5.

The only 'glitch' is there is something in the RFI environment that must be tripping the HD on some MW frequencies, and I get infrequent one second dropouts, accompanied by the 'HD' icon flashing during the dropout.

It pulls in both local AM HD stations well, and the sound is very good, FM-like. ON DX, so far, it will indicate that it is 'seeing' an HD signal, but still plays those stations in mono analog (KSL, KRKO, etc. -- regional stations with HD AM).

To loop the wire, Mofocat, just get a 6-8 ft. length (or more) of wire and plug each end into the dual AM terminal. I have my loop of wire just looped over a nearby lampstand for the time being. Works great.

The Sony XDR's have an NXP DSP chipset inside, including a chip that tunes to the external antenna (not unlike the SiLabs DSP chips in many modern radios).

mofocat said:

I have had one one of these XDR-F1HD tuners for almost ten years. I bought it based on hearing of its exceptional FM specs. Unfortunately, I have lived in an very very RF polluted environment with no possibility of outdoor antennas. On the first of Sept. I will be moving to a location across town that my quick test with a portable AM radio showed to be much quieter RFI-wise. I'm REALLY looking forward to this move. I am curious about the single turn loop you are useing. How is it fed to the input of the Sony? I will also, for the first time!, be able to see what my 15 year old-barely used, SAT 800 is capable of. I do have the old Rat-Shack and Selec-Tenna loops, but the Sony is the only AM radio I have that has no internal antenna at all. Im SO looking forward to the fall season!

Click to expand...

I took two yardsticks, made an X frame, and wound a single turn of wire around it. I lightly twisted some wire back to the tuner. There are two connections for AM, polarity doesn't seem to matter. Reception is on a par with a GE Superadio, and the loop can be used to null unwanted stations.

AM box loops such as Rat Shack, Terk, Selec-tenna won't work, because the inductance of their loop is about ten times too high, and the Sony resonates the loop by adding / subtracting capacitance internally. If you have a loop with a tuning capacitor, the Sony will go crazy trying to tune it.