I'm so impressed with the performance of your precious gem - The Barlow Wadely! The Qodosen's antenna amplifier is remarkable and makes a significant difference when it was switched off thus, enhancing the receiving audio quality. The D-808 pulls in the signal but may be, the audio quality and selectivity would have improved had it been in SSB mode. And finally, your comparison makes me happy as I had recently got the D-606WB. Living in New Delhi, I can receive BBC at 17790kHz, 15295kHz and 11870kHz which are relayed from Oman. Besides, I can also receive several other stations such as CRI, Radio Thailand Worls Setvice (7476kHz) and many more. Thank you!
Thank you! The Barlow Wadley is really quite an amazing radio, and almost 50 years old by now. Amazing that it still works. I am happy that you like the D-608WB. It is also one of my favourite radios, I sometimes think it is even better than the D-808 on shortwave, even though it is quite a bit cheaper!
Andre, thanks for this comparison video, this makes me happy I bought the XHDATA D-608WB, although your Barlow Wadley unit still shows all the newcomers how real radio is performed…😂! Your D-808 model could have got rid of the heterodynes if you had used SSB mode, so it was using the one arm tied behind its back reception method…😮! I I understood the “Q” and “608WB the best followed by the Grandfather portable radio with the D-808 just behind, so I would not regret buying any of them. 73! Have a great day!
Thank you for your comment and for watching! I think the D-608WB is a great little radio, very reasonable price and actually very good. In my opinion it came quite close to the Qodosen here, with stronger sound, but I still think the Qodosen was a bit more selective, especially when I turned the antenna amp off (none of the other radios have antenna amps). I think the 608 had a slightly clearer sound, but Al Azm radio was still there in the background. On the Qodosen with the antenna amp off, Al Azm disappeared almost completely.
Hello André, as you know we were listening to this same station at the same time, from two very distant points on this planet 😁 This was a first catch for me, not for you as it already appeared in one of your videos. The signal was significantly stronger here, which was expected because the transmission is aimed at us with an azimuth of 345. Just like you, I tried different radios hooked to a 10m long wire running from my car to a tree in the woods where I was: the D608WB, the recently acquired Retekess TR635, my faithful DX friend the PL-330, my most recent purchase, a Tecsun PL-606 and even a good old analog Tecsun R9710 (dual conversion). In terms of signal strength, the D608WB won. Signal was consistently in the 70-80s, quite loud. But not in terms of noise and selectivity. The unexpected winner for this was the little PL-606, pretty much on par with the PL-330 it's closely related to IMO. Less distortion, less interference, less noise, clearer sound. The R9710 did reasonably well too after much pain tuning it. The loser was the TR635, whose selectivity and noise serious issues are known to me now. I don't have a SR-286 to compare it... yet (edited)
Hey Alain, thanks for your comment. I mention you, but not by name, at the start of this video, for pointing me to this signal last night 😀 Very interesting about the PL-606, last night also showed me that it seems to be a really good radio, very clear reception. I am a bit surprised that it seems to be relatively underutilised in the DXing community.
Oh, and about the R9012, I always find it a real pain to tune. It is very finicky when you try to get the best signal. But, once you manage to really tune in, it always sounds quite good actually.
@@swlistening R9710, André, not the R9012. They look a bit alike, but the R9710 is dual-conversion which the R9102 isn't AFAIK (if it is, they don't advertise this). The R9710 is kind of like a miniature R9700DX with corners cut. Not the same build quality for sure. A bit better than the R9012/R909, but as much pain to tune. I heard that you've mentioned me, thanks 😁 The PL-606 lacks a direct entry keypad and many people consider this a big issue. They would go for the PL-3x0 series. It's not the cheapest radio either, even more now that it's become kind of rare.
@@F4LDT-Alain And I think what you say about the PL-606 is probably the reason, yes. The price and the direct frequency input. I don't mind if radios don't have direct input, like the D-608WB. It's what all radios used to be like in the days when they were all analogue tuning 😀
People who say that modern DSP portables outperform old radios due to a good variety of bandwidth filters must watch this video. XCR-30 has a real physical filter while filters values in modern DSP radios do not correspond to reality. 3 kHz is more like 6 kHz.
Fab video André. I must say your 50 years old Radio Barlow Wadley proved to be the big daddy of all portables. Do you have any idea what Silicon Labs chip is employed in XHDATA D-608? Because I am fairly surprised from an emergency radio performing above its par on Shortwave. I hope it does the same on all three bands too. I was holding expectations that D-808 will do it's job well to segregate two nearby stations but D-608 surpassed it! 73! 🙏
Thank you Harshit! Someone else actually also asked about the DSP chip on the D-608WB a few days ago. I am afraid I do not know the answer. I have seen some pictures of the radio being opened up, but the chip is shielded, you cannot see it in those pictures. And there is no information about it online that I can find. I assume it would be the same as in the D-109, as these two radios seem to be quite similar, even the displays look similar. So that would be the Silicon Labs Si4734 chip. But it is just a guess. I think the D-608WB is very good on all the bands.
Thank you for the reply André. If this radio is working on Si4734 that I must say it's giving some tough competition to it's successor D-808 embedded with Si4735 without a doubt. Happy Tuning and DXing my friend. 73! 🙏
3 kHz, I mention that in the description, but I guess I should have mentioned it in the video also. My feeling is that the D-608WB has its bandwidth set at around 3 kHz, so I try to keep it the same on all the radios.
Hi Ken, thanks for your comment! I agree about the XCR-30 for sure, but I feel the Qodosen was a bit better in actually separating the two signals, although the sound on the D-608WB was a bit clearer
