TECSUN DR-920C Digital FM/MW/SW World Band Radio (Black Color)

Picked this up as I wanted to check out shortwave radio-this little guy didn't disappoint! Was picking up stations from around the globe from my back porch. Manual tuning, good audio/headphone sound, easy to use. This one got me stsrted-small enough to slip into a pocket. Great value and have had great luck with other Tecsun models as well.

The Tecsun DR-920C is a great radio. A great radio for listening to AM, FM and Shortwave signals. I have 3 other Tecsun radios, so I have become very knowledgeable about their radios. I would say that the Tecsun line of radios are have earned a reputation of being very good radios. I put the Dr-920C in a radio to radio comparison for sensitivity, and selectivity to the Tecsun PL-606. The 606 sells for almost twice the price of the 920 and has more features. A big difference between the radios; the 606 is a Digital Signal Processing--DSP radio, the 920 is a super-hetrodyne dual conversion radio. The 920 is more of a analog radio from a tuning stand point with a digital indicator. The conditions for this test was about 4pm in the afternoon, temperature about 85 degrees with about 20 percent humid. The reason I mention the conditions, time of day, temperature and humid, they can greatly affect the propagation of radio waves. As an example we have one station located in our area that is a low powered translator station of 10 watts. The reception is considered a fringe area or an area that is difficult to receive this station. During dry warm weather, this station is received fairly well by the Tecsun DSP radios. In cooler damp weather the station is still received but at a much lower level. Results of my comparison.... the 920 picked up as many AM stations as the 606, 31 stations. The 920 picked up 44 FM stations and the 606, 47 FM stations. The 920 picked up 19 shortwave stations, the 606 picked up the same number. Here a 25 dollar radio can compete with a 40 dollar radio on sensitivity. The 606 had better selectivity (the ability to reject unwanted signals) than the 920 due to being a DSP radio. I would still rate the 920 as having good selectivity. For the money DR-920C is a good value. The radio operation is pretty intuitive. You put the batteries in and you are good to for radio listening. The instruction manual for setting the alarm and time setting are lacking. I followed the instuctions as given EXACTLY, I could not set the alarm or time the way the destructions indicated. TO SET THE TIME YOU PRESS AND HOLD THE TIME SET BUTTON WHILE PRESSING THE HOUR BUTTON REPEATEDLY TO SET THE HOUR, THEN REPEATEDLY PRESS THE MINUTE BUTTON TO SET THE MINUTES. FOR THE ALARM, SET PRESS AND HOLD THE AL SET BUTTON THEN REPEATEDLY PRESS HOUR AND MINUTE BUTTONS TO SET ALARM WAKE TIME. THE SLEEP FUNCTION IS SUPPOSE TO ADJUSTABLE BY QUICKLY AND REPEATEDLY PRESSING THE SLEEP BUTTON. I attempted this multiple time and it would not work. The instructions make reference to a lock button. THERE IS NO SUCH BUTTON ON THIS RADIO. ITS AS IF WHOEVER PUT THE INSTRUCTIONS TOGETHER CUT AND PASTED THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR A DIFFERENT RADIO THAN THE DR-920C.

I reviewed this earlier and gave it a bad rating and review. I was WRONG! I had mistakenly put in bad batteries. With good batteries it has slowly become my go to SW radio. It's small and does miss a few of the SW frequencies but what it pulls in now more than make up for it. Sound is a little iffy. Keep it off full volume and it's fine. I truly apologize for my previous review. I think you'll be happy with this set. Just don't do like me and be a dummy and put in dead batteries. It's small but really built fairly sturdy. Not thin but not thick. About the size of a small Gideon testament they give you in Sunday school. I've run this thing every night for about a hour to two hours and the batteries are still good. I hope this helps and again I apologize to Tecsun for my bad review. Remember tho I'm no expert. I am greener than a bullfrog on a pool table to the world of shortwave.

This is an average to low MW (AM) performing radio in its price class. It should do well in the main service area of stations, but not in the distant or fringe areas. It all depends on where you are. It could be excellent for some people and useless for others. (There are commercially available loop antennas that can boost MW performance.) FM reception gets more stations, but among all the FM radios I've tested, this one gets the fewest (26) in my area. It's not that it doesn't get stations -- it does; it's just that other radios get more. The radio only receives the 75m - 13m international shortwave radio bands. It is not a "general coverage" receiver because it skips a lot of the frequency spectrum. You won't get ham radio, for example (except see below). This is a single-conversion superheterodyne analog radio with a frequency counter display. That means the radio has images on the shortwave bands. It receives stations on their own frequencies and on one or two other places. This can be confusing if you're trying to figure out what a station is by looking at frequency readout. But even though the radio doesn't cover ham radio bands, you can receive IMAGES of some of those transmissions (but you couldn't understand them because they're in single sideband and this radio can't decode SSB). Shortwave is a very hard thing to rate because on any given Sunday, a crummy radio can receive a great station. I'd put this radio in the middle of the pack on the low price end of the products available on shortwave. Let's face it, this radio is old technology, and new digital signal processing (DSP) radios can run rings around ones like this at the same or lower prices. With all that said, this is a radio I sometimes like to take to bed with me when I'm not worried about identifying stations by frequency or finding something distant or rare. The radio sounds good (no stereo on FM). And it has an alarm function and a sleep timer. And because it's analog, it tends to have a little less noise. It has an earphone jack and a gentle dial light. I give the manual that came with it an "A" grade. It also comes with a plush carrying pouch. YOUR problem is that I bought the next to the last one available on Amazon, and someone else bought the last one. So you can't get it on Amazon new today. But look around. If they want more than $25, it's not worth it.

This radio is absolute crap! Despite being digital the tune doesn't hold on the station. It tries to tune in on FM frequencies we don't use here in the US such as 95.6 and a half! If you tune in a station on FM then switch to AM and tune in a station then return to FM, your FM station is lost. It feels as if this is an old-fashioned mechanically tuned radio with a pretty digital face. Finally, the on/off switch doesn't work so the only way to turn it off is to remove the batteries.