Cheap Shortwave Receivers

Inexpensive shortwave receivers

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In my opinion, one can never own too many cheap shortwave receivers. On this page, I'll post links to some. None of these will be stellar performers, but most will do an adequate job of receiving the major international broadcasters, and usually contain quite good AM and FM receivers as well.

This is a reasonably good shortwave receiver, which is suitable for listening to strong international broadcast stations. In addition, both AM and FM reception are reasonably good. Obviously, for $16, you're not going to get a communications quality receiver. But for the price, this is an excellent little receiver. 9 World Band AM/FM/Shortwave Radio with Digital Display

Here's another contender which is available from Amazon. This Coby with a traditional analog dial sells for about $11:

This one is eligible for free shipping, if part of an order over $25. To round out the shipping, I would recommend buying some other items that you're going to buy anyway (such as batteries, perhaps). I have a number of such items listed at this page.

Tecsun PL-600

If you are looking for a very inexpensive radio with the ability to tune single sideband (SSB) or CW (Morse code), then the cheapest contender appears to be the Tecsun PL-600, which is available from Amazon for about $67, which includes free shipping.

Judging from the reviews I've read, this appears to be an excellent receiver for the price. Even though it does not have a true product detector, the BFO appears to be set up quite well for SSB reception. The fact that it does have both a tuning knob and a BFO adjustment means that it can tune in SSB signals, even if the carrier frequency is not on an exact kHz. Also, the fact that the BFO knob has a center detent makes it easier to tune it either USB or LSB signals.

With a simple audio cable running from the headphone jack to a computer sound card, and readily available free software, it would be quite easy to use this receiver for tuning digital signals, such as RTTY or PSK-31.

World Band Shortwave Radio Kit

Shortwave receivers, as with most electronics, are so cheap these days that it generally doesn't save you any money to build your own. But if you do want to build a relatively simple receiver that performs very well, then building a regenerative receiver is a fun project, and is relatively inexpensive.

MFJ's shortwave radio kit is within the capabilities of beginners, and covers most of the international broadcast bands and amateur bands. While getting the regeneration control set properly takes a little bit of practice, this receiver will receive SSB signals.

At $85, you won't save money over some of the inexpensive receivers shown here. But if you want a fun project that you can put together in a couple of evenings, you really can't go wrong with this receiver.