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Reviews For: Realistic DX 302 communication receiver

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Realistic DX 302 communication receiver
Reviews: 3MSRP: $400.00
Description:
Realistic general coverage communication receiver using the Wadley loop method for stability.
Product is in production
More Info: http://
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
0034.3
WB9GKZ Rating: 2014-11-25
Nice Retro Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Interesting and fun to operate receiver from a by-gone era. Mine arrived in original and very dirty condition. It cleaned up easily. Cleaned the pots. It came to life, rewarding me with some good listening. Sensitive, even up on 10 Meters. Stable enough to copy SSB with a little touch-up on the BFO from time to time.

Surprised to see the quality of build when I got into the radio to install the audio mods. Restored the low-end audio response after looking over the common Internet mods. The original IF filters were also changed out. I like wide. I like fidelity, even on SSB. So, I installed a 6 KHz for Narrow and a 12 KHz for Wide. SSB sounds nice now and AM really shines in Full Fidelity, even from the built-in speaker. IF filters are 455 KHz and commonly available for just a few dollars from eBay sellers.

So, I never though I would enjoy a "Realistic" Rad Shack radio, but I do. It's a nice little package that works well for casual listening.
N3HAM Rating: 2010-10-22
It threw me for a Wadley Loop Time Owned: more than 12 months.
Got it back in '87 used off a co-worker when I wanted to get back into swl'ing.It was a first for me with it's sensitivity, selectivity and digital readout. Listening to hams on it brought back the desire to finally get my ticket. It has a honored place in my shack.
KA8DLL Rating: 2009-07-19
Realistic DX 302 Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
This is a pretty good ham band reciever. It is stable after about 15 minutes. Selectivity seems to be about 4 kz for the wide position and 2.5 kz for the narrow position. This is good for SSB reception but is rather narrow for AM broadcast stations. The problems with this reciever are mostly controllable with the front panel controls. It's been well known the problem areas are, the pinched audio reception, compromised AGC time constant, the Wadley loop and a gnerally high noise floor (noise without a signal being present.)
This radio has enough gain to keep the RF gain control at 7 most of the time, this really helps out with the noise. The attenuater control can be necassary on the 80-40 ham bands. If you don't get anything else out of this review it's absolutely necassary to have an outboard speaker. The internal speaker makes the sound distored and muffled.I found that a cheap CB speaker tuned for voice reception worked best. The Wadley looop shows up as a problem on the AM broadcast band. This can be seen in several areas because the preselector has to be constantly adjusted throughout the tuning range on the AM broadcast band. If misadjusted or if the signal strength is too high phantom signals are introduced in the wrong places. So the end result is a program listening radio on the broadcast band and not a DX machine.
This radio cost me $10.00 to buy because it looked so bad. It had a gluey like substance on the top, yellow/brown nicotine everywhere, and rust on the rear chasis. The gluey like substance cleaned up completly with soap and water. The brown nicotine cleaned up completly with repeated applications of Windex. The rust on the chasis was removed with "The Must For Rust", rust remover and inhibitor. This radio went from a 4 out 10 to approximately 8.5 out of 10 with a couple hours work. I did change the power cord for safety concerns.
This a fairly common on ebay. Selling for in the neighborhood of $125.00. It's as sensitive as my Panasonic RF-4900 and more selective in the narrow position. The audio is not quite as good. It is generally well made and still looks modern.This radio was made around 1980 and still can hold it's own in around the $100.00 value. It is a nice looking shortwave receiver but there are better AM broadcast radios out there.