Yes,
last week I was finally able to install the unit in my car.Have
used
it in afternoon and evening operation and have a few comments.1)
Early
August in the northern hemisphere is a terrible time to test SW gear!
Band
conditions have been very unfavorable. 2) Connecting the unit to my
Toyota
Celica was no problem, but, I could not install in my
wife's
1998 Mazda without taking the entire dashboard out of the car.So,
I
couldn't test it with a modern digitally tuned receiver.3)
I found the
unit
has a number of excellent features: the AM/FM amplifier was very good,
improving
reception on those bands nicely; the scheme for identifying
frequencies
as ending in 0 or 5 kilohertz is very useful; the wired remote
control
makes tuning the 4 SW bands much easier; and, the coverage is
greater
than any other radio or converter.4)
The problems most consumers
will
find is RFI coming from various engine components and are not related
to
the capabilities of the converter.In
my article I will be discussing
ways
for readers to find and reduce RFI.I
found that, with the engine off
(and
band conditions half way decent) the converter tuned in a wide variety
of
SW stations with excellent results using just the 29" AM/FM antenna.
However,
when I turned on the engine only the strongest stations came
through
the RFI hash.With a serious attempt
at removing the sources of
the
RFI your converter is a great product.The
price (I believe you told
me
$140 plus $20 shipping) compares favorably with in-dash Sony
AM/FM/SW/Cassette
tuners available on the market which, I think tune less
frequencies,
though it is considerably more than other coverters.The
other
converters, however, don't have nearly the features of yours so it'll
be
up to consumers to weigh the features against the price.I
will be
returning
it to you as soon as I submit the aritcle to MT editors which
should
be in the next couple of days.I
know it seems like a long time to
hold
a unit for evaluation, but, it's typical of the pace at which magazine
writing
goes.Many thanks for your help,
without which this article would
have
been lacking.
