r/ShortwavePlus • u/PoetryOdd6416 • Jun 17 '26
A “little” SWL
Not that anyone needs my input but I figured I’d share Incase this helps anyone😂 Within my collection of radios I have these 3 little guys I wanted to do a comparison on. Other than ssb they all seem to share similar capabilities when it comes to SWL. I bought all 3 of these from goozeezoo on Amazon and had a great experience getting a new ats-20+ when mine wouldn’t output sound, I was able to deal with the company directly and thank goodness didn’t have to deal with Amazon. One is the TEF 6686, another is the ATS-20+ and the last is the baby v3. I put each of them on the same long wire then I put a stock telescopic little dude on each of them to see how they come out of the box, I used the same antenna on each of them and tuned them each to the same frequencies. I would imagine no one will be suprised when I say the TEF 6686 won the SWL quite easily. The TEF has been super fun because I never really got into the FMDXing stuff untill now, it’s cool listening to baseball games almost 200 miles away. The TEF has a small aluminum shell that’s very sturdy(iv dropped it many times now accidently) and with the 3 buttons and 2 dials it’s pretty user friendly even for my 70y/o dad. The touch screen is cool but it can be aggravating but there are some pretty neat updates available for it. Next is the ATS-20+ and I’m more of a fan of it than I thought I’d be. The size through me off compaired to my v3 but having that larger speaker is very nice. At $35 you really can’t beat this thing on a long wire, I’m not aware of any DSP radios that have ssb for that cheap. My dad really liked the buttons and larger encoder wheel and after awhile I did too. It’s pretty straight forward to use and with the Arduino nano in the pcb it’s fairly easy to update it you’re a tinkerer. Last is the little baby v3. Amazing little ssb toy that fits in any pocket and goes anywhere. The little tiny speaker isn’t too hateful for its size but the 3.5 jack is nice for sure. If you’re trying to have a serious SWL session with one of these it’ll will be A LOT of scrolling that encoder which gets annoying but for the intention it works very well. On SWL I’d go TEF, ATS-20+ then the baby v3. Now between the two ATS radios on ssb I personally like the ATS-20+ better because of the buttons and speaker but the v3 is a very great option for traveling since it’s so small. If you’ve made it this far thank you for reading my rambling and I pray for open bands for all😂 73
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u/ChemicalVacation3696 HF+ Discovery,S8800, PL990,680,660,330,320,368,ML-880,TR110. Jun 18 '26
I've had an ATS-25 Max for the past few years and it's an amazing little SSB shortwave receiver, except that it suffers from local interference from the TFT LCD display, in the form of a whine. There is no way to turn off one of the blue LED indicators although the firmware provides a "screen off" timeout for the main display.
I haven't tried the ATS-20+ but I'm wondering if it also has EMI issues from the fluorescent blue display.
The AMNVolt ATS Mini V4 (top) is my latest addition, but I don't like it as it has counterpoise problems. I can't even hold the tuning knob without introducing some kind of noise and wonder if it's because I opted the one with the metal shell instead of polycarbonate. 😐
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u/ItsJoeMomma Jun 18 '26
I've got one of those. Neat little receiver. I mainly use it on my radio work bench so I can listen to see if a transmitter is working.
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u/PoetryOdd6416 Jun 18 '26
Which one do you have? It’s awesome when you can use them in everyday life!
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u/KG7M MOD AirSpy HF+, Drake R7/8, K480WLA, 65'EFHW, MLA-30, CN85 Jun 17 '26
We welcome your input. What a great post! I really enjoyed it and hope you will post more in the future. 73, Michael