![]() Here in Europe the Grundig is more sensitive and that means listening to shortwave after dark has to be with the telescopic whip fully collapsed. In all, that’s what you can do with the Sony ICF-SW-40. We got 31 hours listening from a fresh set of alkaline batteries. The radio is made in Taiwan… the first time to our knowledge that Sony has made a world-band portable radio in the Republic of China. The radio has a buzzer if don’t select a station to wake you, and you can also set the radio to switch itself off after 60, 30 or 15 minutes… the so-called sleep function which is a nightmare for any broadcaster. We set the radio to automatically give world-news headlines for two minutes from a shortwave station, followed by weather from a local station. The dial can be lit so you can see it in the dark and it stays on for another 15 seconds after the last operation. The radio has a built-in timer which can be used to wake you up at two different times with up to two favourite stations. The radio makes a slight chuffing sound as it moves in 1 kHz steps, so you can also count the channels if you want. She reports that if you use the memories to store marker stations with known frequencies, the radio is usable even if you can’t see the frequency display. We gave the radio to a blind person to evaluate. The same tuning knob is used to scan through the 20 memory positions. ![]() When you hit a signal you want to store, you press and hold one button, and the desired station is put into the next available memory position. The radio offers 20 memories that you can store from any waveband. You can also repeatedly press the SW band button which skips you to the start of each shortwave broadcast band. That’s useful if you have to skip from one end of the SW dial to another. The tuning control is smooth and we noted that if you turn the tuning knob quite fast, the tuning steps widen automatically. Note that the radio doesn’t tune above 1620 kHz, so the new extended band in the USA can’t be received. To switch to this raster you simply keep the mediumwave longwave button depressed and the radio beeps when its changed to 10 kHz. If you live in the Americas or the Caribbean, then you will need to switch to a 10 kHz spacing. On long and mediumwave, from 150 – 285 and 530 -1620 kHz the steps are 1 kHz on the fine setting, 9 kHz on the normal setting. On FM stereo from 76 to 108 MHz, that means steps of either 100 or 50 kHz. The radio has a thumb-operated slider switch to select normal or fine tuning. You can check the time when the radio is on thanks to a toggle button on the front panel. When the radio is switched off it shows the time, when the radio is on, it shows the frequency to the nearest 1 kHz. Above the point and dial representation is a standard digital readout. But in this case, the analogue readout is just a rough indication. ![]() Normally, that would make any fine tuning impossible. The dial scale on the new ICF-SW40 covers 3.95 to 26.1 MHz in just four centimetres. But this new radio has much better performance and a wider coverage. This isn’t the first time Sony has done this… there was the ICF-7600DA produced in the mid-80s with the same idea. Sony has therefore made a special liquid crystal display where the dial pointer is in fact a line on an LCD display instead of a mechanical pointer connected to a pulley system using a chord. ![]() The Sony ICF-SW40 is going to appeal to those people who want the convenience of digital frequency readout to the nearest 1 kHz and yet still find analogue tuning with a point and dial easier to grasp than keypads. In Europe at least, an AC power supply is not included in the purchase price. The radio comes with a nylon carrying-pouch, and a sheet about shortwave receiving techniques. It measures 170 by 105 by 35 mm, and it weighs in at 415 grams including three penlight batteries that fit neatly into the back. They are designed only for broadcast band listening neither has SSB for listening to maritime communications or radio amateurs. Both are designed for the discerning traveller interested in more than average performance but also not too keen on spending vast sums for minaturisation. The ICF-SW40 is a “paperback book” portable, slightly smaller and lighter than its direct competition in Europe, the Grundig YB-360. Power: 4.5 v DC (3 AA batteries), AC adaptor optional ![]()
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