The AR1747 is hard on its D batteries, so may have been handicapped. On the first tests with my long wire antenna, the AR1733 had a fairly clear signal, beat the old AR1747 and the AR1780 was the best.
#DIGITECH AR 1747 USER MANUAL MANUAL#
The old AR1747 also had a Crane equivalent, and this was helpful as Crane’s manual was much better! This radio looks identical to the Skywave many of you mention. Until I gave it away, I also had a Jaycar AR1733 and it also skipped they all probably share a common chip and skip the same frequencies although I haven’t checked closely. I can usually get 15000 subject to propagation at any time. Sure listening to the time isn’t as fun, but it serves a purpose when comparing radios side by side. Until I start to find some reliable interesting stations (I’ve picked up some Radio NZ Int and BBC World Service), I’m doing a fair bit of listening to WWVH in Hawaii. The AR1780 lets you type in the frequencies it skips, it just won’t scan them. Other than that, I think it’s a great radio so far.
Whether it’s a design feature, or a fault, I don’t know. They also skip from about 26100 and restart at 2300kHz. I also have an old Jaycar AR1747 and it also skips when scanning. For example it seems to jump from about 9400kHz to 11000kHz. Reception here is quite limited and that’s how I discovered the first quirk: when it scans at SW frequencies it skips. Every now and then, I try to fix it, but no luck… In the 1990s, I used a Panasonic RF-B45 and it was rock solid until it died a few years ago. I quite like it although it has quirks I wish it didn’t have. My history is that I trained as a marine radio operator in the early 1980s, but worked in commercial IT so no real radio theory and I only just started listening to SW again since being a volunteer in the South Pacific in the mid 1990s. In the last 10 or so days, I’ve got a 26m long wire hanging fairly reliably on a N-S bearing. I’ve been using in Australia (southern Tasmania) for about 5 weeks. Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Morton, who comments with assessment of the Digitech AR-1780: