Monday, April 04, 2011

Bush "walker" pocket DAB+ receiver

Bush frontI'm enthusiastic about the DAB+ digital radio system but the receivers still disappoint. Bad user interface, high power consumption and bugs (I'm looking at you Sangean...).

This radio works pretty well, battery life is said to be ten hours, which is terrible compared to my old Sony pocket analog receiver, but good compared to any other DAB+ radio I've tried.

Naturally the headphone cord is used as the antenna and despite the signal strength meter showing full strength I get decode interruptions around the house. Perhaps this is due to interference rather than low signal.

Stations are shown in alphabetical order rather than frequency so sometimes stations you'd expect to be grouped end up far apart. There's a nifty "favourites" feature that lets you skip around your favourite stations

I purchased the Bush Walker BPR07DAB - Handheld DAB+ Radio through the Telstra Bigpond online store for $79, which seemed like a good price as the radio is advertised at $100 or more elsewhere. Delivery seemed a bit steep, at $9.95 but when the box arrived I could see why:

Bush box 2

Amusingly the little radio in its packaging was simply rattling around inside the large box without padding, very strange.

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