Trio 9R-59DS

[baza100]

Have the chance to buy Trio 9R-59DS Never had a receiver like this. What kind of channels and stations would i pick up on it? Are they any good?
Thanks barry

[Andrew2]

Hi Barry. The 59DS is a general coverage (500 kHz to 30 MHz) 'communications receiver' from the early 70's. It's an average performer of its type and price. It will receive AM, CW, USB and LSB transmissions but not FM. Shortwave isn't what it was in Ye Olde Days, with most of the big international broadcasters closing down over recent years. It covers the MW band, but that is also becoming somewhat empty! Conditions on the bands are pretty poor right now so signals tend to be weak.
Most utilities have moved from analogue speech to digital data too.
We also have a widespread noise problem from computers, VDSL, powerline communication devices etc, which can make life difficult.
Apart from that it's all good!
Bear in mind the receiver is over 40 years old now and may have stood unused for a long time, so you need to take care.

[G6Tanuki]

The 9R-59 is a typical-for-the-era 'budget' shortwave set: it's a bit better than some because it has a bandspread-facility for the amateur-bands, an [optional] glow-discharge stabiliser for the local-oscillator and a product-detector [necessary for SSB reception].

The 'broadcast' shortwave bands have seen a massive withdrawal of occupancy since the 9R-59 was designed: back then most nation-states had a significant SW broadcast-infrastructure [some for entertainment, lots more for propaganda-purposes like Radio Moscow and Radio Tirana]. These are all now extinct - apart from China the 'shortwave broadcast' realm is generally left to quirky - but often entertaining - religious stations.

Hams still use the SW bands extensively - though the last couple of sunspot-cycles have been rather unimpressive so 'long haul' DX on 14/21/28MHz has been a bit lacking.

There again, the 9R-59 has rather poor image-rejection above 15MHz so that's notso much of an issue.

The 9R-59 _was_ sought-after as a Medium-Wave-DXer's radio in the 70s and 80s - it has good IF filtering so was good for winkling-out US broadcasters in MW from amongst the likes of BBC Radio Leicestershire. The 'good' filtering did mean that listening to local stations suffered from treble-cut though - it's not really a radio designed for listening to music!

These days there's not much worth listening to on medium-wave...

I tend to view the 9R-59 as a period-piece: it's good as an introduction to ham-band shortwave listening but its use for broadcast-band entertainment-listening is now distictly limited.

[Radio Wrangler]

Several people on here have them.

I'd describe them as OK, but not wonderful. They were designed as a receiver for beginners at shortwave listening who would have liked something better, but couldn't afford it. The Trio corporation knew their market. To save a little on price, the HT feed to the local oscillator was not regulated, and this led to them drifting somewhat, but they had a hole in the chassis ready for a voltage regulator tube to be added by the user!

Frequency coverage is up to 30MHz. What you can hear is set by the condition of the ionosphere, and as the sunspot numbers are coming up, conditions are starting to become good again.

In this range, there are still some shortwave broadcasters on the go, though China seems dominant nowadays. There are plenty of amateurs to listen to, but they tend to either have short 'rubber stamp' contacts, just exchanging signal reports and moving onto the next, OR they have very long rambling contacts, mostly about recent surgery There is some transatlantic aircraft traffic, but these contacts are very brief usually.

It isn't a scanner, it doesn't do channels, the tuning is completely free and analogue. Some people add an output for an external frequency counter so they can see accurately where they are.

So, they were an awful lot of fun in an affordable box. They worked. There were cheaper shortwave receivers back in the day on the new market, but they were essentially garbage. The 9R-59DS was the first rung on the ladder worth having.

Back in the day, their real competitors were government surplus jobs like the HRO, CR100 and AR88 in terms of facilities and cost, but they were a lot more solidly built. It depended on what your mother would tolerate in the house. I was lucky and got away with an AR88.

At the moment there is a Marconi CR100 and a Racal RA17 on sale in the forum. Both might need some work to get them going reliably, but then so might a 9R-59DS.

The Racal is a much more sophisticated receiver and some people find intimidating.

The 9R-59DS is still a good starter set.

David

Edit: I'd add that all these things are now fully depreciated, so that as long as you don't pay over the going rate for the set and condition, if you don't get on with it you can likely sell it for what you paid.

I'm a slow typist (especially while cooking), but at least we all seem to be agreeing!

[baza100]

thanks he wanting £100 for it with original box and speaker. I will have a think about it. Thanks for the replies.

[Junk Box Nick]

Echo much of what David has said. This was my era getting into amateur radio and if you want to have a bit of fun around short wave and the ham bands it is a useful set.

The 9R59DS/DE was the first rung of ‘in production’ receivers for serious listening on the ham bands. The bandspread gave you a good guide to the frequency to which you were tuned, whereas with the cheaper general coverage sets that were available new were usually a four valve format and tuning to ham signals was a challenge as a whole band might only occupy a few degrees or a cm on a 180 degree dial, and made worse by a crude ‘BFO’ arrangement to resolve CW and SSB, and drift and deafness both of which could be increasingly poor at higher frequencies.

IIRC the 9R-59DS/DE cost double that of a four-valve general coverage set but you got double the number of valves! The receiver that perhaps sat between the 9R-59 and the cheapies was the Codar CR70A which had a slide rule display, an S meter and a couple of extra panel adjustments but no bandspread. The next step up in the Trio family was was the JR-310 which was a dedicated double conversion amateur bands only receiver designed to be used with a matching transmitter.

To get the entry prices down Trio had a habit of selling sets of a basic spec with the facility to add extra features so it is worth checking out the spec of the set on offer.

As others have mentioned, the SW band conditions are generally poor – sometimes there’s barely a ham signal to be heard on 14MHz on dedicated kit – and the broadcast bands are largely vacated; however, if you want to have a bit of fun on the short wave spectrum a 9R-59DS is sophisticated enough without the complexity of a Racal RA17 or a Yaesu FRG-7.

[raditechman]

If you wait and the radio rallies start again you might get one at a rally for £30-£50
There are still a lot of these receivers about as they were popular in their day.

John

[Radio Wrangler]

Through loss of premises, our local club has been having to reduce the amount of equipment we have. We'd acquired two 9R-59DSs over the years. A couple of members also had one each stowed away from their beginning days. There are plenty of them around.

If not in a rush, wait for the radio rallies.

There are other sets worth considering: Trio/Kenwood R600 and R1000 as well as the Yaesu FRG-7 and FRG7700 are common sets. If you're just interested in listening around the issue of transistors versus valves isn't of any importance. All sorts of things could turn up. People have had a year and a half stuck at home, tidying things up, so all sorts of gear is likely to appear once the rallies resume.

Some of the older heavier ex-military sets can go very cheaply at the end of the day when stall holders just don't fancy lugging the heavy items back to their car.

David