Please note that a different version of this radio may be available in
the U.S..
Digitech AR-1946 World Band Radio Review
This radio seems to have something for everyone whether you live in the
city or in a wide open space.
The AR-1946 is feature packed and a good value for money radio.
When I unpacked the radio I got a shock at the size, they don’t make big
portable radio sets like this any longer, the last set I saw of this
size was the now discontinued CC SW radio.
Most buttons are on the front of the radio and are both big and well
spaced, the user should have no trouble identifying the numeric keypad
for example or the 5 band control buttons spaced in a row below the
rather large display.
A host of connections are provided and most are on the right hand side,
line-out, line-in, headphones and power above a jog thumb wheel for fine
tuning.
At the rear of the unit are another panel of connections for external
aerials and a switch to disconnect the sets telescopic whip.
The radio can run from the DC input jack or 4 D cell batteries, adapters
are supplied to convert D size to AA, rechargeable batteries can be used
however I’m not sure about the reliability of the internal battery charger.
The radio comes supplied with a 6 V DC mains adapter which I found to be
free of any mains noise, just perfect for a radio like this.
So down to the nitty gritty.
I’m pleased to report that performance of this radio – considering it’s
a budget set at $229 Australian – is very good indeed, AM performance is
above average, FM performance is very good but then again no surprise
given how good a lot of the modern-day FM sets are and Short Wave
performance is excellent, if you’ve ever used an Eton Satellit then
you’ll know how good the Short Wave performance is on that hand held
beauty? Well the Digitech AR-1946 exhibit’s similar performance.
Surprisingly the Medium-Wave broadcast band doesn’t show any signs of
overloading due to strong signals, it’s very rare these days to find a
radio with good image rejection for a value price.
I’m glad to say that the preset system is incredibly easy to manage, the
AR-1946 gives you 10 pages of 10 presets per band – except for the DAB+
band which I’ll talk about a little later – and navigating through pages
of presets is a piece of cake, press the page button – to the right of
the 0 on the numeric keypad and enter a number from 0 through 9 for the
page – the radio takes you to that page where 10 presets are available.
To store a preset simply tune to the station and hold down the number on
the keypad for 3 seconds and to recall a preset just press the
appropriate number on the keypad.
Entering frequency’s to tune to is likewise a simple task, press the
Frequency button – to the left of the 0 on the keypad – and enter the
frequency, in most cases the Radio will automatically tune to that
frequency instantly but in some cases you’ll need to press the “Enter”
key, that’s the frequency key.
The radio has the usual tuning knob and up/down tuning buttons. Step
size can be controlled for the knob or the knob can be locked though the
lock doesn’t work in the DAB+ band.
DAB+
I’ve devoted a separate section to DAB+ as some of the buttons and
functions here work differently.
When the radio is first switched to the DAB+ band the radio performs a
scan which takes around 60-90 seconds.
I found the radio to be not as sensitive as a lot of other DAB+ radios I
have here so I had to do a manual scan twice before the radio was able
to receive the full complement of DAB+ stations.
I’m not surprised at the lack of sensitivity for the DAB+ band given the
length of the internal telescopic whip, whilst it might be a nice thick
whip its only 20CM long and I should think you’d want twice that length
for a reasonable DAB+ antenna.
All is not lost, I hooked up an external Telescopic whip to the F
connector on the radio, this whip is 90CM in length so I collapsed a few
sections, switched the radio to external antenna mode and then DAB+
reception was quite reasonable.
The DAB+ band provides 20 presets, 2 pages of 10 which is more than
ample I feel for a dab radio.
The user can move between the stations in the list by using the up/down
buttons or the tuning knob which brings me to an annoyance I have with
this set.
The tuning knob cannot be locked whilst in the DAB+ band and is easily
knocked so if the set suddenly mutes for a couple of seconds and the
sound you then hear is not what you expected then it’s likely you’ve
knocked the tuning knob thus moved to another DAB+ station.
The volume level of DAB+ isn’t loud on this radio but certainly good
enough for personal listening.
Notes
The radio has both bass and treble adjustments which can be adjusted by
pressing the “Tone” button and to cycle through the adjustments and
using the Fine Tuning wheel to adjust, both adjustments offer quite a
bit of different to the upper and lower end though the speaker itself is
a little muddy at the top frequency range though still quite enjoyable
to listen to.
In AM mode the radio offers a choice of band widths from 1 to 6KHZ so
the AR-1946 can sound quite nice when listening to music stations on the
AM band.
The AR-1946 covers all frequencies on AM from 150-29999KHZ but doesn’t
have a SSB function.
Pressing the Short Wave band button cycles through 14 short wave bands,
when tuning with the tuning knob the radio beeps – when moving in and
out of bands and double-beeps when wrapping from the end to the start of
a band in the case of the Medium and Long-wave bands.
Many buttons on the radio perform more than one function, for example
when the power is turned off and the number 5 key held down the audio
beeps of the radio are disabled, when the 5 key is held down again the
beeps are toggled back on.
When the power is off and the FM band button held a screen comes up to
allow you to change the lower end of the FM band which can be lowered
all the way down to 64MHZ.
The radio has two alarms which can wake you to either Radio or Buzzer,
both these alarms can be set via the numberpad.
The clock can be set the same way though – if you tune to a FM station
with RDS – the clock will set itself automatically.
Unfortunately the line-out facility on this radio doesn’t have a
constant level, the level changes when you raise and lower the volume
via the volume up/down buttons so the speaker when using line-out cannot
be muted as turning down the volume reduces the line-out level.
The only way around this is to plug a headset or a dummy plug into the
headphones jack to mute the speaker.
So would I recommend this radio? Yes I certainly would.
I’ve outlined my annoyances with the AR-1946 but to me they’re not a
deal breaker.
I like the way the radio performs and all those hidden features and
functions available when buttons are held down.
The AR-1946 isn’t a stela performer but for $229 you do get a feature
packed box.
The AR-1946 is available from Jaycar in Australia and the U.K.
--
**********
“Oh, I’m an activist and I’m OK / I sleep all night and I tweet all day.”
