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Hi Gary,
Thanks for a superb article on the latest travel friendly portable
supercharging effort. Your supercharged XHData D-808 was very impressive at
Rockworks last month. Congrats on all of the great DX you nabbed over that 9
day period.
73 & Best of DX,
Craig Barnes
Wheat Ridge, CO
Sent from my iPhone
> On Sep 1, 2018, at 4:16 PM, Gary DeBock <d1028g...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> Hi Guy,
>
> Thanks for your comments on the article, which are greatly appreciated
> (especially with only the first 5 pages completed!). And yes, although this
> initial posting does include some background information on the D-808 and the
> construction project, it was mainly sent out so that interested DXers could
> order the construction parts in advance, and have them ready to go when the
> full article is wrapped up in about a week.
>
> <<< If I recall, weren't you also one of the initial USA purchasers of the
> D-808 as I was, for a bargain-basement price of ~$68 USD, shipped? A seller
> on Aliexpress.com was offering it for this price. Mine came promptly and was
> very well packed for transit from China. Not long after this, the phenomenal
> $68 price disappeared; hopefully the seller didn't "disappear" also :^( >>>
>
> Yes, I do recall your excellent initial review of the D-808 portable on the
> SWLing.com website back around January, which was around the time that the
> first D-808 models were showing up in Japan, and elsewhere. I attempted to
> order a D-808 from Aliexpress.com at that time, but was told that they didn't
> ship to the USA or Canada (although they did ship to Mexico, with the bargain
> $70 price-- which is apparently still the case). Lacking any friends in
> Mexico I made arrangements with long-term Ultralight fanatic Hiroyuki Okamura
> in Yokosuka, Japan, who shipped me a stock D-808 in exchange for a hot-rodded
> Skywave SSB model (an indication of my desperation to get my hands on a
> D-808). Of course immediately after that a new eBay seller showed up shipping
> the D-808 to the USA and Canada at the somewhat inflated price of $112.87
> plus $10 shipping-- who must now be nearing early retirement after selling 62
> models in 5 months.
>
> As far as I know, Guy, the very early D-808 supply route that you took
> advantage of closed down immediately, as XHDATA apparently never intended to
> sell the model openly in North America. You should consider yourself
> extremely lucky :-)
>
> Gary (in the crowded valley, with the enhanced State Fair traffic)
>
>
>> On September 1, 2018 at 1:25 PM Guy Atkins <d...@guyatkins.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Gary,
>>
>> This is another great write-up as usual! Thanks for taking the time to
>> document your hot rodding of the D-808.
>>
>> If I recall, weren't you also one of the initial USA purchasers of the
>> D-808 as I was, for a bargain-basement price of ~$68 USD, shipped? A seller
>> on Aliexpress.com was offering it for this price. Mine came promptly and was
>> very well packed for transit from China. Not long after this, the phenomenal
>> $68 price disappeared; hopefully the seller didn't "disappear" also :^(
>>
>> It was after this early, very low price was yanked that we started seeing
>> ridiculous offers on the D-808 ("just $75.00 + $500.00 shipping", etc.),
>> until the situation settled down to the current $112.87 + $10.00 shipping to
>> the USA.
>>
>> BTW, I don't know why but I've tried downloading your article more than
>> once, but only the first half of the article appears. It ends just after
>> entry "J" under Construction Parts.
>>
>> 73,
>>
>> Guy Atkins
>> Puyallup, WA
>>
>> On Sat, Sep 1, 2018 at 12:29 AM, Gary DeBock <d1028g...@comcast.net
>> mailto:d1028g...@comcast.net > wrote:
>>
>>>> The new XHDATA D-808 AM-LW-FM-SW-AIR portable has been a very pleasant
>>>> surprise among radios introduced this year. With good stock sensitivity on
>>>> the both the AM and FM bands, multiple DSP filtering choices and SSB
>>>> capability, the radio is a tremendous value for those living outside of
>>>> North America (at around $70).
>>>
>>> Because the Chinese-made model has obviously been "inspired"
>>> (to use a generous term) by the C.Crane Skywave SSB model (which was
>>> manufactured at the nearby Redsun factories in China), direct shipments of
>>> the D-808 from China to North American purchasers seem to have been
>>> forbidden by XHDAT.A, though. This is apparently to avoid a copyright
>>> lawsuit from C.Crane, whose Skywave SSB circuitry is quite closely
>>> duplicated in the D-808. A single eBay seller has devised a way to skirt
>>> around this restriction by shipping to North America through Israel,
>>> though-- ending up with a booming business by selling 62 models to the USA
>>> and Canada at the marked up price of $112.87 + $10 shipping.
>>>
>>> Despite its murky design pedigree, though, there is no doubt
>>> about the radio's excellent potential. It is controlled by the SiLabs
>>> Si4735 DSP chip, offering multiple DSP selectivity choices along with the
>>> SSB capability. If you have purchased the D-808 and are satisfied with its
>>> stock performance, that's wonderful. But if you would like to transform it
>>> into something like a dream travel portable, why not consider installation
>>> of a 7.5 inch Medium Wave or Longwave loopstick? Both of those models have
>>> been built here, and they are real thrillers. The 7.5" Medium Wave
>>> loopstick D-808 model was taken to the Rockwork ocean cliff in Oregon state
>>> recently, where it received the following signal from 1017-A3Z in Tonga (10
>>> kW at 5,632 miles/ 9,064 km) all by itself at 1301 UTC on August 8th. It is
>>> even picks up the 5 kW Australian horse racing station 2KY (in Sydney) as a
>>> weak co-channel in the middle of the recording
>>> https://dreamcrafts.box.com/s/tp3i89vky6p7hbylgkk
> 1bp4pa5nvnuk https://dreamcrafts.box.com/s/tp3i89vky6p7hbylgkk1bp4pa5nvnuk
>>> u
>>>
>>> For those who would like to construct one of these 7.5"
>>> loopstick D-808 models, a full construction article is being prepared. The
>>> article is complete through the introduction, background information on the
>>> model and the construction parts list, and the partial article up to that
>>> point is posted at
>>> http://www.mediafire.com/file/yc29lowg0do41d1/Supercharging_the_XHDATA_D_-_Copy.doc/file
>>>
>>> http://www.mediafire.com/file/yc29lowg0do41d1/Supercharging_the_XHDATA_D_-_Copy.doc/file
>>>
>>> The link is provided for those who wish to order the construction
>>> parts while the rest of the article is being wrapped up, which should be
>>> completed in about a week. Good luck to all who take the plunge!
>>>
>>>
>>> 73 and Good DX,
>>>
>>> Gary DeBock (in Puyallup, WA, USA)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>
>
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