Updated 23 september 2010
On Monday, August 23, I could test on FM, for about one hour, the very ultralight Insignia NS-HD01 HD Radio FM with RDS (28,88 dollars on eBay, refurbished). I went at Quercianella, a nice place south of Livorno (Tuscany), that is good for FM DXing. There was good tropo, perfect!
Insigna HD could get several station from Corsica island, Sardinia Island, Southern France and from the other side of Mediterranean Sea, Spain (700-1200 km far).
I didn’t use any external antenna, as I usually do. But only the headphone cord moving it with the hands. So on 96.9 MHz I could listen 2 different Spanish stations ! I was really surprised because both got into my ear with good audio and I could hear clear ids. DSP is great!
I could listen also to Onda Regional Murcia, 1160 km, with good audio even if propagation was fading in and out and the signal was going up and down.
96.90 Kiss FM, Monte Picayo, Valencia, Spain, (980 km)
96.90 SER Barcelona, Tibidabo, Catalunya, Spain (713 km)
105.30 Onda Regional Murcia, Sierra de Carrascoy, Murcia, Spain (1160 km)
The problem of Insigna is that it is made for the USA market, it has only 200 kHz steps. In Europe we need at least a 100 kHz step FM receiver. So I could tune as with the Tecsun PL-390:
102.00 COPE, Barcelona / Torre de Collserola, Catalunya (713 km).
Does anybody knows if it is possible to change the step of Insignia NS-HD01 ?
This only FM receiver is very small, as you can see in the picture above, but has a great audio. It can receive also digital FM broadcasting in the American standard system. the Insignia NS-HD01 shows a good selectivity too. I think it is due to the DSP tecnology.
I'll study how to add an external antenna, maybe with an audio splitter. Just for fun, but it can work well also in "emergency DXing".
---
Here two photo by Claudio Re. You can see what you find inside this Insignia receiver. Don't try to do it by yourself! The tuner is a Samsung one. As the DSP module.
