Commuting is a pain. Luckily, nearly every car has some sort of radio or other audio player to while away the hours stuck in traffic. However, most of those radios sport AM and FM bands, along with a weather band and–maybe–a long wave band. What if you prefer shortwave?
[Thomas] posted a review of the BST-1, a car-friendly shortwave receiver. The device is made to mount out of sight–presumably near an external antenna. It beams the shortwave signal to the car’s FM radio. The control is a small key fob and even if you aren’t interested in the radio itself, the user interface design is somewhat interesting.
A single press on one of the two fob buttons produces a common action. If you press and hold the button, however, you’ll hear a beep. Keep holding it and you’ll hear two beeps. This continues until you get four beeps. When you let go after a sequence of beeps, you perform a different function. For example, letting go of the bottom button after two beeps toggles between preset and tune mode, while releasing after three beeps toggles the receiver bandwidth between 3 kHz and 5 kHz.
You can see a video about the BST-1, below. The review draws the conclusion that the BST-1 is not a serious receiver for weak signal work, but it is a lot of fun for its intended purpose.
The receiver doesn’t handle sideband; it is AM-only. If you think shortwave is boring, maybe you’ll find some espionage activity lurking around.
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