XHDATA Portable Multiband Radio
D-328 Overview
Clearly, this big draw for this radio is it’s price. It lists for around $16 dollars and with coupons, you can get it for about $14 dollars.
While I’m a frugal person, there does come a point where you ask yourself whether the product has a great price and is therefore and great value or whether it’s a piece of junk regardless of the price.
We’ll I’ve been playing around with this model D328 and have come to the conclusion that it’s a good value for the price. What that means to me is that the product may not be as good as a similar $100 product; it does function as advertised and does what it claims to do.
D-328 Key Features
Let’s do a quick review of key features and then take a look at the D328.
First, despite the analog looking display which originally caught my eye, this is a digital radio. The big red DSP on the package means digital signal processor. In a nutshell, that means that the analog radio signals are converted into a digital data stream by an analog to digital converter. That electronic device samples the signal and builds a digital representation of the signal and passes it along to the DSP. Higher sample rates result in higher fidelity.
So, the big display on the front of the radio is essentially a simulation of older analog tuners. Regardless, I think it’s a cool display.
In terms of frequency bands, the D328 has two FM bands and the AM band covers 520 to 1620 Kilohertz. The two FM bands are divided to allow users to select the FM frequency range used in their country. In the US we’d use FM band number 1.
What makes this radio good for a bug out bag is its short wave coverage. It covers 4750 through 22000 megahertz. That’s about the 75 through 15 meter bands.
The D-328 uses a lithium battery. This helps keep the case thin as the battery is a flat “cell phone style” battery. It charges in the radio.
D-328 Operation
If you’re thinking about listening to ham operators in the short wave bands, this radio won’t work them very well. Hams use single sideband modes that this radio doesn’t receive. However, short wave broadcast stations normally use AM signals that the D 328 easily picks up.
The short wave bands have been tough to work the past several years due to low sunspot activity that provides the ionization that allows long distance radio wave travel at these frequencies. Additionally, many broadcasters direct their signals to specific areas so those can be hard to pick up outside those areas even with expensive receivers.
I like to use a shortwave broadcast schedule app on my smartphone to help identify who’s broadcasting at a particular time and frequency. There are several in your app store. I use Skywave Schedules.
Closing
All in all, the XHDATA D328 radio is a good radio for the price. It has good band coverage and reasonable sound quality for such a small, inexpensive radio. It would be a great choice for your bug out bag or camping radio.
