SONY ICF-EX5MK2, A FULLY JAPANESE RADIO.

   EX5 was tested in Thessaloniki, north Greece, in an apartment of the city center, an enviroment full of RF noice. At 3-5 am in the night, the Medium Wave landscape here is different than in Athens. Not so strong signals from Arab stations are present, thus, directing the radio from the east to the west you receive easily, many programmes from Italy, Germany, France, and Spain.

   First impression was that EX5 is very quite and it has got a very acurate tuning knob. One moves the old fashion needle up and down on the dial, steadily, even with small increments. Nowdays, being acustomed in the use of digital radios with tuning steps of 1 KHz or 9 KHz, you find the lost feeling of operating an analog radio. As this device is targeted only to the Japanese market, the big display is full of Japanese and Latin characters. I wonder how it would have looked, with Greek letters and names of radios around Mediterranean.

   The sound of the speaker is very clear and crispy, so you can easily copy the spoken word even from weak signals. Same response from headphones or bud ears (mono to stereo adaptor needed). EX5 favors upper audio frequencies, it has not the bass style of the Sangeans. One can reduse this effect with a switch that cuts the higher part of the audio spectrum. Of course, the perception of sound lies in the field of personal taste, but I think that the Sony engineers worked on it, on purpose. So, older people can listen to the received program with no effort. Listening to Latin music or Greek rebetika songs, I found its sound pleasant.

   Sensitivity is equal or a little better if compared to other sensitive radios. Selectivity is okay and the synchronous detector helps a lot when side band interference from strong locals is present. Major drawback the presense of whistles across the MW band and an annoying chaff noice when one turns the radio on.

    In FM, it covers Japanese band from 76 - 108 MHz, so in this country, the lower half of the band is empty.

   One more point to add. EX5 receives six separate, fixed shortwave frequencies of Japan's broadcaster NIKKEI, using crystals - no tuning allowed. One of them 9760 KHz, is used by Cyprus B.C. (PIK). It is nice to listen to your favorite program without tuning... Jap speaks Greek.

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