Have just been through a similar exercise.

I bought a radio from Jaycar about 12 months ago, shortwave/AM/FM, not bad but quite large, a few weeks ago after quite a bit of research I bought one of these from Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1/188-0564628-4117526?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=sony%20icf-sw7600gr&sprefix=sony+icf%2Caps&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Asony%20icf-sw7600gr

Seems to do quite a good job, it's quite a small unit, approx 180 x 112mm, tuning is by push button and takes a bit of getting used to, once you get right out in the sticks most radio's struggle a bit and benefit from an external antenna when operating on shortwave (Radio Australia etc) AM stations are best received at night, unless your close to a town/transmitter forget about FM.

Hope this is of some assistance.

I have a Tecsun PL-600 great little radio.

You never said what stations you are interested in hearing, this may help somewhat. Do you want to listen to standard AM broadcast stations or FM.
If it's the latter you might be pushing your luck a bit, you will definitely need a yagi and even then you may not get reception.

If it is AM you are after and have a portable radio already try this idea:

Get a roll of hookup wire (25 or 50m) from the likes of Jaycar, wrap a few turns of the wire around your radio and then run the rest out into a tree or other high support. This will improve your reception a lot.

woolman wrote:

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I have a Digitrech from Jaycar. Very good sound and reception. Runs on 240 or 6 d cell batteries. Was recomended by a electronics engineer friend and I now have to agree. He suggested to try out in store near computers and other electronic gear. If no interferrance then is good. Not many pass trhat test.

Is reasonably big though. 

 

Neil

 

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 This is the radio I referred to in my post, I agree, it is quite big and heavy, the six D cells account for quite a bit of the weight and are not exactly cheap to replace, the Sony I replaced it with is much more compact and runs on 4 AA's, the down side is batteries need charging/replacing more frequently.

As others have said Tecsun have quite good reviews as well,

I went with the Sony as reviews seem to favour it over others and it's made in Japan, most others are made in China. 

Yep.

http://www.abc.net.au/reception/radio

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/waystolisten/abc-radio-shortwave-frequency-guide.pdf

The last is for RA and if you flick through those you should be able to find a few you can hear.

If you had a receiver that had SSB receive capabilities or a BFO to resolve SSB, such as the Tecsun PL-600 I could give you a good range of frequencies for interesting services to listen to whilst travelling, such as the RFDS, 4WD Networks, Police and Customs. Police still use HF in remote regions.

Customs can be interesting they use a mix of comms. HF, VHF, UHF, Inmarsat and Iridium. They also have the largest HF network in Australia besides the military.
They have TX sites in: Port Hedland, Broome, Tullamarine, Lord Howe, Dampier, Carnarvon, Brisbane, Alice Springs and Townsville.