Shinwa SR2001

Anyone remember these radios? They came on big with a big price backed by International Crystal along with a pager and handheld line. Then they went quiet and sold out the inventory for a fraction of the cost of the original price. The official reason was the cell phone blocking which shouldn't have been a problem in revised firmware. They were supposed to be capable of computer control with an optional interface that never materialized in the states. The explanation was that the the FCC had failed to certify the interface and wouldn't be imported.



We bought a few of them for the shop when they cleared them out. Way ahead of it's time and looked like single DIN space car stereo/CD with a snazzy looking, colorful, VF display and covered from 25mhz-1ghz IIRC. The front panel had a bunch of buttons across the bottom edge that were user programmable. Problem with the radio was if you didn't have the IR remote to program the radio and the buttons, you were dead in the water. They didn't fare too well on an external antenna either, they just howled with intermod. As fancy as the radio was, the front end had a few switched in bandpass filters for the entire range and had no selectivity to speak of.



International spun off their Shinwa operation shortly around the same time.