Sangean ATS-405 FM-Stereo/AM/Short Wave World Band Receiver, Silver

Excellent portable radio for travel. Solidly built, nice silver finish, buttons are spaced well and the battery compartment is easy to open. The sound is good on AM and FM. I don't use SW much because I can't get a lot of stations. I like that it takes rechargeable AA size NiMH batteries instead of the flat Lithium batteries that always seem to swell after a year. It is very easy to set alarm and back light is light color with black letters., not the weird orange or yellow color like other radios. The case is an very nice and it fits well in my total size is about 7-1/2" long and 4-1/2" high. Great tuning buttons. I love it better than any other portable radio I have ever owned.

Great reception, sensible/intuitive controls/buttons - very happy with the purchase

I like the Sangean ATS-405, and my opinion of it has grown over time.CAUTION: The Amazon product description is wrong. It says: "Full Band Coverage from 150 kHz - 29999 kHz." There is no longwave coverage (150 kHz to 510 kHz) and shortwave tops out at 26100 kHz, not 29999. But it indeed does cover all 14 shortwave broadcast bands (not CB).It's an older model (it came out in 2015), but I picked it because it has some options not usually found on other radios: the ability to set the squelch level and options for tuning mute and soft mute. These have proven unimportant, but other features have come to the front. It also has an automatic gain control (AGC) setting, an advanced feature valuable in receiving some signals that are rapidly changing in strength.One strong feature of the ATS-405 is the display. It is bright and easy to read in the dark (with the display light) as well as in full sun. The information on the display is just what you need, and in particular it tells you the setting of the Local/DX switch (so you don't accidentally have it set to Local). The bandwidth setting is there along with the signal strength. A quick button press switches to the clock display.At first I was concerned that the radio had no tuning wheel, only up and down buttons. I've reversed my opinion. Radios like this use a digital signal processing (DSP) chip that tune only discrete channels. A tuning knob can be tricky to use with DSP radios, sometimes skipping a channel or not advancing; however, with a button press you're always assured you've incremented one channel. A long-press of one of the buttons tells the radio to scan for the next available station. The radio also has a fine tuning setting, allowing increments of 1 kHz rather than the usual 10 kHz spacing. Advanced users may use direct frequency entry rather than band scanning anyway.I've compared shortwave sensitivity with some of my other radios: Eton Elite Executive, Tecsun PL-660 and Tecsun PL-330. The Sangean is a bit less sensitive, but not by much. It's the best of the lot on MW.Other positives: Included AC adapter/charger, included case, two alarms (one buzzer and one radio) and dedicated display light button (top of radio). You can also set the display light to be always on or off after 10 or 20 seconds. Unlike many modern shortwave radios, the ATS-405 manual is well-written, informative and in good English. It uses and can recharge 4 AA batteries.Negatives: My unit had a small defect.; the BAND button is erratic, sometimes requiring multiple or extra firm presses. The audio quality is not the best among my similar-sized portables. The Automatic Tuning Storage of stations in memory is only available for FM and MW, and not for SW, and there are only 36 memory locations for each band. In many locations, one would run out of FM memory locations long before reaching the end of the band. Direct entry of a frequency requires two extra button presses in addition to the digits. It does not have an external antenna jack.My unit, and apparently most of them, has a birdie (internal interference) on 800 kHz and 1600 kHz, so I cannot listen to one local MW radio station at 800 kHz.The elephant in the room is the lack of single sideband (SSB) reception, making it useless for listening to Amateur Radio, utility broadcasts, and other non-broadcast radio services. It's a radio for local and international broadcast listening.Value? If I had $80 to spend on a radio today, I might look at something like the XHDATA D-808 or the Tecsun PL-330. Both are more modern radios and both have SSB. The PL-330 has an excellent Enhanced Tuning Mode (ETM+) to scan and store stations by time of day. The D-808 has RDS and Air band, plus a louder speaker. If I were trying to match features, I'd be more inclined towards something like the Radowow/Sihuadon R-108 in the $50 range.If you want an interesting radio, a stellar performer on MW and a radio that's easy on the eyes, then you might consider the Sangean ATS-405 I'm glad I have one.

My out of the box impressions of this Sangean DSP portable radio are that it looks nice and sounds great when receiving strong stations. The radio has a good weight and feel but its case is noticeably plastic. The radio's buttons are responsive with the exception of the tuning buttons. I found I had to press them repeatedly in order to tune however I'm hoping that problem will get better once they are broken in a bit. The radio's display is large and easy to read except when it's backlit and you are looking straight at it then it completely disappears. This was almost THE deal breaker for me until I understood that this radio's display is meant to be read with the radio propped up on its kickstand. I didn't find this radio to be particularly sensitive on AM during my daytime tuning experimentation. The radio was only able to hear 1 local AM station and on SW it couldn't hear or lock onto any stations. I expect this will improve during nighttime listening hours. The radio was able to hear a number of local FM stations and those came in crisp, clear, and natural sounding. I found the radio fairly easy to understand and program and I like that it gives you a choice of a 12hr or 24hr clock. As a plus, the radio comes with an A/C adapter and will charge rechargeable batteries inside the radio while the radio is plugged in and turned off. It also conveniently runs on alkaline batteries. In my opinion there are probably other under $100 radios that may offer equal or better value/$ than this radio but if you are looking for a sharp looking direct entry DSP portable radio with some interesting features to play with and you don't mind giving up a tuning knob this radio could be for you.UPDATE: With an external antenna clipped to the radio's telescoping antenna nighttime SW listening is greatly improved! The value/$ of this purchase just went up for me. I will be keeping this radio in my collection.UPDATE 3/23: After owning this radio for 2 years I am enthusiastically increasing my rating to 5 stars. This is a fun and rugged little radio. While there is a small learning curve to getting the most out of the ATS 405, it's well worth the effort. Of note, with no external antenna connected, I find the ATS 405's nighttime AM reception to be BETTER than the much more expensive Sangean ATS 909X2. 2 years on, the radio is still preforming like a champ and all of the buttons are working just fine. If you don't need SSB, save yourself a load of cash and pick up the ATS-405.