EtonElite Executive AM/FM/Aircraft Band/SSB/Shortwave Radio

It's a great little radio. It's very small and would be really easy to take anywhere, to a game farm for a little entertaimnet when screens aren't an appealing thought. On a picnic, on a road trip or some other kind of small adventure. It has a great tuner, it has great features which help make it much easier to use, for instance it can scan for channels which makes it easier to find air band frequencies which are in use rather than having to scan manually, arrive at a frequency which is in use but not in use at the moment that you scan so there's nothing to hear and no way for an uninitiated listener to know that they are on the right channel so to speak. It has every feature one could want from aradio and then some. It has a sleep mode so if you're listening and you fall asleep the radio will turn itself off after a pre-determined amount of time (The one sleeping in this case is you, not the radio). A radio like this, which has a reciever that can tune into almost any frequency used for radio by people is a little window on a world that exists but is otherwise invisible. One can listen to CB or Ham radio and there are still people who broadcast tiny radio stations which exist only for a few hours a week. Hearing the converrsations between airline pilots is interesting too. There are things that happen way up above our heads, interactions between people up there, that we would otherwise be unaware of, and they're interesting. It's a great toy and an interesting and fun thing to have.It has a squelch feature, so that even when the radion signal is weak or subject to inteference the little radio can make it more audible and clearer to hear. It is genuinely a wonderful device, if you want to hear what humans, even ones who are quite far away, are putting into the world using radio waves, this thing is definitely on your side. It's unquestionable a tool you want to use for that purpose. It does chuff when it's tuned but it makes up for that by having an autotune feature (seek).The flaw? It's not that it's not a high fidelity device and that the speaker isn't a powerful speaker, which is something that's possible today but wasn't possible when this device was originally designed (Also it's quite charming and a little nostalgic that the speaker isn't the same thing that one might get in a bass boosted sound bar). The flaw is to do with the way batteries are dealt with by the little radio. It can charge batteries but very slowly, putting a couple of L-Ion rechargables in it would seem to be a good idea. But it seems that the radio chews through them even if it's plugged into the wall outlet. I've had to take the batteries out and put them into a charger a few times when I unplugged it from the wall and found that the batteries were dead. It isn't all that light on batteries and will flatten a set in two days or so from fully charged (Better batteries might last a little longer, the ones I've chosen are eveready which while reputable, well better batteries do exist), but if the charge circuiit isn't isolated and the charger doesn't keep up with the rate of consumption then the batteried will slowly run down even if the device is plugged into grid power.If you do get one and do take it on n adventure which will see you away from home for more than a few hours I'd say take a few extra batteries along so that you don't take the radio out to let it play music in the backgrouond and find that the batteries are dead.

An exceptionally good radio but if you don’t like button procedures, it might not be for you. It’s a bit complex and the manual isn't much help. That aside, reception & selectivity on all bands is outstanding, audio quality is good. I’ve picked up AM-MW & SW stations I never received on similar radios. The RDS display is informative and easy to read when the backlight is on. The backlight stays on for several seconds after adjusting any control. You can make it stay on (and even adjust brightness) but you need to switch it off manually afterwards. To turn the radio on you need to press the power button twice - once to wake the radio and once again to turn it on. The sleep timer is easy to use but the 4 alarms are tricky. They come in handy if you like to hear a radio program every weekday. I like the page memory feature as you can name pages with 8 alphabet characters and store 7 favorite frequencies on each page. I’ve got pages for FM Faves, FM Alt, SW Day, SW, Night, Local Air, etc.. It takes (4) AA batteries and I get maybe 25-ish hours using 2800m NIMh rechargeables. It also runs on its included AC adapter without batteries in place.Comparisons: Air band picks up slightly better than my little Sihuadon R-108 - maybe due to antenna length. I also had an XHdata D-808 that crackled loudly while tuning bands through headphones but the Eton doesn’t do that. Like similar radios, the sync feature is hit or miss - it sometimes helps and works best in narrow bandwidths. Band filters are 6,4,3,2.5 & 2K in AM and go down to 500H in SSB which works quite well. Audio is not as big/deep as Tecsun’s PL-880 but still nice. I’d recommend it over the D-808 - it’s a touch bigger, has a much better display and better audio.I’ve amassed a small collection of radios in the last year (thanks to Todderbert 😄 on YouTube). This one has become my favorite and I enjoy using it every day. I bought mine, “used like new” on Amazon for roughly half MSRP. Highly recommended for radio geeks.

This is a quality radio, as it should be for the price. It's solid, 17 ounces with batteries, and has a good heft. I wish the operational buttons on the front were a little larger for my fingers and aging eyesight. So far, battery life seems to be OK, with the backlight set to off. The manual could be better with more detailed explanations. It appears to have been written for use by those with more short wave experience than I have. There is one error that a previous reviewer noted on page 14; item 4 should be included in item 3 before pressing the PAGE/TIME button. The auto tune feature could be better on the short wave channels. It will tend to by-pass stations I think it should stop on. For me, manual tuning is more effective on the short wave stations. The external speaker isn't the greatest, but I do like the sound quality with quality earphones. The RDS feature is marginal, giving very little info about the particular program playing for an RDS station. If you use the RDS feature to set the radio's time, that time will change with each RDS station you tune in. I haven't had much success with the Single Side Band frequencies; probably need an external antenna for that. Reception seems to be very good, indicating a quality whip antenna,Overall, this is a quality, feature rich radio, intended for those with short wave knowledge and experience. I would recommend reading the manual thoroughly.