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Perfect but useless
Coming from Romania, where listening to Voice of America and Radio Free Europe was religious in the communist era, I tend to overestimate the importance of shortwave radio and even worse, feel nostalgic about it. Spending the quiet hours of the evening tunig to God knows what stations freom God knows where is a pleasant thing to do, so reminiscent of the past. I have always loved to have a good shortwave radio and believe me, this tiny Eton e100 is much better than anything I ever had. It works. But I live in North America, a dead region to shortwave broadcasting. BBC stopped broadcasting here, and many others are moving to the internet only broadcasting. Owing a shortwave radio is hence useless, unless you dont mind catching some right wingsters that I dont understand how have decided to broadcast on shortwaves. Don't get me wrong, the radio catches some stations. From Austin TX I get radio Netherlands (not great but ok) , a few chinese stations (very clearly), radio Australia (very clearly). BBC though, Deutche Welle I have to say goodbye to. BUt my dream was to have a strong relay of the BBC, so I can put the radio on the table and listen to it, inside the house, as I used to when I was a kid. Now, I can get ALL these on the internet, so nostalgia for past aside, the little Eton e100 catches dust. And I did not even buy it for shortwaves: I bought it to have a good, not battery thirsty, clear radio in case a hurricane hits ... what a shame, isn't it? A useful miniature radio This compact am/fm/sw radio is nicer than I expected. The radio's size is ideal for pockets, so I frequently take it with me. Currently I'm using up some excess alkaline AA batteries in my E100, but when they are gone, I will switch to rechargeable NiMH batteries. (There's a system code you should set on the radio when switching between alkaline and rechargeable batteries - be sure to check the manual) Positives: * FM stereo through headphones sounds great * Informative LCD display includes the frequency and the time while the radio is on (some other radios require a keypress to display the clock) * Nice amber backlight for the LCD display * Sturdy whip antenna * It seems to be very easy on batteries Negatives: * Shortwave scanning using the up/down buttons is slower than on other shortwave radios I've used (e.g. Kaito 1102, Sony ICF-SW7600GR) - the radio pauses on each frequency longer than necessary * Small buttons are occasionally difficult to press * Tuning knob is only capable of fine tuning, i.e. it uses small tuning intervals and doesn't work as well if you try turning it very fast I wouldn't recommend this radio as your only shortwave receiver, but only because other radios in this price range have more features. My example would be the excellent Kaito KA1102, which offers features such as dual conversion, a wide/narrow bandwidth setting, single sideband reception, an included AC adapter, faster shortwave scanning, and backlighting for both the screen and keypad. Feature loaded, the size of a deck of cards This is loaded with every feature you could possibly want. It is a little bigger than a deck of cards. It is incredible how much is being packed into small radios these days. Am reception is acceptable, FM is quite good, and Shortwave is equal to the small, pocket Grundig (Grundig is now owned by Eton). I can't think of another pocket radio with so many features. Handy little travel radio My collection of radios continues to grow, and the E100 is the most recent addition. I bought it because there's a lot of features built into such a small package. This radio will easily fit into a pocket or briefcase, yet it allows you to access AM, FM and pretty much the full range of shortwave bands. It has a clock with alarm, snooze feature, 200 presets (although I can't imagine ever using more than 50), battery strength indicator, signal strength indicator, and more. The AM (MW) band pulls in stations well using the internal ferrite rod antenna. The telescoping whip works well for both FM and SW, but I sometimes attach one of those 23' portable wire antennas to more clearly pull in weaker SW stations. Battery life (2 AA's) seems to be very good, and the internal speaker puts out clear sound, although as you can imagine it isn't going to be room-filling. The earbuds work very well. At about 100 bucks street price, it ain't cheap, but when you pick it up it looks and feels like quality work. I LOVE this radio This was the only radio I could find this size (about a little bigger than a pack of Virginia Slim 100s) that could pick up AM radio within the confines of my heavy-duty steel-reinforced office building. This little radio really seems to do the job on reception. At night I'm able to pick up a shortwave station in Sydney, Australia, as well as get very clear reception on the WWV time stations, despite the fact that I'm not in a location that generally picks up shortwave very well at all. As far as sound fidelity goes, with the provided earbuds, this radio offers tremendous, crystal-clear stereo sound on FM stations--surprisingly so for a radio this small. And the regular speaker doesn't sound too bad either, offering some good volume output for a speaker that size. This radio offers 200 programmable stations (I've only used 15), an alarm, a backlight, and a sleep timer that can go from 1 minute to 2 hours. It's surprisingly easy to program, and batteries seem to last a good while (I've gone several hours on the provided set of alkalines). This radio generally satisfies ALL of my radio needs spectacularly. I highly recommend it to anyone | |
