Small Portable Radio's?

[Gene]

Wow! Two days of no power here! Big snowstorm that laid waste to everything! Power lines down everywhere. I-5 closed. Pulled out all my sensitive radios and no dice. Got a BBC broadcast on one radio but all the garbage it broadcast was about global warming and climate control and I turned it off.

Again, you guys are so lucky to have all the stations that you can receive in your big cities.

Yes, it's a older transmitter that has an FM receiver and a mini card receiver built in and it still works great for me. Old time stuff that still works and cheap!

 

[StarHalo]

Wow! Two days of no power here! Big snowstorm that laid waste to everything! Power lines down everywhere. I-5 closed. Pulled out all my sensitive radios and no dice.

Did you have cell service?

 

[RedLED]

Bose is closing all their brick-and-mortar store locations this year, so if you want to see/hear a Wave radio or one of their Bluetooth speakers in person, do so soon..

That's not good!

 

[5S8Zh5]

It has a FM transmitter inside.

what are the search terms to find one on amazon?

edit: disregard, found them... cigarette lighter usb player

 

[StarHalo]

That's not good!

Bose is doing fine, it's just that almost all their sales are online, they're not seeing a point to physical retail locations. Best Buy still carries them, but it's pure chance on what your local store actually has on display.

 

[Gene]

Did you have cell service?

Yeah, thank goodness my wife has a cellphone and we had service and I had a couple of power banks to keep it charged. We also have a land line as backup.

 

[StarHalo]

Yeah, thank goodness my wife has a cellphone and we had service and I had a couple of power banks to keep it charged. We also have a land line as backup.

Get the TuneIn app, presto, there's your radio. And since it's a phone, you have way more options for entertainment if the news is slow..

 

[vadimax]

Not exactly a radio, but... among other features you may listen to Air Band and FM with it. The KG-UV9D+ model may work a repeater.



Perhaps, the only Chinese manufacturer where specification fully corresponds to a real device.

 

[danz75]

Had a cheap Philips radio when I was young which has since seen better days. After many years of not using a portable radio, I wanted one again and found this thread. Read up as much as I could and just placed an order for a RADIWOW R-108 which was at a good price point. Wanted the Digitech AR-1780 but shipping from AUS takes forever. Also looked at CCRANE Skywave/SSB, XHDATA D-808 which is more expensive. Figured the RADIWOW R-108 is a good start for now. Looking forward to learning more from this thread.

 

[5S8Zh5]

...Read up as much as I could and just placed an order for a RADIWOW R-108 which was at a good price point. Wanted the Digitech AR-1780 but shipping from AUS takes forever. Also looked at CCRANE Skywave/SSB, XHDATA D-808 which is more expensive. Figured the RADIWOW R-108 is a good start for now. Looking forward to learning more from this thread.

I love my RADIWOW R-108. Since I have a couple Tecsun ICR-110s, there is no shortage of BL-5C batteries and I still have and use the NOKIA charger I got off amazon. It's what I reach for when I'm cooking something and need to use the alarm so I won't burn whatever is in the oven. I like that you can set the station and volume level of the alarm easily, as well as being simple to set the alarm time of course. Not being expensive is another plus. For the longest time I thought it was RADIOWOW lol.

 

[danz75]

I love my RADIWOW R-108. Since I have a couple Tecsun ICR-110s, there is no shortage of BL-5C batteries and I still have and use the NOKIA charger I got off amazon. It's what I reach for when I'm cooking something and need to use the alarm so I won't burn whatever is in the oven. I like that you can set the station and volume level of the alarm easily, as well as being simple to set the alarm time of course. Not being expensive is another plus. For the longest time I thought it was RADIOWOW lol.

This was the review I watched that pushed me to order the RADIWOW R-108. Can't wait for it to get here.

 

[Gene]

Get the TuneIn app, presto, there's your radio. And since it's a phone, you have way more options for entertainment if the news is slow..

Thanks SH and because of you I did get the TuneIn app awhile back but only in my iPad Mini 4. When the power went out, my iPad's battery was at about 25%. When it's 40 degrees in your house and pitch black outside, you don't think much about anything except staying warm and wondering when the power will be restored.

My 2 emergency power banks don't have a whole lot of capacity and I used them to recharge my wife's iPhone, (which is an older model), a couple of times as she kept calling Pacific Power to find out if there was any updates on when our power would be restored.

Anyway, we got through it but her old iPhone sure helped! Thank you as always for your responses!

Carry on gentlemen!

 

[titanize]

By far the best all-around, cheap radio is the Tecsun R9012 or sibling R911. I have owned the latter for 14 years. Just replaced due to worn band-switch. These two run on 2 alkaline AA. Turn the radio on at the 1st of the month to a nearby AM station... about 17-18 days later the batteries exhaust. That would be 400 hours or more continuous. I do confess being completely spoiled by these radios. The more recent DSP types might get 72 hours. But as the thread-title implies, these two radios are great solutions, and of better-than-average quality. Price at the big 3 is $15 - $20, DO NOT PAY MORE. AliExpress,eBay, and Amazon have lots of them... Ali usually has best price.

As I usually by my AA's iin bulk (Tubs of 60) battery cost is about 70c. Brand = Rayovac. Estimated maHr is 2700-2900 at this low drain of 7ma.

Regards
titanize

 

[StarHalo]

The more recent DSP types might get 72 hours.

Agreeing that the tiny Tecsuns are marathon emergency winners, but I'd still like to see someone quantify exactly how much runtime difference the DSP makes; it wouldn't be that big of a deal but DSP has almost completely superseded the analog circuit in radio manufacturing, even the CCrane emergency radios are all now DSP..

 

[Lebkuecher]

I have been looking forward to reading some reviews on some of the new radios being released this year, but it appears I will be waiting possibly much longer then I first thought. Due to the Coronavirus many of the Chinese factories are closed pushing the release dates and playing havoc on supply chains. Tecsun manufacturing facilities are in Hong Kong and I believe most if not all the 500 employees are staying at home. It's not just radio manufacturing that is being affected by the Coronavirus outbreak but just about anything being manufactured in China including smart phones and cars.

Tecsun was supposed to start shipping the new full featured export version of the PL-990 by the end of this month before the Chinese New Year but this will not happen now, and delays could be significant. I have no idea when the Tecsun H-501 might ship, the H-501 didn't have a pre-Chinese New Year shipping goal nor have I heard any hard estimates for shipping, but the radio will certainly be delayed as well. I am excited about the new Tecsun radios and may buy one but haven't settled on which one. The videos I have watched on tube sites lean me towards the H-501 with the duel speaker but none of the videos on the web are showing the full featured export versions. There are supposedly additional features over the PL-880 but I'm not sure what the new additional features are other than Bluetooth and SD card slot. I did read on a Russian website that the H-501 which has two 18650 batteries can only use one battery at a time and that you have to switch the batteries in the compartment to us the other battery but I would be extremely surprised if the final version of the H-501 will have this limitation. As a side note, I was sad to hear that the president of Tecsun said recently that the PL-990 and the H-501 will probably be the last high-end shortwave receiver Tecsun will make. I am not sure what the price points will be for the new models but I'm guessing around $199.00 for the PL-990 and $249.00 for the H-501.

Before the out brake of the Coronavirus the new Eton Elite Satellit (Reintroduced Eton E1) was supposed to start shipping in late July. Speculation is the July is not realistic now. The Eton Elite Satellit is still a big mystery. I still find it hard to believe that Eton would reintroduce the E1 given the QC history and the drama surrounding the 10 plus years of development which nearly bankrupted Eton but apparently Eton believes there is a market for a semiprofessional receiver listing at $449.99. There is no doubt that if the Elite Satellit performers like a properly working original E1 there will be some buyers especially if some of the issues like not having an internal ferrite rod antenna for AM and sticky case are addressed but my guess is most of the potential buyer are aware of the original E1's history and will wait for some reviews before spend that kind of money.

 

[StarHalo]

One million views. That's 200+ views a day..

 

[StarHalo]

If music is the main criteria, put the money towards more audio quality in a standard Bluetooth speaker; that sub-$200 category can get you a selection of Bose/Sony/JBL units. You can add back the assistant part of the equation later if you want using an Echo Input or similar.

Here's a review of four different good- to high-quality ~$100 stereo bookshelf speaker sets if you want your Alexa/Siri audio to fill a room beyond what a standard-sized Bluetooth speaker would. This reviewer is going to review the Echo Studio set in the near future as well. Video review [audio NSFW]

 

[vadimax]

The world is so tight... I have ordered a Sangean ATS-909X ClearMod at RadioLabs and before making an order asked several technical questions online... just to suddenly discover I am talking to a ccrane ex-engineer who is still owning several of their patents. Now his is the owner of RadioLabs. WOW

Just in case you dream of a portable R&R in a form of a radio, here you are: https://www.radiolabs.com/radio/shortwave-radios/radiolabs-sangean-909x-clearmod-am-fm-sw-radio/.

 

[StarHalo]

Z reviews the undisputed king of small Bluetooth speaker setups, the MiniRig3; Lego-able setup allows you to just get one half-coffee can 40 watt cylinder for mono, two for stereo, and/or add the larger subwoofer for a full rig:

 

[5S8Zh5]

^ is that a radio?