New radio for your "whatever" bag

After finding that fairly inexpensive Sony which I mentioned in the Being Equipped is so "Anal" thread as an alternative to a wind up emergency radio, I found the Grundig Eton Mini 300. It's a pocket size AM/FM/SW radio that runs on two AA batteries. (When it arrived today it came without batteries so I went to my AA stock and noticed two batteries that I'd pulled out of my digital camera and I thought why not see if they work -- not a problem. It worked just fine on batteries my Nikon Coolpix rejected (under voltage?) Whatever . . . )

The radio has an analog tuner with a digital looking liquid crystal readout. Despite the digital looking display, it does not have a digital tuner and it is not phase locked (PLL). Drifting will probably be an issue if you use the radio in the SW bands but it seems to hold freq well enough in AM which is all I bought this radio for. The digital looking readout makes tuning to your favorite station much easier than a pure analog tuner display (you know the little bar that moves across the frequencies as you turn the little wheel and you can never tell just where it is, so you get it close and stop when it sounds as good as you can get it). The display seems to be fairly accurate.

The sound is surprisingly clear. It's about 12" away from my laptop and is crystal clear on AM 600. With many AM radios I get a 60Hz tone with this station and when this radio was close to the laptop it did too, but just a little distance and it cleared up nicely.

It has one speaker so would indicate FM mono, but according to the specs on Amazon audio output mode is stereo, and it comes with stereo earbuds. Smooth jazz sucks on the radio's speaker but a good headset makes all the difference, FM is definitely stereo.

I really like my Grundig 100PE.

I have a Grundig G4 Executive Traveller I have had it for 4 or 5-years. It sounds like the radio you are describing. While it works, I will not buy another one. The digital display blanks out and I need to flex the radio to see what frequency it is on, it has a lot of backlash in the dial. And it does drift a good amount.

I expected more out of a Grundig.

I have been looking to find a replacement that is the same size with a digital tuner and a speaker built into it. It’s hard to find a radio today with a speaker in it. I guess they expect everyone to use headphones. But I don’t like to have headphones on all the time.

Has anyone tried this? http://countycomm.com/gp4GOVPACK.htm

If so, any comments?

Wish I'd seen this thread yesterday. LL Bean had the Grundig Eton Mini 300 on sale for $17. But I just checked and they're gone.

It is an excellent little AM/FM radio, I use mine everyday. Haven't used the shortwave aspect.

Am also delighted with the fairly new Midland HH50 Pocket Weather Alert Radio. It is very small and came in very handy during severe weather last week. No fiddling, codes or settings to deal with. Just turn it on to hear the NOAA updates in your area.

Tornado warnings were underway south of us when I went to sleep so I left the radio on "alert."

I bought an HH50 from Cabelas a couple of months ago and it was completely broken out of the box. It only works if you take the circuit board out of the casing and flex it while the power is on...I suspect a bad solder joint or bad component. It was on sale so it was practically cheaper to live with it than to pay to ship it back and be replaced. Overall a dissapointment.

I wish there were a mini version of the Freeplay radio. I have the Eyemax WB in my camping bin and would love to have a pocket version I could crank up when needed.

I also have the Mini 300, fits in my Camelbak MG Hawg nicely, great little radio, good reception and sound quality as well as affordable. Wouldn't be without it.

Subjective judgment, they're fairly comparable -- digital readout, analog tuner. I think the Grundig sounds marginally better and the GP-4L's FM is mono even w/ headset if that's an issue. For an emergency standby radio, the 150 hr runtime of CountyComm's GP-4L is very good; I haven't seen runtime numbers for the Grundig but I'd guess they're similar. Both the GP-4L and the Grundig have has seven SW bands but without phase lock SW is too drifty IMO. If all you want is AM then the either should be fine.

The CountyComm GP-4L is slightly smaller, mostly due to an antenna which sticks out from the Grundig but is really long when it telescopes out, so that can be good or bad depending on if you need that long antenna.

Recommendation: If you want AM and FM stereo (assuming you don't mind earbuds or a headset) get the Grundig because it has an FM stereo output. If all you need is AM get the CountyComm GP-4L because it's smaller. If you want to listen to shortwave, skip these two and get something with a digital phase locked tuner. $.02

On that note... What do you recommend for a radio (primarily for SW), but that can get am/fm; but is very portable. I was looking into the ICOM r5 with a couple antena's to get what I need, but if something smaller exists (with less bells, whistles and bands), i'd be really interested. Any ideas?

I'm a noob when it comes to radios, so be kind ;-)

Russ:
I have 2 mini 300PE's one in my go bag and one in my truck. although it dose not have pll,if the SHTF most of the radio stations will be off the air anyway. Both of the Mini's have served me well, and mine were remanufactured units.

Try Amazon for the mini 300

Hi Kris,



You could try the Eton E5 AM/FM Shortwave Radio available at http://www.amazon.com/Eton-E5-AM-Shortwave-Radio/dp/B000EINRA8

or the Roberts R876 PLL Digital World Radio, both of which are excellent as portable SW radios. Slightly expensive but high performance SW radios.

For home use the Freeplay Summit is also very good being a quality product with good quality reception and sound for such a small radio. Oh it doesn't require any batteries either, which can be pretty useful in an emergency.

http://www.amazon.com/Freeplay-Summit-Sufficient-Multiband-Radio/dp/B00069J6CI

I've got one of the Countycomm radios and its great. Small, good sound, dial tuning with digital display. The small LED light is a nice touch.

In that class I went with the Sony ICF-SW7600. Excellent radio, portable but not pocket size.

Anything smaller? I was thinking of something more of an 'EDC' size...

Thanks for the response.

Hi Kris,

There used be available the Sony ICF-SW100 World Band Radio. It was extremely compact for its performance still being a full Digital PLL SSB capable SW radio. I can't think of anything which is currently smaller than this for its performance. It was also very expensive at around $300-350 USD.

http://www.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct.a...ldband+Receiver

But I can't find any online retailer still stocking this particular model as it appears to be discontinued.

Thanks... but that the 'style' of radio i'm after. As small as possible, but still a high quality unit.

any idea why its discontinued?

***another question: how does a sw radio like that compare to a scanner like an icom r5?

That actually looks to be a very nice radio, with a pretty decent price ($150.00) considering that it has full digital PLL SSB capability. The customer reviews on Amazon also all seem to suggest that this is probably one of the better SW radios on the market today.

I had given some thought to picking up one of the County Comm SW radios for awhile, although this Sony really appears to have several features that would be worth the extra money.

Jim

The one thing it does not have is an AC adapter. Battery only even though it has a 6V DC input. The plug from my old Sony 6V adapter is too fat.

I agree, its a nice radio, just wish it was smaller. My father in law has one, and I killed 3 hours with it before I knew it was 3 hours.

While not small (on par with the size of Sony’s), Sangean makes some great shortwave radios at a good price.

Bobs,

I was surfing around, found the www.eham.net site and found some reviews from hams regarding shortwave radios (http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/8).

One that i'm thinking of, is the Kaito KA11. Around 50 bucks, lots of features, and a lot smaller then the sony - 4 ¼" x 2 ¾" x 1". Granted, less features then the sw7600 (but more features then the CountyComm radio) and its at a price point that makes worth trying.

Any have any comments or experience?

Yeah I noticed that in the reviews, but thanks for pointing that out.

While it would be nice if Sony included the AC adapter with it, the lack of it isn't a deal breaker for me. My primary use for a SW would be as a source of news/weather/information in the woods or during a Katrina type situation, where AC power is either not available or had been disrupted.

Chances are if I have AC power available, I'm probably going to get all the information I need/want from the tv or online.

I do wish the Sony was a bit smaller/lighter though...

Jim

Looking at the Kaito radios I found the
Kaito Pocket-Size AM/FM & Shortwave Radio with Alarm Clock and LED flashlight.


Now we know who makes the CountyComm GP-4L radio.

You can buy a 6-volt wall charger at Radio Shack for $12.00



I have a lot of these wall chargers around in various voltages. I find them at garage sales for $1.00 or .50 cents all the time.


Don’t let the lack of a cord stop you from buying a radio. If it has a power plug on it (be it whatever voltage) all you have to do is buy the right wall charger for it (be mindful of polarity.)