Amazon Radio

Nice radio, however, I purchased to hear clear AM reception. It is better than the average radio, but not as clear as I would have liked.
Rating: 3 / 5

I purchased this radio for the late night AM talk radio programs in the Seattle area, which simply stinks for AM and FM propagation with all of our hills, nooks and crannies. If you live in an apartment, it’s also chock full of static and noise, buzzing and humming, not only from the complex’s normal electronics, but from CPAP machines, touch-lamps, iconic breezes, as well. I listen in the dark, so buttons and switches have to be easy to find for me, by feel alone.

Having said all of that, the radio is pretty much easy to operate in the dark, except I’d have liked on and off switches someplace where the actual knobs should be—- in the front, not on the top ends where they can accidentally get switched on and off while reaching for something else on the radio like the tuning knob on the top right hand side of the radio. Speaking of which, why they don’t make a deeper indentation for your finger, I’ll never know. (I don’t know about anyone else, but my fat Polish finger slips out of that dimple, rendering it pretty useless, much like a hand-held shower wand that has no grip in sudsy water.) The treble and bass knobs are right where they should be, and if you are really sensitive to the touch, you can feel the half-way point with the built-in stop, enabling you to fine tune that aspect in the dark, with ease.

After you have pre-set all of the stations that you want, that option is also very easy to retrieve at night, however, the LCD gives me some concerns as it does not look like it’s built well, IMHO. Secondly, after your station has been dialed in, it resorts back to the time, leaving one guessing as to what station you were last dialed into. I don’t know exactly how many people buy a radio for it’s time feature, but I don’t. I’d rather know the frequency, not the frequent time. Eventually, I will get accustomed to finding that button in the dark, but we shouldn’t have to. The time is a momentary concern, the primary concern should be the station you are tuned to. It’s nice to know, however, that the LCD display can be stair-stepped down to off…….nothing like a green room all night, so I appreciate that feature.

I made some modifications: I’ve attached the external antenna and I will more that likly leave the whip down, as it seems every whip gets bent or broken off. Several velcro cable clamps keep this antenna and the power chord going in the direction that I want it to. As I listen to the radio while it’s on the bed, it’s nice and heavy so it will not easily fall off of the bed. I’ve managed to velcro a foam wedge on the bottom of the radio so that it rests on the blankets at a 45′ angle toward me, so that the speaker is favourable to me and not the ceiling. A small horizontal foam block just above the battery case will assure me that it will not fall over one way or the other. I’d have prefered a 180′ tunable ferrite antenna on top of the radio, but maybe that’s asking too much. It’s easier to turn an antenna that a radio.

As far as reception goes, I can pull several AM stations from Salt Lake City, KGO in San Francisco and one from Nevada and a few from Oregon, not to mention Canada, within the Seattle metro area. 2-meters does nothing for me, so big whoop with that. FM is FM and outside of NPR or KIRO-FM, it’s your standard FM.

Weather (WX) radio is nice to have, especially during the fall, winter and the spring here. As an aside, we have a saying in Puget Sound—if you wake up and see can Mt.Rainier, it’s going to rain, if you wake up and can’t see MT.Rainier, it’s probably already raining. Weather here can change on a dime, three miles away there can be inches of snow while the roads are bare where I live. Getting from point A to point B can be like going from state to state in other parts of the country, so I have 3 WX radios, now.

Now to my favourite thing in all the world—– power cables…. The last buying criteria, but certainly not the least is the power chord. Again, I don’t know about you, but I simply hate……h-a-t-e transformers/adapters with a flying passion. I have a box full of them….for drills, hand held vacuums, scanner radios, you name it….If your adapter wire shorts out or fry’s…you are SOL. And to buy another one, they zap you with a ridiculous price and you are fuming for days until it arrives. Forget it, I’d rather pay extra up-front for a plug in power chord and let the company build the transformer into the product. This power chord is real heavy duty, and plugs into the back. I have placed this wire into a clamp and bent it the way I want it, no problem. If I never see an external power adapter, it will not be too soon.

In the end, I’ve paid good money for SW radios with AM/FM. Along with adaptors, I’ve used headphones to please the wife. I’ve destroyed many a radio with adaptors and earphone plug-ins. I got smart—get rid of the spouse, get rid of the external plug in thingies and save your sanity….listen to the speaker and buy a radio with a real power chord.

Rating: 5 / 5