Retekess V111 Shortwave Radio, Portable Digital Radio Stereo Voice, Battery Operated with Favorite Key and Earphone Digital Alarm Clock for Hiking Walking

Best features: Digital display with memory and manual and scanning search, stand, low battery consumption, uses only 2 AA batteries, excellent sensitivity, very good selectivity, audio quality is excellent if you use good quality earphones or headphones. The earphones that come with the radio are less than average. The case is a good quality plastic that feels solid and not cheap. Nearly all other small portable radios I have used fall over easily. Having a stand means it won't. The antenna will not fold straight up and down when using the stand but it doesn't degrade performance. (see picture). It has Longwave AM 153-279 KHz in 9 KHz steps not modifiable by the user, Medium Wave (AM broadcast band analog only) 520-1710 KHz, FM Stereo (analog only) 87.0 - 108.0 MHz, and Shortwave 3.2 - 21.9 MHz, AM mode only which is a wider bandwidth than most pocket-sized portable SW receivers. There is no BFO so no SSB or morse code reception is possible (normal for pocket-sized portable shortwave receivers) so this is not the best radio to receive ham radio transmissions. It has a 5 volt USB external power port but beware that many if not all USB charges produce a lot of noise that interferes with the AM medium wave, longwave, and shortwave bands. FM should not be affected. I can't remember the type of USB socket it is but it is very common and most people should have one around the house already without having to buy one. It does not charge batteries. I don't know why you would need the external power port unless you just plan on leaving it in one spot and powered on all the time. The battery life is long and AA batteries are fairly cheap. The longwave band is limited to 9 KHz steps starting at 153 KHz, then 162, 171, 180, 189, etc. The longwave band in the USA is only used for aviation beacons but it is used for broadcast services in some other countries. BBC 198 KHz is still on the air in England and this radio should be able to receive it. It also has a clock with a shut-off timer. The radio is quite sensitive but if you want to increase range then attach a long wire to the antenna such as the Sangean ANT-60, also sold by Amazon. The scanning search feature can be a bit tedious on the shortwave band but if you program a few frequencies in memory up and down the band, like the WWV stations on 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz, you can go to that memory location and search from there. Are there better radios? Of course but not for under 20 bucks. I have a $1000 ham radio that has a better receiver. But this one is good enough for most needs when traveling and will fit in your pocket.

Just what I wanted. It's picking up stations none of my other radios have. Instructions are ridiculous. I managed to figure out how to use the functions I needed. I'd love to be able to use the memory settings, but after some frustration and too much time....gave up.... Not worth the frustration. Sound is way better than you'd think it would be for such a small size and it locks on and pulls in stations very well. Great value for the money. I'd happily give these as gifts or buy another if I ever break it. I'd give 5 stars if not for the confusing instructions.

I purchased this as a compact travel radio, so I do not have to bring along one of my larger portables. Given the radio’s low price and small size, I was not expecting much in the way of high performance, but I was wrong. The first surprise was that the speaker quality is quite satisfying. As expected, there is no substantial base, but the sound is not tinny either. Shortwave, medium wave, and FM reception all exceed my expectations, aided by quite fast searches for active frequencies. When tuning a specific frequency, the radio scans so fast that I don’t miss a direct entry key pad. On shortwave, this is aided by a choice of seven sw bands as starting points.As for other features, the sleep timer and alarm are the easiest to set of any radio I own. A helpful feature is a Favorite button that both turns on the radio and sets it to a favorite FM station. However, the manual’s instructions for setting this are incomplete. It says to tune to the desired station and then long press the Favorite button to lock it into memory. Not mentioned is that the Favorite button must also be pressed first to start the process. A somewhat odd thing is that the side-by-side Mute and On/Off buttons appear to do exactly the same things—no big deal, but strange. Everything considered, this is a radio I will be using for more than just travel.