SonyCFM-30TW AM/FM Radio Cassette Recorder

What a wonderful little machine!It plays all of my old cassette tapes that I'm just not going to transfer to yet another media. (Yes, I have another cassette recorder to transfer internet material I wish to enjoy in another location.)It receives all of the National Weather Service frequencies--good all over the US, and it's free; just plug it in or keep fresh the 4 bay D batteries fresh enough--and they last a long time in this unit.Sadly, the teeeeeveeee channels it picks up now will disappear in early 2009--yet another group of folks misled by their worship of "advancing" technology. For now, it's nice to listen to all of the great PBS stuff while not being tied to the couch.This unit is ideal for the bathroom, kitchen or garage--and it's small enough to pack in your travel bag--really nice for all of those h/motels with NO radio, at all, or else the cheapest little (<1" speaker) clock radio. In a bind, you can listen to it's weather radio while driving--never could figure out why SAAB was the only car maker to have weather band on the car radio (of course, many trucker radios have this feature, too)Hey, maybe they'll make some more......

I read the previous post from the customer in New Jersey. I am unsure if the item was defective, but I can tell you, I am quite happy with my little portable radio. It serves its purpose and I dont have unrealistic expectations of it as if the item were a boom box type.

I was sadly surprised to discover when I opened the box that this radio cassette recorder has no headphone jack. I didn't know any company still made radios that way! It went back to the store.

I own this radio. My only disappointment is that it does not rewind my cassettes. The motor gears sound like they are slipping. I only used the rewind twice. Because I use this radio frequently, I have adapted to this defect by flopping the cassette around and pressing "fwd" in order to accomplish a rewind.

This may not be the fanciest radio around and, yes, the dial marker doesn't align perfectly with the radio station that's playing. However, we bought it because the cassette player has an automatic end-of-reel shutoff. We listen to old radio tapes (Jack Benny, Sam Spade, etc.) at night when we go to bed and having the radio turn off when the tape is ended is perfect. Our other radio, a boom-box, doesn't turn off at end of tape and so the play mechanism winds up running all night until we turn it off the next morning. Not good for the tape or the radio.Unlike another's comment, we haven't had any problem with the cassette's high-speed forward/reverse feature. Seems to work OK for us.For what we wanted and what we paid, we're very satisfied.

I own an older version of this radio and use it in my office. It has good reception and is a nice unit for the money. I have owned it for about 6 years with no complaints.