Raddy RF750 Portable Shortwave Radio AM/FM/SW/WB Receiver with NOAA Alerts - Pocket Retro Mini Radio Rechargeable, w/ 9.85 Ft Wire Antenna

I am an avid short wave listener, as well as a ham radio operator. I also like motorcycles, and motorcycle camping. That said, you could imagine that I like to combine both, and I usually took a Grundig radio with me on my adventures. It worked well and has good sound, but cost me $300 and was much larger than this thing. I originally bought this radio because, like the Baofeng ham radios, it was a brutally cheap Chinese radio. I figured if this one didn't work well, or I broke it or lost it, would I really be out much? Well after having it for a couple of weeks, I can say I would be out quite a bit.Simply put, this radio is pretty doggone awesome! It came with about a 10 ft section of wire and an external antenna, but that's not a very good antenna in my opinion. I have 100 ft 18 gauge long wire that I clip to the antenna, and it rivals the Grundig for sensitivity. The sound is pretty good for its size, and though I've seen criticisms about its battery life, it's just a short USB-C charge away from being full. I usually carry several USB charger packs with me, so I have no problem with battery life at all. I used it a couple of hours every evening, and it made it 5 days and still had power. What is surprising to me Is that even though as an 'analog style' tuner, it really is a digital radio. Being so small the analog tuner is, as you would imagine, somewhat hard to get right on the channel. But not to worry, the digital signal processing part of the radio seems to latch on to the frequency very easily and bring it to the forefront. A simple up or down twist of the tuner easily takes it to a different station, but you can pick out whatever you're listening to pretty easily. It's as if the tuner knob is used to basically nudge the frequency 'focus' up or down, just let the digital part of the radio handle the rest.It also has a pre-program feature that goes through the frequency band and saves anything of merit into the presets. I find that it works very well, and even though you're not quite sure what frequency it is, if you listen to SWL long enough, you know generally where your stations and it's not hard to pick them out.It has several other features that really aren't very practical for what I do, such as Bluetooth or microSD card. I've tried the Bluetooth with my phone, and it works fine, but it certainly is not a Bose mini sound bar. Which it wasn't designed to be by any means, and I have no use for it as such.This thing works great, is small, lightweight, and perfect for motorcycle camping. I would think it would be nice for backpackers or a similar use, and has decent enough battery life that I don't think it would be an issue unless you were a serious, long-term backpacker. I have plenty of other things that need charging, such as a GoPro or a drone, and they all use micro USB so this fits right in with everything else.The retro look is interesting as well, but instead of an old timey radio, this is a pretty powerful digital receiver underneath the olive drab color.In summary, this is curiously, interesting little digital radio with an analog control knob, that seems to work all bands up to 17 MHz or so very well. I don't know if I'm quite ready to retire my grundig, but honestly this seems to fit the bill as a replacement very well. And it's about 1/5 the size, so I think it's going to go on quite a few more trips with me and the Grundig will retire to an earned place on the shelf in the ham shack.

The TF card MP3 playback is awesome. An audiophile experience, considering the speaker's limitations.To tune in stations you must dial at a snail's pace snail's pace. But then the DSP circuits do their magic. I also love the "VU" meters when playing MP3 files!!!BTW, I'm an audiophile, retired audio engineer & professional DJ, playing my own S.W.E.A.D.R.E. MP3 files that are free of square waves.

Good value radio, has access to a lot of bandwidth and receives very clearly compared to another small unit radio I had. I think it's because it doesn't have a digital display generating noise. The only technical downside is that it has a digital tuner (I assume because it's cheaper) and it doesn't allow you to fine tune in on a frequency so you may get a nice auto-lock on some channel but then if you move your body away you may affect the reception leading to an infinite feedback loop of resetting the channel. I also find the graphics kind of tacky but that doesn't really matter other than looks.

I bought this for my bug out bag. And as a ham I have a lot of portable shortwave radios. But this little guy is phenomenal excellent signal excellent tuning plenty of features well constructed. In my collection I don't have anything under 200 bucks that'll touch it

Quality products 👌

1) It has a decent rechargeable Lion battery (at least the one I got),2) It is very small, so for a camping or bugout bag, might be a good choice3) The weather radio actually receives clearly, a weather channel in my house, I have other NOAA radios that can't pick up the weak signal.4) For a small AM/FM radio, it works reasonably well. But all of the switch indicators are impossible to see without a high intensity light and a magnifying glass. The top buttons are black, with feint symbols, also black. There is a concept called Contrast. I think someone invented it in the 1950's . try adding some contrast. And not sure why they could not label the AM band as "AM" rather than "MW".The radio "dial" numbers are also invisible without lights and magnification. Shiny gold colored numbers against a shiny background. Are you kidding me?4b) The tuner is too easily bumped and knocked off station.5) Shortwave? forget it, unless you have your own proven long wire antenna. I have no reason to doubt that the receiver itself can work, but it needs a 100 ft long antenna or something. At least for me, I scanned all the frequencies and got nothing clear enough to listen to.I have several SW radios, so am no stranger to it.6) Bluetooth? Weak sound output. It is a step down from the cell phone speaker, so it has little to no value. (Note that sound output in the radio mode is fine, and the speaker does reasonably well for being the size it is).7) I didn't try the SD card player.8) I didn't try to run it long enough for the batteries to be expended, so can't comment on battery life, other than it will certainly play for a couple hours on a charge. I saw reviews complaining the battery will drain while not in use. I can't imagine how that can be, unless there is a short circuit somewhere, or a defective battery. If you are camping or bugging out, (Or if you are using it for a power failure emergency radio), you might get a few spare batteries and charge them all up. I'm sure you can buy a couple batteries and a wall charger for not all that much.Radio weight is 4.6 oz. , about 3.5 inches tall. 1.5 inches thick, X 2.25 inches wide.Antenna extends 11 inches from the top of the unit.Edit: Had to update the review after reading the manual.The 6 little buttons on the top need to be understood. Download the manual.1) the upper right button if held down for 2 seconds will do a full scan of the band you are on, and automatically store the first 20 stations it finds. It will flash the little radio symbol light on the front while it is scanning, and it will auto play the first station it found once the scan is completed.2) You can then toggle between the 20 presents it has created by using the lower right 2 buttons. (reverse and forward).This is way easier than fiddling with the manual tuner wheel.To get the weather channels, you hit the lower left button on the top until the upper left band indicator light comes on for WB "WeatherBand". , then on the front face and to the right, there is a button that says "MOD" if you have enough light to see it, Pressing this will cycle between the 10 Weather band channels.The radio deserves buttons that you can read, because there is some good features on it, if you can read and decipher the tiny buttons. Maybe add a little sticker on the side (that you can read) that helps the user remember and locate the important buttons?

This radio, small for size but Big in the ability to pull in short wave and a.m. and FM and even the weather band love this little bitty radio

Lot of features!