Would anyone care to share their opinion of the Kaito Short-wave Radio? In Joel's book he recommends Grundig, which seems to be a highly respected manufacturer. I will probably end up going with that recommendation because it seems to be highly rated in my HAM radio catalogs.
However I just got a flyer on a Kaito Short-wave radio that is fairly inexpensive and will run on battery, solar energy, or dynamo hand crank. It seems that the solar/dynamo options would make this a good choice for an emergency radio, but I have no idea about the quality or if there are some essential features that it may be lacking.
Any opinions?
Many Thanks,
Jeffery
The worst case is you buy the cheap one now, and bad times come and you have to use a machine that is say 70 percent of what you need. Or... you save you money until you can afford the expensive one that is 100 percent of what you need, and risk bad times happenning before you buy the 100 percent one.
Personally, I would rather have a radio than no radio.
The Kaito Radio, manufactured in Mainland China model DF976 is about as inexpensive as you can get. It even includes some premium rechargeable batteries. Chances are that it's not very rugged in its overall presentation. (Don't drop it or the outer case will probably act like cardboard or plaster).
Shortwave bands give out a bit too early. Would be better if they went above 18 mhz. Thirty Mhz is better if you can get it.
Hand crank is better than Baygen and is probably easier to crank up. The claimed solar charge rate is unrealistic insofar as few locations have 8 good hours of sunlight. You can really figure on 3-4 hours in the sun for 1-1 1/2 hours of play time. It really depends to a large degree on how much you play it and how LOUD you play it.
Another option for shortwave is an old tube set. Look for the S-38 series of Hallicrafters on EBAY. You really can't get them working for less than $50.00 and there's no FM included, but they are EMP resistant. On the other hand, they won't run on D cells, and they draw 30-50 watts of 110 vac.
Hope this helps - belatedly so