Raddy RF75A APP Control Shortwave Radio, Portable Shortwave Radios AM/FM/VHF/SW/WB Weather Radio, Pocket Radio Rechargeable w/ 9.85 Ft Wire Antenna (Army Green)

Although I own a couple of other digital radios, its more of a hobby thing than collecting, and I wasn't looking for another radio when I first ran across this thing.But its cuteness and features kind of sucked me in because the price is pretty low under 50 USDs. I was afraid it might be just a toy but in testing it out I found this tiny thing means business!I can listen to 2 meter Ham radio just great without pulling out the antenna, weather comes in more clear than most weather radios. Only the AM broadcast band is a little weak in getting really far stationsand the antenna does not seem to help.This little thing will accept a micro SD card big enough to hold my entire collection of MP3s easily, and some headphones sound great with it. That feature alone blows away the the oldmusic player I used to carry which was just as big but only held 8G max. And this is only one feature...The names of tracks being played is only available on the phone appRun time is about 6 to 12 hours depending on volume level.It has a number of pro's going for it:- It can be a BT speaker that sounds way better than most phones or even laptops.- It can be a u-SD card player up to 256G (plays in stereo to headphones)- It can be a USB speaker for a PC (I think)- Receives AM, FM, SW, VHF, and weather bands- Doing a scan on any band will automatically store all found stations in preset memory locations for you, this seems to work well for most of the bands- I think you can record audio from the radio onto your phone but have not tried this yet- You can set timed power on or power off, and alarms- Has emergency flashlight and/or siren- It has a written Guide that comes with it and a separate guide for the phone app - nice touch!- It has a clock display- Its little - like only half a shirt pocket- Has 1AH lithium battery and modern USB-C charge port conveniently located on top where any USBC connector will work.- Has a lock key which at first seems WTF, but after having it turn On in my pocket, it is a nice touch to be able to lock out the power button! But see Cons.- Being so small, the accompanying phone app lets you access the features a little easier and use some you might never have known were even therefor example it has an equalizer with built-in presets for the audio output- The speaker is surprisingly powerful for the size of the unit. Having said that, I don't mean to say it sounds like a JBL or something,yet it sounds so much better than it looks like it should, that it just seems acceptable.- Comes with a nice little kit of goodies like charge cable, Ext antenna cable, etc.CONS:- FM is Not Stereo to headphones- The portion of the VHF FM band that corresponds to Air cannot demodulate the AM air band properly- AM broadcast band is a little weak compared to bigger radios with bigger ferrite loops in them- No file navigation tools to deal with the possibly huge TF cards of up to a quarter terabyte- The lockout button does not lock out the flashlight/siren button (so it can go off in your pocket). looks like a bug to me.- Oh yeah, in the display the word "Level" is spelled "Lever". That's a real dumb one.Okay it may have a bug or two, but is a lot of fun for the price! I would buy another one if they fix the bugs...

No complaints so far. I've had this radio for over a year. It holds a charge for several hours and easily hooks up to a USB cable for charging. Broadcasts come in clearly and all of the buttons are solid. Plus, controlling the radio with my smartphone app works great as well. The only con that I can think of is that the clock eventually loses a bit of time, but this is really not an issue for me and synching with the phone app readily corrects the time when it has gone astray. I recommend this small, high quality product.

The media could not be loaded. This certainly is an interesting radio, primarily because of the very nice app that works with it. The app not only lets you control the radio as if you were pressing its buttons, but it also provides features (like recording and direct frequency entry) and displays information (like song file name and signal strength) not available on the radio itself. You can even set the radio's clock from the phone's clock with just one tap! Note: one cannot listen to the radio over the phone with the app. The app is RADIO-C on Android and RADIO-CT on the iPhone. You can install the app without the radio if you're curious.The RF75A is amazingly small -- a true shirt pocket radio -- but it's packed with a long list of features. It's the Swiss army knife of portable radios with weather alerts, music playing from a micro SD card, a flashlight, a really loud emergency siren, Bluetooth speaker and an alarm clock. The radio adds VHF reception to the usual MW/FM/SW and weather bands. It has an earphone jack, and the earphone cord can act as an antenna for FM (note: FM is not stereo on this radio although the MP3 player is). All it lacks is a bottle opener (yes, there really are radios with bottle openers).I'm an avid shortwave listener who's owned over 100 radios over the past 60 years and I've thought a good deal about how this radio fits in. It's not a "starter radio" for someone curious about shortwave, nor one a serious listener would want as their only radio; reception is just not that good, particularly with the tiny 13" built-in whip antenna, but I live in Virginia in the US and I was able to receive Radio New Zealand with a listenable signal on the RF75A whip antenna; that was under very good conditions at 2:30 AM. The radio does get stations, but something else in the same price range would get more (something like an XHDATA D-109 comes to mind as a better starter radio). It's difficult to control noise from the electronics in a radio this small and that is a limiting factor on sensitivity, but noise is only an issue for weak signals. On the other extreme, the radio can overload on strong local FM stations that might bleed over a couple of channels on either side (one might try shortening the antenna in this situation).An experienced radio user like me finds navigating the controls (9 buttons) intuitive; however, some buttons have as many as 4 different functions depending on mode and whether you press, double press or long press them. Advanced functions like setting the alarm or setting VHF bandwidth may require reference to the manual. I give the manual a B- grade. It's certainly way above some radio manuals, but the English is still sometimes awkward and occasionally a sentence doesn't quite make sense. It is convenient that you can get the manual in PDF format from the Raddy website. The current user manual has an error related to retrieving stored station presets. Press the "SET" key, not the "MODE" key as stated in the manual to allow selection of the preset. It also refers to the [MODE] button, but it's actually [MOD] -- perhaps the typo is on the radio, not the manual. The app has a separate manual, but the app's operation is so intuitive that I have not needed to consult it.If you wanted a camping radio, this might fit the bill. Just add a solar panel with USB-C output to keep it charged on a long trip. The flashlight is small but bright, enough to keep you from tripping over a tree root, if not enough to light up the trees. The SOS siren is extremely loud. The radio is easily loud enough for group listening. It comes with a carry bag to keep it from getting scratched up when stowed with gear and it comes with an external wire antenna you could loop over a tree branch to get more stations.I tend to keep the radio in my shirt pocket for listening on the spur of the moment. That's the source of the attached video of the radio receiving Spanish National Radio on shortwave at my home in Virginia.I think I am going to keep this radio in my car in the glove box to use on the spur of the moment when I find myself with some extra time and want to listen to shortwave or check the weather.For the more serious purchaser, it's helpful that the manual is available online and the app can be downloaded before making a buying decision.One negative point is that the 1000mAh 3.7V lithium polymer battery is not user replaceable or upgraded.

This is the best daily buddy you can carry with you. I dowloaded many audio books to store on a sd card that add more to this radio. Great speaker, pretty loud. Don’t hesitate and buy it !