NEWS – I never thought my gadget-obsessed teen would get excited about an old-school portable radio. But here we are.
When my son first went to sleep-away camp in the hills of Brown County, Indiana, he asked for a battery-operated radio to listen to while fishing or just chilling in his hammock after a busy day of swimming and mountain-biking. Unfortunately, his clumsy mother broke the antenna off that radio at last year’s fireworks.
In searching for an upgrade, he learned that for just a couple bucks more, he could buy this radio from Retekess that lets him play his own music from an SD card, a nice alternative when camping in a place that only gets a couple of radio stations. This model also has a sleep timer and a rechargeable battery.
He says the radio’s speaker quality is quite good, too, and the shape/size makes it easier to carry than the standard portable speakers we own.
It’s small, just 4.7 x 3.1 x 0.9 inches. That’s little enough to fit in your pocket. Wouldn’t make a dent in your backpack. Or, as my kid likes to do, you can wrap your cable bike lock around it and have it sit on your handlebars while cruising the neighborhood.
He hasn’t tested it at camp yet. But for as much as he’s used it on bike rides, skateboarding and fishing, it’s already well worth the $25 he paid for it.
This radio has 4.2 out of 5 stars on Amazon with 1,872 ratings.
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I don’t know why, but this radio really caught my attention.
I think it has kind of an olde school Radio Schack vibe.
I also like the fact that I could put every CD I own on here for
that “rainy day”.
Question:
What would one listen to on shortwave these days?
Here is an article on SW radio from 2019: https://radiofidelity.com/what-is-shortwave-radio/
I still listen to the BBC and a few other stations on shortwave. Got hooked as a kid, when a elderly friend gave me a Halicrafters SX-43, which was HUGE and had those old vaccum tubes. The speaker was as big as the radio! It STILL WORKS, although I haven’t used it in a while but I fired it up about a year ago and it still worked! But, the radios of today aren’t as “fun” as the old ones were. You had to know where something was to find it. Now, with digital, you type in the frequency and there it is. I remember in the 80’s, I was listening one morning and radio Moscow was playing that really somber eerie music. I said uh oh…someone died. After about 30 minutes, in English, they announced that Yuri Andropov had passed away.
The Tecsun PL-380 is a nice little radio if you want shortwave. It’s an amazing little radio. https://swling.com/blog/tag/tecsun-pl-380/