RetekessV117 Portable Radios AM FM, Shortwave Radio with Clear Dial, Transistor Radio with Best Reception for Seniors (Black)

***EVEN MORE UPDATED REVIEWAs you read below - the 2nd radio didn't pick up any channels, like the 1st one, and I finally found a radio at Target that works great. BUT, the seller still wanted to make sure I received a radio that worked well and kindly asked me if they could send another - a 3rd radio - and I told them fine, but I'm not paying for it. It arrived 2 days later (WOW!). It is a different radio, which I can't find the link to, so I can't review it on that page, so I'll review it here. The radio WORKS!!! It's clear and loud and NO STATIC whatsoever! I'm so pleased with this company's customer service, if I could give them 10 stars, I would. Never did I ask for a 2nd, or 3rd, radio. They went above and beyond several times and they actually fixed the problem! This is how a business should run. Sure, it's just a ten dollar radio, they didn't need to care about me, ONE person...but they did and it says a lot for these people. Way to go, Retevis Direct! GOOD JOB!***UPDATED REVIEWAfter my terrible review on this radio the seller reached out to me and sent another radio - without me asking them to. Very nice service! Unfortunately the new radio also didn't pick up ANY channels, so it didn't work. When I told them it didn't work, they automatically issued a refund and told me they have told the manufacturer of the radio in hopes that they could fix whatever the problem is.So, the radio is still unusable, but I can tell you the service is superb. Changing my one star to 3, just based on service. I really wish the radio had worked though. I've come to the realization that buying a simple radio is not an easy task anymore. Ended up finding a Jensen at Target that works for me.**ORIGINAL REVIEW**I bought this radio because of the reviews about the great reception. The one I received doesn't pick up ONE station - not one! (on FM - I didn't try AM or SW)It's cute, real small, like it can fit in your back pocket. But who cares if you can't get any channels, right?

I'm pleased with this. I bought it because I like to have a small radio in the bathroom, and lost it with digital devices that claimed to do a lot but were fiddly, sometimes impossible, to tune; ran out of juice suddenly; and sometimes lost all their presets for no obvious reason. I thought, I wonder if anyone still sells simple radios that just work?They do. This radio has FM, AM and shortwave bands, and a simple analog tuning mechanism. The aerial (which is more than adequate) is retractable and the radio itself very compact, so you can slip it into a jacket pocket when you are out and about. The sound quality and the volume available are surprising for the price. There is even a 3.5mm headphone jack so you can listen to it on good speakers if you want to (though be aware, it's mono). It takes two AA batteries and these last really well; when they do go, you get some warning because the radio doesn't hold its tune so well.There are a couple of odd things. The aerial doesn't swivel so you can't easily use the radio lying on its back, which is a nuisance because it has a narrow base and could easily be pushed over. The on-off/volume control is easy and pleasant to use, but it works the wrong way rund - you rotate it downwards to switch on. Also I am not sure the shortwave band works that well (but it may be I have no stations to receive where I am; in remote areas it might be OK).Still, it works well, the sound is great and it doesn't drive me up the wall when I want to change station. And it was only $13.99 (i see now it's a little more, but not much). For a bathroom, garage or workshop radio, it's great.

I bought this based on the quality of the Retekess PR12 - an excellent, very small radio. The V117 is a different animal entirely. Its performance qualities would make it suitable to some listeners and not others.First, some good things: Sound from the speaker is great for a radio this size. If you walked into a room and heard it playing without first seeing it, you'd guess it was a bigger radio than it is. Earbuds and headphones sound really good, too, with full and rich audio. You'll get monaural audio from the headphone jack but it's wired to use both sides of stereo earbuds/headphones - a nice plus. (Some other small monaural radios need an adapter to produce sound on both sides of a headset.)FM reception is also very good to excellent. This little radio pulls in FM signals that some bigger radios miss, and the sound is good, as described above. You'll get a lot of stations clearly on FM - more than most radios, and a lot more than most other radios this size.Build quality and control feel is good. The side-mounted tuning knob is easier to use than the traditional thumbwheel you find on small pocket radios. However the one downside of this is you need to be careful when carrying the radio in a tighter pocket because the protruding knob might be more subject to damage.So, right there you have enough good to excellent qualities to justify the price of this radio. Most people these days do the bulk of their radio listening on FM, and they want the sound to be decent. If that's you, the V117 is one of the better radios you could pick.Now, switching over to AM reveals performance that another reviewer called chaotic, and I'd say that's the perfect word for it. A lot of this arises, I believe, from the manufacturer's noble attempt to provide something on AM that few radios offer - a wider AM bandwidth for better sound. Your favorite AM station - if it's close enough for this radio to receive it clearly - will sound better then you've ever heard. Even music sounds pretty decent on AM with this radio, and voice is much crisper than usual on AM. That's because the V117 is not chopping off the high frequencies as most AM radios do.But here's the problem with that: Lacking selectivity owing to its wide bandwidth, the AM tuner makes it very hard to zero in on a certain weak station. For instance, when I turn the radio to orient the internal AM antenna one direction or another, I've heard as many as four different stations come in and out - without so much as touching the tuning knob. These are adjacent-channels that are all coming in at the same frequency. You'll also find some other oddities, such as a strong station coming in on both sides of a weaker station near it on the dial. And, assumedly due to the performance peculiarities of the DSP chip, tuning across the dial will at times yield loud, pulsating static; moreover, while listening to a weak AM station, the audio may change markedly in volume from time to time, or the signal might be replaced by pulsing static or silence. Again, this is on weak AM signals.So, what's the upshot of AM on the V117: if you listen to nearby AM stations, this is a good radio for you. These stations will sound exceptional - probably better than you've heard them on anything else - and they'll come in just fine. But the odd behavior of this radio on weak AM signals would drive you crazy if you tried to listen often to hard-to-get AM stations. Between the weak stations randomly coming in and out and the loud on/off static that can, at times, replace these weak stations with aggravating noise, you'd get fed up and switch to some other radio. And, that's kind of a shame, for this radio actually has good AM sensitivity when the above issues aren't occurring, but it's just too unsteady.Shortwave runs from 8 MHz to 18 MHz, which to me is a strange choice of upper and lower limits. Night shortwave reception (generally the more active time for broadcasters) is best under about 7 MHz, and this radio doesn't get those frequencies. I'm thinking that the shortwave section of this radio might have been designed for somewhere besides North America, such as perhaps a country/region that uses certain shortwave frequencies for domestic radio services, and maybe it's those shortwave frequencies that this radio gets. Don't know; just a possibility. I've only received a few weak, unintelligible signals on the V117's shortwave band. For these reasons, if you're in North America buy something else if you want a radio with usable shortwave.Battery life seems very good - I put a set of AA rechargeables in when I got it and they're still going strong after probably 25 hours of playing time.To summarize, the V117 gets great reception on FM, it sounds good, and it offers a wide AM bandwidth that can make stronger signals sound really good, but does seem to also preclude optimal reception of weak AM signals. Depending on what you want, this radio might be a great choice for you, or or might not be as suitable as some other models. The four-star rating reflects this radio's many good qualities for its price.