Raddy RF760 Portable SSB Shortwave Radio Receiver with NOAA Alert, Full Band AM/FM/SW/CB/VHF/UHF/WX/AIR, Battery Operated, Rechargeable Digital Radio with Earphone Jack and 9.7ft Wire Antenna

The media could not be loaded. I've owned somewhere north of 100 shortwave radios over 60 years, so I'm an experienced listener. Based on the considerable negative commentary in Amazon reviews, I was somewhat hesitant to make a purchase, but the discounted price was about half of the price the RF760 when it was introduced in 2022, and I decided to give it a try.So let me cover the negatives first.The biggest negative is the sound quality from the speaker. It's tinny. Speech is understandable, but music of any genera is unpleasant to listen to. The headphone experience, however, is good. I didn't try the included earbuds (I have a big box of unused earbuds that come with radios) but rather some good headphones. There is no booming bass, but the midrange is good.The second negative is the complexity of operation. This unit has 8 bands, including a user-defined band. It allows step settings, bandwidth settings, attenuation settings, deemphasis settings and a squelch. It has upper and lower sideband decoding. It has a clock, alarm, sleep timer and a thermometer with display in F and C. It manages all that with a mere 11 buttons and a knob. With that said, basic reception is possible with what could be easily figured out for someone familiar with other radios.The third negative is the user manual, which is not the most helpful in places, and whose English is somewhat nonstandard. Just what is a "flying shuttle button"? There is a way to quickly tune to a specific frequency without number keys, but it's hidden in the manual in a mass of awkward English.The display is readable as far as the basic information, band, frequency, memory location and signal quality, but there are some setting items that are almost microscopic, and unless your close up vision exceeds 20-20, you will need a magnifying glass to see some of the things (that probably don't matter).In a radio this small it is inevitable that the telescopic antenna is thin and the user should take care not to bend it. One video I saw showed the antenna becoming loose, but I have not seen this so far. I would suggest a little silicone lubricant on the antenna. Others reported problems with the tuning knob that I have not seen either.I gave the radio 5 stars from the point of view of an experienced shortwave listener who wants a pocket radio that does everything, someone who has seen their share of bad translations from the Chinese. With such a small size plus weather alerts, it makes sense as a camping radio or a travel radio, and I was frankly surprised at how well it performs. It exceeded expectations.MW performance is necessarily poor because of the small size of the radio, limiting the size of the internal MW antenna, but with an external antenna, I got 10 times as many MW stations! And with an external antenna, the RF760 automatically adds longwave reception, shown in the video I included of a nondirectional beacon on 351 kHz. FM coverage is very good and I didn't see any signs of overloading. Shortwave is reasonable. Weather band reception is the best I have seen. Raddy includes a simple external wire antenna, giving a significant boost.The auto tune search (ATS) seems to work well, but there are only 100 storage locations per band (1000 total), and one might exceed that on shortwave with an antenna.I tried SSB reception on the 40 meter ham band. The biggest difficulty was the impenetrable language of the manual. If you ignore all the part about "2MIX" that apparently doesn't even exist, it makes a little more sense.My unit serial number started 2411, so I am speculating that it was manufactured in November of 2024, perhaps correcting issues with earlier runs.

I am a HAM Radio operator and this was an excellent purchase!!! I love the size, controls, bands, USB-C charging port, and the external antenna connection port--rare on this size radio. Thank you for developing this excellent product!!! I always have it with me when I travel!!!

UPDATE:I purchased another one of these from a different vendor. The price has dropped to nearly half of the original cost. I discovered that there at least 4 different versions of this radio, manufacturered by one company HanRongDa, and branded by Raddy, Retekess, and HRD. The newest version contains a MOSFET preamplifier between the antenna and mixer. The newest version works quite well as long as you don't attach a long outdoor antenna. The sensitivity is quite good, but this set can be overloaded due to poor dynamic range. That said, it is a technological marvel with no less than 2 Receiver chips and a DSP chip. I discovered that using the headphones it improves reception. I love the little set, but I don't recommend it if it's going to be your only radio for listening to shortwave.ORIGINAL REVIEW:This little receiver is pretty cool, but has its drawbacks. The sensitivity below about 5 mHz is pretty poor. The Menus are difficult to see and hard to navigate. It's much more sensitive on the Upper Shortwave Bands, CB Band, and on the VHF/UHF Bands. Where I can clearly receive CHU on 3.30 mHz on my Tecsun PL-330, using the built-in Whip Antennas, they're not audible on the Raddy. The Scanning Features on the Raddy work quite well. But programming the frequencies into memory is not straightforward. The one big plus is the wide range of coverage in such a small package. Oh, and as other Reviewers have noted, the end of the built-in Whip Antenna is hair thin and easily breakable. I'm 71 and have been a Radio Enthusiast since grade school. I've owned literally hundreds of radio receivers in my life. I wound up returning the Raddy and purchased a Vintage Hammarlund HQ-180A to restore. That's a laugh because the Raddy weighs onces and the Hammarlund weighs 60 pounds! 73, KG7M

SW Band has serious bleed over from local MW (AM) stations making reception of the desired SW frequencies impossible. SSB function defective - no sound, no signal or even static and dual function not accessible in SET menu,Weather WX Band - strong stations produce excessive audio distortion making it difficult to understand spoken words & Air Band has the same problem.Manual says to change BW in WX however SET menu does not allow assess to BW in WX band.AM & FM function is average.Too bad - this radio sounds good on paper but misses the mark.In it's current state, it's far too expensive for just the average FM and AM pocket radio function.I've reached out to the seller with these issues.I'll update my review if I receive another unit that functions better.