Crossing Radio Signals

I grew up in a very “radio-savvy” environment with my dad being a HAM radio enthusiast and him always trying to teach my brother and I morse code. I guess some of it actually stuck with me, since I guess I can fairly say that know a fair amount about the electromagnetic spectrum (with frequencies their ranges, etc.). Well this new radio that just came out really reminded me of the ever-reliability of radio waves no matter how far we’ve advanced in technology.

After about 10 years in development, the Eton E1 “Universal Radio” is the first radio that combines AM, FM, shortwave and XM Satellite Radio into a high-performance, full-sized portable unit. The frequency range covers 100 - 30,000 kHz and includes shortwave, medium wave AM broadcast band and long wave. In addition it covers 87 – 108 or 76 – 90 MHz FM broadcast band.

The Eton E1 is the top-of-the-line in shortwave portables, a market that has been shrinking since the end of the Cold War and the growth of the Internet. The internal speaker has a fairly good sound, but it’s not stereo. If you use the headphone jack, then you can listen to it in stereo. The E1 has six knobs, which keeps it simple to use, and have up to 1700 station presets with a memory scan function. A stereo line-level input and output allows you to listen to other devices with the E1 or recording or routing the output to another device (such as a home stereo).

Operated by either an AC adapter or four D cell batteries, the E1 weighs four pounds, three ounces. It comes built-in with a 5.7-inch LCD display and has four levels of backlighting that shows you the compete status of your radio. It has a built-in telescopic antenna for the AM, shortwave and FM reception. There is also an additional antenna jack that allows you to attach an external antenna for the XM feature.

If you activate XM Satellite Radio (www.xmradio.com) you’ll have to pay a $12.95 per month fee. With it you’ll receive commercial-free radio with over 150 crystal-clear digital channels from across America.

The Eton E1 is quite pricey, at around $500, but is well worth it if you are in the market for a high-end table radio that includes shortwave. It is available at Circuit City (www.circuitcity.com) or www.amazon.com.