Eton S350DL User Manual download pdf

70 MONITORING TIMES February 2007

must admit up front that I have never been

much of a fan of head-to-head comparisons

of radio equipment. To me they are more than

a bit unfair to the manufacturer of the radio that

“loses” in the comparison. It may be a fine radio;

it just doesn’t measure up to the radio it is being

compared with in the eyes of the reviewer.

So, when I was asked to do a series of short-

wave portable comparisons for the Grove Tech

staff, I was, well, a bit apprehensive. Therefore,

before I step into the first installment in an MT

battle of the shortwave radios, let me present a few

caveats so that you will understand the limitations

of this type of review.

1) Low end portable speciﬁcations can vary from

batch to batch, making a subjective call on the

entire manufacturing run difﬁcult.

2) Quality control for lower end radios can vary

from unit to unit, and may not represent the

entire production run.

3) Some specs (i.e. such as audio qual-

ity, ergonomics, color selection, usefulness of

synchronous detection) are purely a personal

preference. What I like, you may not. What I

hear, you may not.

4) While portable radios are nice, they are not

DX machines. Anything below about $500 in

price is aimed more toward the casual or pro-

gram shortwave listener, not the DXer or hard

core utility listener. Yes, you going to hear your

share of neat stuff, but unless you have a high

end receiver, you aren’t going to know what

you are missing by using a low end portable

shortwave radio.

So, with this preliminary understanding of

field in which we are working, this installment of

MT First Look will compare the Kaito KA1102

(Grove RCV02 $79.95) and the Eton S350DL

(Grove RCV04 $99.95).

KAITO KA1102

Inside the Box

The first thing I noticed when I

took the radio out of the box was its size.

Dimensions are 5.62 inches (143mm) x

3.46 inches (88 mm) x 1.12 inches (28.5

mm) and it weighs 9.8 oz. (280 grams),

excluding the three batteries. This radio

can be thrown into a briefcase or purse

for travel.

Accessories included in the box

include a carrying pouch, operating

manual (plus a simple operating guide),

AC adapter, three Ni-MH rechargeable

batteries, stereo earphones, external antenna (SW/

FM only), and a wrist strap with stand support.

The manual was ok. I have seen better. There

was no explanation to the beginner as to what

shortwave is, etc. The typeset is a bit small due to

the small size of the manual itself, but it is logically

laid out.

On-the-Air Testing

During our testing, we used the venerable

Sony 2010 as our bench mark receiver. The first

notable advantage by the Kaito was in FM broad-

cast band reception. It beat the 2010 hands down

when using only the whip antennas. But we did

notice some images on the lower frequencies

from the high end of the band. AM and shortwave

sensitivity was much better on the 2010.

The receiver has good audio – not great, but

given the size of the speaker (2.6 inches) it was

interesting to hear some reasonable audio from

such a small package. There was a noticeable

audio improvement when I moved to headphones.

However, they do not use a line out jack as the

instruction manual indicates. The audio levels

change using the volume control. I did notice that

at times, depending on signal strength, the narrow

AM filter had a detrimental effect on the received

audio.

Receiver selectivity was surprising good for

this price range. I was particularly pleased with the

FM selectivity which is usually an afterthought. But

what really surprised me about the 1102 was the in-

clusion of SSB reception capability. However, there

is a negative here, also (see negatives below).

This is a dual conversion receiver. While that

is good, we noticed more images, etc. when we

connected it to an external antenna as compared to

the same setup for the Sony 2010. AM reception

was very good (see below), but FM reception was

better on this radio than on the Eton and Sony.

Shortwave reception was about equal to the other

two radios, but the Eton and Sony were slightly

better on the higher shortwave bands.

And for those who like tuning around, there

was no chugging when tuning the 1102 like you

have with the older Sony.

The 1102 Negatives

As I have said many times, no radio is perfect,

and we are talking about a $79.95 portable, so the

Kaito has a few skeletons in its closet.

Tuning SSB signals is a chore. Yes, there is a

SSB button on the side of the receiver, but it only

receives SSB as long as the button is pushed. In

order to put it into the SSB mode, you have to go

through a convoluted procedure to keep it in that

mode. There is no USB/LSB: instead, the radio

uses a SSB fine tuning control to home in on SSB

signals.

The learning curve for this radio is much

steeper than the 2010 or even the Eton radio

reviewed in this article. What makes this

more difficult is its much smaller screen.

If you are nearsighted, you will not have

a pleasurable experience using the Kaito

KA1102.

AM reception compared to the Sony

and Eton was not as good – probably the

result of a smaller ferrite loop coil inside

the radio compared to the other two radios.

The external antenna on the Kaito only

works on the shortwave/FM bands, so AM

broadcast band reception is not as good as

on the other two radios.

I did note a bit of synthesizer noise

IRST LOOK

By Larry Van Horn, N5FPW

MT Assistant/Technical Editor

Kaito KA1102 vs Eton S350DL

Comparing Two Under $100 Portables

MT Rating: 2 1/4 Stars

MT First Look Rating (0-10 scale)

Kaito KA1102 Receiver

Audio Quality .................................... 6

Audio Levels ...................................... 6

Back light/Display .............................6

Battery Life ........................................ 7

Dynamic Range ................................. 5

Ease of use .......................................6

Feature Set ....................................... 7

Keyboard/Button/Control Layout ....... 7

Sensitivity ................AM-5, FM-6, SW-5

Selectivity ................AM-6, FM-6, SW-6

Overall Construction ......................... 8

Overall Reception .............................. 7

Overall Manual ................................. 5

1 2

Summary of Contents

Page 1 - Kaito KA1102 vs Eton S350DL

70 MONITORING TIMES February 2007Imust admit up front that I have never been much of a fan of head-to-head comparisons of radio equipment

Page 2 - MT Rating: 2 Stars

February 2007 MONITORING TIMES 71while tuning around; the Eton reviewed below had none. This is probably a direct result of the tuning

Eton S350DL User Manual

Browse online or download User Manual for Radios Eton S350DL. IRST LOOK Kaito KA1102 Vs Eton S350DL [da] [de] [en] [et] [nl] [ro]

Summary of Contents

More documents for Radios Eton S350DL

Comments to this Manuals

Eton S350DL User Manual

Browse online or download User Manual for Radios Eton S350DL. IRST LOOK Kaito KA1102 Vs Eton S350DL [da] [de] [en] [et] [nl] [ro]

Summary of Contents

More documents for Radios Eton S350DL

Comments to this Manuals

Related products and manuals for Radios Eton S350DL