Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Christian, who writes:
The Eton Executive Traveller’s price has dropped to $44.72 shipped on Amazon.com. This is the best price I believe I’ve ever seen for this little guy. I’ve got one and love it. As I’ve mentioned before this is Amazon, so the price can change without any notice.
Thanks for the tip once again, Christian!
Click here to view on Amazon.com (affiliate link supports the SWLing Post).
$43.74 now. Price keeps dropping. Ha. Yes, Amazon’s listing that shows multiple items is annoying. I hope no one relies solely on Amazon listings for correct specs on anything – they are often incorrect and this goes for more than just radios. If you really want the specs on an item the manufacturers website is your best bet – and even then there can be inconsistencies.
Now, I have one of these that I bought “used” on eBay. It was actually new in box and I paid $40 with free shipping and I thought I was getting a deal and I did until this most recent price drop on Amazon. It’s a fantastic little radio, very sensitive. Better than my Sangean ATS-909X on a random wire and at least as good as my Skywave. But the sound is the best thing about this radio. While the Skywave’s speaker is apparently “tuned” for the human speaking voice it suffers in my opinion whenr playing music. That’s were this Eton comes in strong – a much better sounding speaker, not nearly as much treble as the Skywave but of course don’t expect strong bass. The world clock feature is kind of handy too. If you want to know what time it is elsewhere in the world just twist the nob.
Now, where this radio falls short in my opinion is the ability to lock it for travel. Yes, it has the standard press-and-hold lock toggle, However, even when this is engaged if you bump any of the buttons the backlight comes on. So, Eton though of this and the leather cover is scalloped out to prevent the buttons on the face from being accidentally pressed when locked. Great! No.Wait. There’s still a problem. If you so much as touch the tuning or volume wheels the backlight comes on and stays on for several seconds. When I first got this radio I could not figure out why the batteries were dead every time I turned around – particularly after traveling with it nestled safely down in my backpack. The only solution I can find is to remove the batteries if you are going to travel with this radio which kind of defeats the purpose of a travel radio now doesn’t it? Otherwise, this is one of my favorite radios.
Amazon’s policy of comingling product information and reviews of different items from a company’s product line is indeed infuriating.
The Traveler does not support SSB in any of its incarnations. This radio is, in effect, a fully realized/perfected version of a very early DSP model, the Tecsun PL-300WT/Grundig G8 Traveller II. As a receiver it performs very well even in areas where one would not expect it to – e.g. AM band where it is close to the CCrane Skywave in performance.
The downside is the lack of the keypad and memory features that later models have. Tuning basically relies upon the wheel on the side and its rotary encoder. This is fine for bandscanning but a more serious listener would want more. Also, as has been pointed out, Chinese rotary encoders have a habit of dying prematurely which, for a radio whose UI is designed in this way, would be a death sentence.
It’s a quite appealing offer, just… well, following the amazon link leaves me some doubts, see, the page carries images for BOTH the traveler AND the satellit and seems to mix/match the two; at a certain point the page states that the radio supports SSB, but looking at the features table below, the SSB seems to only be supported by the satellit and NOT by the traveler.
Now, I’m not saying that the radio is bad; the price is good, for sure, but being somewhat more CLEAR about the effective features of the offered (traveler) model may be a good idea, I think.