Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor (and our intrepid radio deal reporter) Christian, who writes:
The price of the Eton Executive Traveler was down several months ago, but then increased on Amazon. I’ve been watching and now prices are back down to historic lows for this modelare back down to historic lows for this model. As with any Amazon deal, you snooze, you lose, because their prices are dynamic and can change without warning.
Thanks for the tip once again, Christian! It’s ironic, I just ran into my buddy Kevin at the W4DXCC conference and he told me he loves the Traveler so much, he bought two. It’s a great value at $36.
Click here to view on Amazon.com (affiliate link supports the SWLing Post).
Just got one on the strength of this page. First impressions: great sensitivity on AM and SW, although it seems incredibly deaf on LW. Attractive, light unit. Sound quality is not wonderful; one can’t change the bandwidth and there isn’t even a two-position tone-switch to tweak. Also it ‘chuffs’ between frequencies, and it has the common problem of the Chinese cheapie radios that the function buttons can be a little unreliable. But overall for its price I’m quite satisfied.
I have this radio too and have just one complaint and it’s BIG. Even after enabling the “Lock” feature the backlight will still come on if you turn, bump or touch the volume or tuning dials. In my experience this makes the radio almost worthless for travel as you will show up at your destination with dead batteries after this radio rides around in your bag for just a few hours. Each time the wheels are bumped the backlight comes on killing the batteries. If anyone has a suggestion I’m all ears. I’ve tried isolating the wheels with cardboard and other tricks but nothing is reliable.
I like the rotary switch, like multi-meter, just dial in. Is there a chart for what frequency range they correspond, like if radio Canada international or voice of America goes off the air?