Thomas takes this little portable on travels to record Shortwave, AM and FM broadcasters. Very handy.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Martin, who shares the following comment:
Ok, this comment might be a little bit too late, but what the heck, SW radios are way more too old so. I’m 46 and as a little kid, my first “electronic” device was a National or Panasonic (not sure what was it) AM Transistor Portable Radio and I loved it. I spent hours looking for something to hear through all the spectrum. In 1988 (I think) my father bought a Panasonic SW Portable Radio and I “stole” it from him, it took me back to the Radio experience and open me the interest for the SW. 10 years later, or so, it was stolen from me (and eye for an eye).
A couple of years ago I was thinking about getting one but didn’t want to spend too much for an entry-level radio. So after a lot of research (including your post Troy), I decided to go for the Retekess V115, which is the rebranded version of the Audiomax SRW710s, or the Tivdio V115, or… I bought it for around $23.00 USD through our local “eBay” platform “Mercado Libre” in Mexico as they had local stock. I first bought a Retekess V117 for my dad which is an analog version and for the old man will be easier to use. After testing this one before handing it to the old man I was impressed by its performance, so I decided to go for the “digital” version. 2 versions were available as an entry, the V111, and the V115. I went for the V115 as it has a rechargeable iON battery, numerical buttons for presets and entering stations, and last but not less it is an MP3 player.
So far I have used both AM & FM radio with a pleasant experience. I work in a hard concrete building and it gets signal from stations that I couldn’t get with my mobile FM radio app. As for the SW I have gotten signals from CUBA, and I believe some others from Europe. I haven’t spent too much time looking for SW stations though. Sound is amazing for this little thing, it is crisp on radio and it also delivers some bass with music! MP3 player is kind of limited, but it is not an iPod, right? It only plays by folder but also you can look for specific songs surfing the root file.
Anyway, I highly recommend this little thing for an entry level SW radio, even if you don’t want to spend too much and are not looking for the big guys (Tecsun, Grudnig, C. Crane), I can assure you will have a lot of fun with it.
Happy tunings and greetings from Guadalajara, Mexico.
Thank you so much for sharing your review, Martin. You’re right: the audio from this little radio is pretty impressive especially considering the price and size. As I mention in the photo caption above, I often travel with the V-115/SRW-710S because I can so easily make off-air recordings on the internal MicroSD card.
This radio has so many brand names, it’s difficult to track them down. At the moment, it seems Retekess V115 is the most ubiquitous. Also look for AudioMax and Tivdio.
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