{"id":17088,"date":"2016-01-31T16:44:41","date_gmt":"2016-01-31T20:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=17088"},"modified":"2016-01-31T16:44:41","modified_gmt":"2016-01-31T20:44:41","slug":"review-of-the-kaito-ka108","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/review-of-the-kaito-ka108\/","title":{"rendered":"Review of the Kaito KA108"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kaito-KA108-Front-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently<\/a>,\u00a0I learned about a new portable by Kaito Electronics: the Kaito KA108. While there are a number of compact portables on the market, the KA108 really caught my attention because it features\u00a0a built-in digital recorder.<\/em><\/strong> Which is to say, you can listen to a station on shortwave, press a button, and the KA108 will record it to a MicroSD card.<\/em>\u00a0Pretty cool, right? It’s also the first shortwave portable I’ve ever known that offers\u00a0a scheduling feature for recordings.<\/p>\n

In the past there have been a few shortwave portables with digital recording capabilities, but most of these have been plagued with poor performance. So this time,\u00a0I had my fingers crossed that Kaito might have produced a winner.<\/p>\n

Having used the KA108 for several days now, my initial review follows,\u00a0with a\u00a0focus on shortwave as well as mediumwave performance.<\/p>\n

User’s Manual<\/strong><\/p>\n

The KA108 actually ships with two manuals: a quick start reference guide and a proper highly-detailed user’s manual.<\/p>\n

\"Kaito-KA108-Unboxing-3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The manual is written in English and is quite descriptive, despite a\u00a0number of spelling and grammar errors that should have been caught before going to print. It’s obvious that Kaito didn’t\u00a0hire a native English speaker\/professional editor to check their copy. \u00a0(I don’t understand why a company would go to the expense to produce a manual without having it professionally edited…Kaito, please take note!) \u00a0<\/em>Fortunately, these\u00a0spelling and grammar errors, while annoying, can be overlooked and\/or deciphered by most English-speaking readers.<\/p>\n

Tuning<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Kaito-KA108-Side3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the plus side, the KA108 sports a full number keypad for direct frequency entry. This makes tuning to a known frequency a very simple process\u2013\u2013with one exception (see below). There’s also a tuning wheel on the right side of the radio.<\/p>\n

\"Kaito-KA108-Keypad\"<\/a>

Note where the “0” is placed on the keypad: why the change?<\/p><\/div>\n

Using the keypad requires\u00a0some getting used to, however. Most of us\u2013\u2013myself included\u2013\u2013are familiar with traditional numeric keypads, but the KA108 inexplicably changes the game plan: as you can see above, the “0” button is located on the lower right side of the main keypad. So it took me a few hours of use before I could reliably key in a frequency without looking at the radio.<\/p>\n

In my humble opinion, Kaito should have moved the number pad up one row, positioned\u00a0the “ATS” button to\u00a0the lowest row on the left, the “0” button to its\u00a0immediate right,\u00a0and completed the bottom row with the “Rewind\/Play\/Fast-Forward” buttons.<\/p>\n

Another annoyance\u2013\u2013and this is a big one for me\u2013-is that the KA108 has extended muting between frequency changes. It makes band-scanning a frustrating experience. I made a short video demonstrating this<\/a>:<\/p>\n