Customer Reviews

Kaito Emergency Radio with Digital Tuning, KA008L

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Good looking radio but disappointing performance. Owner's manual is very confusing and contains several mistakes/wrong advice. AM reception is horrible and the electronic tuning is not accurate. It does not tune in stations on the correct frequency. Solar charger does not seem to work and I still don't understand how the AA bateries kick in.

I really did my research on which Kaito model I thought would be best for my situation, before buying.I was looking for a radio that was compact,well-built ,sturdy, and had a lot of charging options. This was the model that seemed to be the one for me.The flashlight/LED on this model is bright enough to help out in an emergency situation. I have no problems with the windup crank-it seems well-built enough for me.I haven't tried the solar charging yet, but I did charge up the internal battery, and everything was working fine-for awhile.The housing is sturdy and looks nice. The controls are nice and compact. It pulls in quite a lot of shortwave stations, which was mildly suprising to me.
The antenna is long and pulls in those weak staions.
The two things that I don't like about this radio are:1) Once the antenna becomes bent, it can break off easily after that.The replacement antenna is $10.00 plus shipping, and I think that Kaito should get it together and offer the replacement antenna online for a cheaper price, on their website.This is one of the main problems with buying goods that are made overseas.Give us consumers a way to purchase replacement parts easily online Kaito!
2)The volume control has deteriorated to the point of not being able to give me a lowered volume without a ton of noise now-(which is extremely distracting).I noticed this problem after buying it, but didn't think much about it then.It just got worse. It might be OK for emergency situation usage, but if you want to rely on it for more than that-forget about it.

This product has been disappointing----at least in our area. The image rejection is so weak that we can only pick up one strong station----and that is all over the dial. The price was right and the multi-power source was what we wanted, but it isn't very usable for us.

Tried it out right away when it arrived. Difficult to tune properly, had poor reception even in the AM and FM bands. Several hours later I tried again, and the tuner was broken. I had my doubts after reading the reviews but allowed myself to be won over by the low price. That was a mistake. Radio was returned the day after it arrived. I suggest looking for a higher quality radio, I will be.

The controls on this were a little confusing even after reading the directions. Be sure you know what shortwave range it uses compared to what you're expecting. These were not the same as what I was used to from units a decade ago.

I'll admit that I bought the KA008 about two years ago and finally took it out camping for the first time this past weekend.

It did not play regardless of the sunlight it received nor if I cranked for 2 minutes straight. It WOULD play WHILE cranking which let me know the internal battery pack was dead/useless. I've taken it apart and plan to see if I can do something to salvage it by replacing the battery pack but wouldn't recommend this unit to anyone who actually plans on counting on it in a pinch.

As chance would have it, my buddy on the camping trip had two Eton units with him. Both performed flawlessly and one of them played remarkably long after a mere 2 minute crank along with some time in the sun. The Eton FR360R will be my next purchase based upon my experience with it this past weekend. That damn thing goes on and on better than the Energizer bunny! The other Eton unit was much smaller but performed very well too. Unfortunately I don't recall the model of the smaller unit. It was really small and did a great job as well.

YMMV but I'm just telling it like I lived it rather than some BS I read. I was warned about the Kaito from a member of my survival group and blew it off. Once I was out in the wild and expected the Kaito to work as advertised, it didn't and I don't see the need for wasting the space in my pack for it.

Every bit of space in a BOB is precious. Better have a radio you can count on should SHTF.