Customer Reviews

Kaito KA009 4 Way Powerd Emergency Radio Black

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I bought this radio not only as an emergency radio but also as a portable radio if I need it on a trip. I live in NYC, so there is no shortage of strong TV and radio stations. The radio came with an AC adaptor, earphones, and a small shortwave antenna which attaches through the earphone jack. As a bonus I also got a T1 shortwave antenna which can eiter plug into the earphone jack or attach to the telescopic antenna. The instructions were brief and gave specs and basic operating info for the radio. The external plastic case did not seem especially sturdy but it did not seem flimsy or slipshod either. The radio was otherwise fairly small and light and would not present a burden to carry around.

When I got the radio it was already partially charged. I ran the batteries down after a couple of hours, then tried the dynamo. After about 30 seconds of cranking, it gave roughly 30-40 min of radio play. The dynamo didn't feel flimsy and there was a certain amount of resistance when using it. The radio also comes with a solar cell, but anything short of direct sunlight will not operate the radio directly (according to the docs, it can still recharge the built-in NiMH batteries). The radio can also take 3 AA batteries, or can use the AC adaptor to recharge the internal batteries and operate the radio. 2 LED's show the internal battery status - green if the power is good, red if the power is low. A third LED lights for the tuner or when the dynamo is used.

The radio functions pretty well. AM/FM reception was good and gave me no trouble. It does not have stereo but that wasn't important to me. One nitpick was that a couple of the printed numbers for the tuner were slightly off, but otherwise no big deal. The TV tuner also worked pretty well. I got all the major VHF stations with very little effort except channel 5. There was a lot of FM interference on that channel and it was difficult to get a fix. As far as the other bands are concerned, I know very little about them so I can't say much. I got a few stations on the AIR band but most of it was static. For the weather band, I got a rather low but clear signal around the center of the band. Everything else was clouded by interference from VHF channel 7 and FM. For shortwave, I managed to get a few foreign language stations, but without knowing what to look for there was not much I could do.

The radio also came with a white LED embedded in the side, with the on/off switch located just below it. The LED looked like a typical 5mm LED - not a Luxeon or Jupiter - which gave out a narrow flood of light and was adequate to light a short distance, or writing held close to the light. It otherwise wasn't as bright as a dedicated flashlight - my Infinity Ultra and Arc-P were significantly brighter, but it's good to have in a pinch if no batteries are available.

Overall, I found this to be a good emergency radio for its size, power and price with a good selection of useful options.

The Kaito KA006 appears to do it all - AM, FM, shortwave, TV audio, weather and aircrafts bands - plus mulitple power sources: AA batteries, AC adaptor, solar power and hand-crank dynamo. Just the radio you'd want to have around for any situation, right?

Wrong. As a radio, it's totally inadequate. Like most radio that cover many bands, it doesn't do any of them well. Dial resolution (the ability to see where you are tuning) is dismal, and reception quality is horrible. You'll hear stations everywhere they shouldn't be, and the shortwave, weather and TV audio bands will be full of mulitple "ghosts" of local FM stations. The audio is rather tinny, to boot.

The hand-crank dynamo is unwieldy, and the internal battery doesn't hold a charge very well. Three or four minutes of steady cranking gives you maybe fifteen minutes of radio play, which is substandard for this type of radio. The radio will play in direct sunlight via the solar panel, but you have to prop the radio so the panel is directly facing the sun, which means the speaker is facing away from you.

Horribly overpriced. This is probably the worst performing of the crank/solar radio models. If you are going to rely on this thing in an emergency, you are going to die.

If you have to have a hand-crank radio, look to the Grundig FR-200 instead. Better yet, buy yourself a decent AM/FM/TV audio portable and a big package of AA batteries.

After experiencing Hurricane Rita, I felt I needed to buy an emergency radio. I keep this one at work and my Grundig FR400 at the garage at home. I've had nothing but good experiences with the radio. I can get the weather band fine, hear the major TV stations in the Houston Area, and pick up the airline bands nicely. It comes with a ac adaptor unlike the Grundig. The built in rechargeable batteries are a great feature. I've only used the dynamo a few times and it worked. I've not tried the solar. It is stored in an office so I expect it to last many years. I've tested all the bands and work fine. The LED light works. It does seem fragile. I wouldn't drop it above 3 feet. It is compact. Small enough to bring it to an Astros or Dynamos game to hear the play by play. I wish they would make a digital tuner with programmable pre-set buttons.

Edited: 6/18/2007. I own an Eton/Grundig FR300 not FR400 as stated above.

This radio worked OK for a few months. I only used it at home, running it off of AA batteries. The crank worked fine--didn't try to run it off of solar. But the thing died when I took it camping. Left it in the truck and the humidity apparently messed it up. Couldn't change channels or switch from AM to FM to SW, etc. Trashed it and won't be buying another. Cheap plastic disposable Chinese junk that's absurdly over priced.

I keep this one the table by my recliner. The radio has it all. No fancy, advanced features, but it has good sound quality, and you can manually tune quickly. I use it to quickly find stations. If I like what I've found, I'll tune in with other radio, a Sangean ATS 909 which set me back MUCH more than this one. But I will tell you that this radio pulls in the stations which my costly radio does. I especially enjoy the airline frequencies. The price of this unit is a real value. Actually, I use it more than my other radios (I have 4 of them). Why? It's just very handy and accurate. Comes with an external antenna that plugs into the ear phone slot. Hey! buy it! It's not that expensive. Doesn't even need batteries!

I bought one of these a couple of months ago, to have a multi-powered, small, go-bag radio that I could also use for day-to-day AM, FM, Shortwave, and Weather Band listening.

For the $30-40 it goes for from a variety of vendors, it's not bad at all.

You can't evaluate this radio with something like a CCrane AM radio, a GE SuperRadio, or other AM quality/DX portable. Nor against a Sony, Sangean, or Eton/Grundig larger, higher-price Shortwave radio. It's a jack of many trades, master of none, supplemental product.

Some specifics:

A) Shortwave: not entirely a continuous set of frequencies. Doesn't go down much below 3.7MHz on mine (4.0 on dial), so getting the lower tropical bands won't happen. No BFO so no SSB/CW reception, and thus also no using the "exalted carrier" weak-signal AM reception trick by flipping to SSB and zero-beating. Actually has a fairly hot front end. Compared to my old-but-good Sony ICF-2001 large portable and my Sangean ATS-505 medium portable, it's almost as hot as the Sony on the 49, 41, 31, 25, and 19 meter bands, and maybe a bit hotter than the Sangean. However it doesn't have nearly the selectivity of either. It's obviously a single-conversion typical 455kHz IF, with lousy IF selectivity and possibly mis-aligned, because sometimes a station will come in stronger on the image 910kHz below its frequency. Especially if the band is crowded on the real frequency and particularly on 49 through 41m. It's analog tuning with a dial that's really just a "suggestion", and it really could use a bandspread or clarifier dial because you have to tune very slowly and tweak a bit to get on-station. However it's very stable - doesn't drift a bit once tuned.

B) Weather band: It works fine.

C) Aircraft: I'm about 90 miles from the local airport, so don't expect to hear much. It has a lot of noise which is probably internally generated IM products. It might work semi-ok near an airport or near the actual transmitter locations for regional ATC centers. No loss to me, I'm not an aviator nor an airband monitoring hobbyist.

D) AM/FM broadcasts: sound just about what you expect them to do from a small speaker (paperback-book-sized) radio. Like the SW, stays on frequency once tuned in. Does quite decent nighttime AM reception from distant stations. Not an MW DX machine by any means, but a perfectly good choice for listening to "Coast-to-Coast AM" from about 4 different stations averaging 500-800 miles away from my Colorado mountain location.

E) Overall: wish it had a sleep function. But it's a very basic ANALOG radio. Power use has been fine - I've cranked it up and also left it near the window, and it's kept running for hours on me. I can put it in a window during the day with indirect but bright sunlight and get it to run just on solar at a very low volume. TV Audio band is now useless, but that's not the fault of the radio; there are no analog TV transmissions in the US anymore except for a few low-power and translator stations, and some of them have already converted. The regular stations all converted 2 years ago.

I'm happy with my purchase, based on having realistic expectations for what it does and doesn't do.

The antenna is very flimsy. It is attached to the unit with a very thin, weak, sliver of metal. Yes, it broke off soon after purchase (during a power outage). Alot of cranking for 30 min or so of radio operation. Radio reception was poor, forget shortwave.

Pros: Nice features.

Cons: Very poor audio quality. Only will receive 2 FM and one SW channels outside of City limits. My $5 portable radio works much better in same areas.

The radio works great at work. I sit in a construction office trailer, and I like to listen to the radio.

I charged it up once, and it runs and runs. Yeah, solar!

I just received the radio, and most of the functions work OK, but the weatherband reception is unsatisfactory. Using a different radio (Midland WR300) I can get three or four weather broadcasts very well, but with the KA009 I get noise and some FM-band stations when trying to tune a weather station on the weather band.

I'm ready to return this new radio. Amazon's instructions are to send it back to Kaito. Unfortunately, Kaito's web site has no information about returning products.