Customer Reviews

Sangean ATS-606AP AM/FM Digital Compact Shortwave World Band Receiver

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I've been listening to shortwave (or world band, as it's called now) for about 15 years, and am awash in multi-band radios. After some friends decided that there was room for just ONE more, I received the Sangean 606AP as a gift, and have been thanking them ever since. Like everything else, the Sangean has it's good and bad points. It's compact size is just right for the pocket on the motorcycle jacket. The audio quality, although non-adjustable, is very easy to listen to for extended periods of time, and greatly improves with a pair of stereo headphones. The F.M. band displays excellent stereo characteristics, and the sensitivity means capturing stations 75+ miles away is a common occurence. The mediumwave (A.M.) band is a little above average, with great daytime reception, and nighttime listening being almost too good - dozens of stations all coming in at once. Detuning the frequency by +1/-1 khz can usually help. I was blown away by the shortwave performance on a radio this size, and using the power adapter over the batteries, the performance increases greatly. The major stations sound like they are broadcasting from up the street, and sometimes I have to lower the antenna or toggle the local/DX switch to avoid overloading. Smaller stations can be called up quite well, and tuning up or down by 1 khz can help to remove some interference from nearby signals. A wide/narrow setting would be a great addition, as would SSB for grabbing some utility frequencies, but the plusses like low power consumption with a 9 step battery indicator, lighted display, dozens of easy-to-use presets,2 clocks, travel lock, +5/+1 tuning, and a nice travel case, make this a GREAT radio for globetrotting, or having the world on your nightstand. I highly recommend this radio to anyone wanting to fish into the fray of world band radio and come up with an excellent catch.

All I wanted was a nice small radio with some presets. I hate manually adjusting my radio between the stations that I like to listen to. I was willing to sacrifice the quality of sound for a radio that was easy to use and jump between stations like I do with the radio in my truck. I decided to plug-in my expensive Sony headphones and switch to FM stereo. I couldn't believe how good this little radio sounded. I decided to take this radio to work and give it a real test. I took it into the server room at my company. It is in a double locked room far away from any windows. This room is full of servers, switches, routers, phone switches not to mention modems and assorted electronic devices. I listened to wonderful FM stereo for several hours jumping quickly between stations to avoid commercials and couldn't believe how loud the room was when I turned the radio off. I love to fall asleep to the radio playing but I hate to wake up at 2 a.m. with the radio blasting away. This radio lets you set it to turn itself off after playing for 60, 45, 30 or 15 minutes as well as wake you up to your favorite station. I went out and bought a bunch of rechargeable batteries in case this radio ate up batteries like my digital camera. When you turn the radio off it automatically displays the battery indicator for about 7 seconds. The battery icon showed a battery with a small dark block. At first I thought this meant it was time to change the batteries. After reading the manual the icon stays the same but the numbers underneath the icon show you how much battery life you have left. It displays the numbers 1 through 9. When it drops to 2 you should change batteries. I have used this radio for several weeks and it is still reading at 9. This radio comes with an AC adaptor that includes a European plug that will let you use it in America or Europe. If you travel to a place away from your normal listening area this radio will automatically find the strongest stations in that area and put them on your presets. I have bought over 70 items from Amazon.com and have only taken the time to write one review. If you want a small radio for AM and you have headphones for FM stereo buy this radio, if you want a DVD buy Roy Orbison's Black&WhiteNight. It's a miracle. PS this radio doesn't automatically fix your coffee in the morning.

In this day of the internet, connecting people worldwide, effortlessly, I bought the 606 with a bit of nostalgia in mind. I wanted to have a good old protable transistor radio, with a speaker, that I could also use with earphones. It's amazing how much information is traveling through the air, from all over the world, that is just waiting for you to find it.

With the 606, I got that, and then some. The 606 is small...not pocket-small, but very easy to take with you. The AM and FM sensitivities are great. I'm pulling in FM stations that I can't get on my car radio. At night, I pulled in AM stations from Indiana, Buffalo, Montreal, and Boston, from my home in a NYC suburb.

The bonus was shortwave capabilities. I already own a Grundig Yachtboy 400, which has better sound, but is much bigger. I knew the 606 had shortwave, but I didn't expect much from it. Was I pleasantly suprised. The radio covers the major shortwave bands, but has some gaps that the Grundig YB400 includes, albeit, they are fairly useless bands anyway.

The 606 also covers long wave (LW), but from what I know about that, there isn't much in the way of regular broadcasting in that range. Just signal beacons and stuff. Pretty useless to me.

From a usability standpoint, the 606 is a dream. I like the tuning and preset capabilities much more than the YB400. I find myself constantly reshuffling the presets, and looking for new stations. I'm using it for shortwave much more often than I had intended. Also, I'm using it for AM, which I would rarely ever use in the past. There's alot of good stuff out there.

The unit comes with a nice case, ac adapter, and a reel-type external shortwave antennae. Battery life has been very good so far.

Well, as I said at the begining, I got the 606 for the nostalgia of a simple AM/FM "transistor" radio. It is that, and more. It is simple to use, elegant, and of excellent construction.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this radio to anyone, and would surely buy it again.

I am a radio nut. I even have one in the shower. I needed a radio to replace my Sony SW-1. I live in the California central valley between Fresno and Bakersfield, the radio reception here is horrible and I like to go to sleep with the radio on and ear plugs in. With my Sony I could get fair Am/Fm and SW. With the Sangean I get great Am/Fm and SW. I get stations on the Sangean that were nothing but static on the Sony. It's a little bigger than my Sony but has some great features the sony didn't. Like setting the length of time before it turns off and the auto station select (I used it for FM, I like all kinds of music).
The handy display light that turns off after 30 seconds. And to pull in those weak stations, a simple button to change to the fine tune mode. Also handy is the lock button that locks the front pannel (It keeps me from changing the station by bumping the buttons while falling asleep) If you don't mind a big radio and want one for AM get a CC radio. If you want a small radio to travel with or a small radio for your night stand, this is the best for the price.

Pros: Great reception, easy to use, small, comes with a nice leather case, ear plugs, external antenna and ac adapter.

Cons: No wrist strap.

This radio has a lot of good features at a very good price: the main attraction is digital tuning on AM, FM, and shortwave bands. Sensitivity on shortwave bands is fine, thank you, mainly due to the fact that the ANT-60 portable antenna is included. Repeat, included. Do not order it separately, no matter what the "Customers who bought this item also bought these electronics" list says.

UPDATE FOR DECEMBER 2005 (MY EARLIER REVIEW WAS SOMETIME IN 2003 WHEN I PURCHASED THE UNIT)

After two years of use, I am revising with the following comments and upgrading to 5 stars (IF I CAN FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT EASILY) since I don't think you can rate something 4.5 stars yet.

DURABILITY: I've carted it across 3 continents over the last few years. It's been shaken about quite a bit. Absolutely no problems.

The AC adapter size/weight issue is not important. This unit is a battery miser. I never carry the AC adapter. When you travel light, you don't want to carry ANY adapter and batteries last a long time and are cheap to replace. Shouldn't be an issue even if you're ecologically fanatical due to long use you get out of them.

I still don't like the dim light, but overall the unit's been a workhorse, I must say.

===

Detailed analysis will follow if I have the time, but overall impression of quality, ergonomics, and design is very good. For those who primarily want a good travel radio, with the shortwave as a bonus, I have a few minor complaints.

1) Light for frequency is not that bright (and display is a little small for us older folks who want to see the clock at night without groping for our glasses)

2) Bigger problem is that the light goes off to save battery power. What's wrong with that? Nothing if you are running on batteries, but when using the AC adaptor I would like the option of leaving the light on (like a clock radio) so you can wake up and see the time without groping in the dark for the display light switch.

3) The power supply is dual voltage (good) and almost as heavy as the radio (bad). It does sag in a US outlet, but that is aesthetically annoying more than it is an actual problem.

FM reception is excellent, I must say. Haven't played much with the SW yet.

Written instructions are good and seriously, my overall impressions are very good. Clearly, much thought has gone into the "radio" aspects of this device. It is a little weak as a "clock radio," which is a bit of a shame, but it does have very nice alarm (dual) and a gentle wakeup alarm that does seem very "humane."

It might have been more accurate to award this radio 4.5 stars.

More later.

I use the radio to listen to FM/AM especially at night to fall asleep or to listen to when I wake up. So the must have feature is a sleep timer and station recall. All one does is hold down the Power button and the timer cycles between 60, 45, 30 minutes so one can do it the dark. Audio is great and the three AA batteries last several days with daily and night use.

Shortwave works but you have to sit close to a window and use the supplied reel antenna to log more than a few stations.

The antenna comes with the radio; don't order the accessory antenna.

The power adaptor has long prongs and sags when plugged in. Probably works better overseas, maybe.

The first thing I noticed about the ATS-606 was how GREAT the FM receiver is. This is an amazingly sensitive and selective FM radio. Many stations that usually require the radio's antenna be fully extended came in loud and clear WITHOUT the antenna being extended at all on this radio. I have used this radio at work, inside a building, and while other people's radios were struggling to pick up stations, my Sangean had no problem. I decided to really put the FM section of this radio to the test. I have a very low power FM transmitter connected to my CD player at home so I can listen to my CDs anywhere in my home and out in the back yard on any FM radio tuned to 107.9mhz. It's only about 250 milliwatts (1/4 of a watt) so it doesn't go very far. Even within the house, there are many dead spots that require a fully extended antenna to receive it. The ATS-606 easily and clearly picked up the low power transmitter on 107.9 mhz and, in most cases, I didn't even have to extend the antenna. The mediumwave (AM) section of the receiver is excellent, too. I pick up stations in Canada on 800khz and 900khz with no problem. My other radios do too, but, the Sangean does it a little bit better. If you live in America, you can forget about longwave reception except for the occassional radio beacon and possible (though not probable) long range reception of a European or Asian broadcast station. Still, having longwave reception is a plus if you plan on traveling to countries that use longwave for broadcast stations. The real reason I bought this radio was for shortwave reception. I wanted something very small that still had decent audio, and that is another quality this radio has. This radio has been rated the best sounding portable for it's size so, I wanted to give it a try. I am extremely pleased with the shortwave reception of this radio. I have three other shortwave radios at home and, in spite of it's size, the Sangean performs as well and sometimes better. The Sangean also has some nice features such as a clock radio function that lets you awaken to radio or a very nice alarm that gradually increases in volume instead of scaring you out of a deep sleep. It also has an adjustable sleep timer allowing you to set the radio to turn off in 60, 45, 30 or 15 minutes. There are 54 presets for the radio; 18 for FM. 18 for shortwave, 9 for AM and 9 for longwave. I would have preferred more for AM since I do a lot of AM listening. There is also a feature that will allow the radio to scan for, and automatically program stations into the presets for you on FM, AM and LW and will arrange them according to signal strength. I did this just for the fun of trying it but, you will most likely end up with a lot of stations you won't like. Another feature is "memory scan" which will scan your presets and stop at each station for about four seconds until you press another button. As good as this radio is, I couldn't give it 5 stars for two reasons. The first one is minor. Shortwave utility stations such as ships at sea, radio fax, telegraph and aviation use a transmission mode called sideband. This radio cannot receive their trasmissions. The other problem is a MAJOR one for a person like me who likes to manually scan the shortwave bands. On this radio, instead having a seperate scan and manual tune function, the manual tune automatically goes into a scan mode when pressed for more than a few seconds. To make matters worse, the receiver audio is completely muted when this happens. This makes bandscanning almost impossible. "Bandscanning" is the practice of manually scanning sections of the shortwave and broadcasts bands and listening for weak signals in between the strong signals. It's not possible to bandscan with this radio nor any radio that mutes the audio unless you have the patience to hit the button repeatedly and advance only 1khz or 5khz at a time. Besides pushing you to insanity, the tuning buttons would most likely fail prematurely, and probably the day after the warranty expires. I almost sent the radio back because of this but, I liked the radio so much overall that I decided I could live with it. I can always bandscan with my other radios if necessary. Even with this major design flaw, this is an exceptional radio. It has great FM (stereo with headphones), continuous coverage from 153khz to 29,999khz, great sound for it's size, a 1 khz fine tune option, good battery life from it's 3AA cells and many great features. If it didn't have that bandscan problem, Sangean would have had an almost perfect radio.

I've been a Short Wave Listener since 1973 and a licensed Ham since 1991 and I have never owned a receiver that can match the performance of this one! The main high point for me is the sensitivity. This little gem, with it's short telescoping whip really brings in the HF signals. It performs like other receivers connected to long-wire or random-wire external antennas. Another point is the ease of operation. The control buttons are straight-forward, with minimal use of "dual-function" controls. It has direct-frequncy entry, as well as "up - down" tuning/ scanning functions. One feature I would like to see, however, would be a BFO for reception of single sideband communications.

I'm generally not a fan of small radios, but the performance of this one (especially for the price) makes it a welcome addition to my other equipment. I highly recommend this one!

I purchased this radio because I wanted a fairly decent shortwave radio with digital tuning at a good price.The recption on this radio is excellent. The radio is so easy to tune and fine tunes with the touch of a button. I actually bought this radio for the shortwave reception, but let me tell you' the FM reception is better on this little radio than it is on any of my larger stereo eqiptment! I am well pleased with this purchase and the price is certainly right. It is a great little radio at a great price. The fact that the AC adapter comes with it is a plus.