ETON G5 AM/FM/Shortwave Portable Radio with SSB (Single Side Band) by Eton
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Digital camera reviews of ETON G5 AM/FM/Shortwave Portable Radio with SSB (Single Side Band)
Digital camera Review: Doesn't measure up
Summary: 1 Stars
First of all, let me say, I am not an expert or radio junkie, I just want to listen to decent sound on the local FM stations, so take my comments based on that. I had an Eton before this radio and it was a great little trooper, I loved the devil out of it. It eventually bit the dust and they had stopped making it so I bought the Grundig as it appeared to be a similar replacement. Well, the speakers were never great and now, TWO YEARS LATER, it gave up the ghost!!! Maybe I got a lemon but I'll never buy another Grundig again.Digital camera Review: Excellent FM reception with Terrific Sound.
Summary: 5 Stars
While i was living in the Navajo Nation, AZ i bought the Grundig Buzz Adrin version at Radio Shack. the FM reception was horrible. I contacted Eton and they recommended trading in for the G5 which i did. What a difference! FM was loud and clear from KNAU Flagstaff . The audio from this little guy is fantastic. The newer G3 is exactly the same with the addition of an AUX jack which the G5 does not have.
HIGHLY recommend this unit and NOT the Buzz Aldrin one.
Digital camera Review: Excellent Portable For The Price Class
Summary: 5 Stars
Extremely nice, easily configured potable radio. AM broadcast band and FM performance is exceptionally good. SSB (Single Side Band) although BFO tuned, is very good. Shortwave performance is on par with radios in the $300.00 price class. Display back lighting is great and the display is easily read. Although a bit more expensive than the Sony ICF-SW7600GR, and does not offer synchronous detection, it is worth the price.
Note: Some offerings includ ear buds, travel case and roll-up antenna - some do not. The manual indicates these are are included although that is not always the case.
Digital camera Review: Excellent, but compare with a Kaito 1103
Summary: 5 Stars
I have decided to raise my previous rating to 5 stars. I bought this radio first and still think it is an all-round great radio in its price class, lacking only synchronous sideband (which the Sony 7600GR has and supposedly does very well for roughly the same price when new). The G5 has no major problems and certainly has one of the best-designed user interfaces I have seen on a shortwave radio.
Later I bought a Degen DE1103 (basically the same as a Kaito KA1103). The Degen exhibits some of the worst user interface decisions ever made, but it seems to have fewer internally-generated bogus shortwave signals than the G5. I noticed weird spread-spectrum hash 10-20KHz wide in multiple places in the 160M band on the G5, and to my surprise that does not occur in the DE1103 even though these radios supposedly have closely-related designs. Other people recommend an external antenna on the G5, which might overpower the internal signals enough that they don't matter, but I have not tried that. Most complex radios have birdies of some kind at some point on the dial, so in retrospect I should not call this a significant indictment of the G5.
It seems to me that if you can stand the user interface AND there is a significant cost difference, the Degen/Kaito is the better buy. Otherwise, go with the G5.
Digital camera Review: G5 Portable Shortwave Radio Opinion
Summary: 3 Stars
This radio is good it has the continous 150 to 29999 kHz with no boundries. The AM and FM reception is superb, but LW and SW bands are medrocre. The LW band is fair to poor you would need a tunable loop antenna that covers 150 kHz to 520 kHz to pull in distant LW stations. The AM band is real good and the selectivity and sensitvity is good and well performing. The shortwave bands are fair to poor unless you use a external wire antenna with the G5. I could not pick weak signals, I hope I can get mine fixed. Please be careful not to use the radio in areas with high static electricity. When used with a Active Antenna or long wire antenna use an attenuator or preselector with this radio. There is a good line out jack on the right side so you can connect your radio to a stereo system or minidisc recorder to record your favorite shortwave radio programs. The radio requires 4 AA batteries, and sometimes it needs reset, the good thing is that the "reset" feature does not erase your preset memories even when the batteries are taken out. The SSB reception is very good if the reception was better.
This radio is a great shortwave portable when used with low gain active antennas and not so
big wire antennas. This radio is recommended for FM and AM DXing as well as shortwave radio
broadcast DXing.