Kaito KA390 Portable AM/FM Shortwave NOAA Weather Radio with LED Flashlight, Color Black

Excellent radio. Easy and clear tuning. The three type D batteries guarantee a lot of power. The sound is surprisingly good too. Something unexpected, given the size of the radio, which is not very big.

It has great reception and great sound. It uses large D cells, when seem to make it last forever.It's a great outside radio and will be perfect for emergencies. It's has a nice solid feel since the handle is molded to the entire body, and not foldable--so it is much less likely to break.

First, the dislike: the clear plastic facing that display the stations came off during shipping. It still had the adhesive so I stuck it back on, fell off an hour later. The tuning knob has came off twice. I’ll have to get some super glue to keep those pieces down.The good part: having it for one day I like it. For the price it has good clear sound and goes a decent volume. I didn’t have a problem tuning into stations. I use 3x d batteries which give it some nice but not heavy weight. You can also use an adapter but that is a separate purchase.Overall it is a nice radio and does what it needs to do. Good for Camping, office, backyard, garage, etc

The negative reviews on this radio puzzle me. It's a cheap portable radio. It's designed for low cost, portability and excellent battery life - and it scores 10/10 on all three. Sound quality is really very good for a monaural radio - more than satisfactory for me - and even though it has analog tuning, I find it easy to surf the bands looking for stations. In fact, I bought an extra one for a blind friend of mine precisely because the radio is so simple to use with few controls and no mysteries. If I had a criticism, it would be that the radio's way of snapping into signal reception on the AM and shortwave bands is a bit abrupt, making it difficult to receive weak stations. This would not be my first choice for a shortwave radio. For strong AM and FM station reception (and even medium-strength stations), I think it's excellent, and having weather radio frequency reception on a low-end analog radio such as this is an excellent bonus. Don't buy it as your primary radio, but use it in power failures, for camping, for travel, and anywhere that you don't want to risk your expensive radio and yet want flexibile capability. I would buy another again in a heartbeat if mine disappeared.

I've had this radio for about 6 months now. I'm mostly happy with it mainly in the area of good quality sound and the tuning on FM, AM and NOAA. The World Band straight up doesn't work LOL! Seriously I haven't been able to listen to ANYTHING on the WB side as it doesn't pick anything up zero. I was hoping to get some action there which was why I bought this model Kaito.The flashlight is really nice, can't say I'll ever use it but if I do its nice and bright. The Antennae is nice and long seems to work well even on am/fm even without it extended. I ike the headphone jack, so far haven't needed it but like the flashlight its nice to know its there. I mainly bought this as an every day listener while at my desk, but also I can grab it and go in an emergency or take it camping or fishing.It runs on D cell batteries and so far even with inexpensive Harbor Freight batteries it runs great. Still running on the original batteries I bought 6 months ago. I bought the adapters to AA sold here on Amazon for flexibility and in case of D not available I can throw in some AA rechargables. I also ordered the corded wall plug for it direct from Kaito as the one suggested here arrived and wasn't correct size.The main reason for the 3 stars instead of 4 is that the plastic face that shows the bands fell off. I had the radio on for a long time one day and the glue holding it in place must have softened. This will be easily fixed with some super glue... but I have to go buy some now which is a little hassle. Plus if you screw up and put too much super glue on the needle is right there and you could mess the whole thing up! So I will carefully do that when I have a minute.Overall, I'd say I'm okay with this radio. I use it almost every day and it does receive FM really really well as other reviews have stated. The NOAA band is not as nice as my radio shack NOAA only radio, but it works good enough. AM is good enough and I rarely listen to AM anyway. I know Kaito makes other models and possibly I should have just gone with a non-world band model with the crank arm for power. Hope this helps with your purchase.

I've been looking for a radio receiver that is not too expensive, portable, and receives all of the major broadcast bands, and the Kaito KA390 does a great job. The 3 inch speaker provides pleasing sound that is not muffled or tinny like some small radios sound, and the volume is loud enough that I can listen from across the room. The tuning dial is easy to use and allows for fine adjustments of stations, and the D cells will give you hundreds of hours of listening time. I am happy that this radio includes both weather band and shortwave, because not many radios have both. On weather band from where I live I pick up the Scranton / Wilkes Barre NOAA station clearly and I can also get Honesdale with just a little static. The only disappointment I have is with the shortwave. It only picks up a few stations and it is hard to get the stations to come in clearly, so if you are serious about shortwave you would probably want something else. I sometimes listen to China Radio International on the 9 Mhz band which is interesting. But for slightly over 20 dollars I really can't complain; it is a great value in a small package.