Review on 50KHz 2GHz Receiver Shortwave Malachite Aluminum by Steve Lawrence

When traveling it's nice to have a small radio to hand. That's it! The controls are more or less intuitive even without instructions. Performance is fair to excellent. In most cases everything is fine, there is nothing to complain about. The main feature of this radio is its wide frequency range. (The military band isn't covered, probably due to regulations.) There are a few rough edges in the design. First, it's the LOUSY ON OFF switch! You need some kind of poker to activate it! You can't even turn the radio on or off with your fingernail! The switch is very small and is located in a hole on the side of the case. The tip of a pencil or pen is required to activate the switch. It says the radio can stay on in sleep mode and that won't seriously drain the battery, but that doesn't mean the radio is actually off. It will discharge faster over time if not turned off. Second is the true sensitivity of the radio. They advertise 3/10uV but actual instrument measurements show that the sensitivity used is 1uV at best and as high as 100uV on many bands for SATISFACTORY sound. To get the best sensitivity, you'll need to play around with the various menu settings. Also, the settings that perform best on one band sometimes need to be changed to get the best performance on another. While you can get stronger signals with the included small whip antenna, you can get much better performance by connecting a longer antenna. Third, since there are no front-end filters, the radio cannot distinguish between two signals that are close together if one of them is significantly stronger than the other. You can't see a weak signal because a strong signal blurs it. Sometimes the interfering signal can be separated by many kHz and still seriously interfere with weaker signals. This can be serious when using a long antenna which can overload the input from strong local stations. In no way does this radio compare to a complete communications receiver, but you can't put it in your pocket! At $300, this radio is still fairly cheap for its features. A few words about fake copies: there are many copies of this radio! They look the same, but DEFINITELY NOT THE SAME! For some, only a few software functions work! Scary stories abound! To ensure you receive a fully functional radio, BUY THE ORIGINAL RADIO ONLY!