Hiya...

Today, UPS delivered my KA1101. I've had a few hours to use it thus far.
My initial impressions if the radio are quite good. For it's price, it's
well built as far as the case and buttons go. As I have read in reviews of
the radio, depressing the buttons is just a bit on the stiff side, but they
have good feel to them. The automatic back light is pretty slick and so is
the self contained battery charger. It doesn't take much time at all to
learn all the functions. It only took me about ten minutes to go through
the entire users guide.

The radio comes with what seems to be a nice set of ear buds. When in FM
mode, you can set the radio to stereo and listen with the ear buds. The
sound is VERY good :-).

As used as a short-wave radio, from what I can tell in just a few hours, it
seems to be surprisingly capable. BBC on 5975 sounds very good as you would
expect from a strong signal. The radio also has narrow or wide selectable
filter settings. Using the filter selection in combination with the
"music/news" audio switch really helps to get the sound where you prefer it
to be.

I tried a few weaker signals also. WBCQ on 7415 is coming in just fine, but
with some fading. When I plug in the external wire antenna that the radio
comes with, it picks it up much better. RFPI on 7445 is perfectly audible
also with some fading.

I turned on my R-75 to see how it was picking up the three test stations
above. As you would expect from an R-75 with Kiwa mods and an external
speaker, the audio is better. But, comparatively speaking, the little
KA1101 is doing a fine job of it as far as it's sensitivity goes.

I'll have to spend some more time with the KA1101 on weak signals to see
just how capable it is. I'll do some surfing with the R-75 and pick out
some weak ones and then put the KA1101 on them. Should be interesting.

I also need to see during the day time, if the KA1101 will pick up spooks
down lower on the dial from all the local 50KW AM stations. Due to my
location (North NJ, home of the MW transmitter) just about every portable I
have ever used including the Sony7600g has trouble with intermod here below
6000 if you use any more then twenty feet wire.

--
Respectfully,

Michael

Home Page: http://md_dxing.tripod.com/
Northern NJ
R75 w/DSP, Kiwa agc/sync & audio mods
G5RV & 200ft longwire w/ICE-180
MFJ-1048 preselector
SoundBlstr Live PC card w/five piece Cambridge
speakers & full software mixer/eq.