At about $500.00,I am not about! to buy one.Is it that much better at
pulling in long distance AM and Shortwave without an external antenna
than for instance a good $150.00 price range radio? For me,it would have
to be one heck of a super duper radio.I am not knocking the radio
though.I guess I am just too cheap to pay that kind of money.I have an
old heavy big Sears Travler transistor multiband radio that does a very
good job at pullling in AM/and FM/and Shortwave stations without an
external antenna and the radio has great sound too.I only paid about
three or four dollars for it at a Goodwill store about nine years
ago.The on/off/volume control is about worn out and so are the push
buttons on top of the radio.I can get it to work ok for a while if I
keep messing around wth it.Thing is though,every time I turn it off,I
have to mess around with the controls again for a long time to get it to
work again so I just let it sit in the corner,unused.Basically,the old
radio is just worn out.
cuhulin

In article ,
"Mark S. Holden" wrote:

Joe Analssandrini wrote:

Well, I've read all the posts saying The Sharper Image has the Etón E1
in stock.

Has anyone purchased and gotten it yet?

Has anyone here actually seen it?

Universal still states "August 5" as their "availability" date (as of
their July 24 update).

But check this out - http://www.grove-ent.com/eton.html

Grove states "early fall" but no YEAR indicated! ;-)

Frankly I'm just curious about all this - I have no intention at
present of buying one. I will let others be the "guinea pigs."

Joe


"Lucky" got one from Sharper Image the other day.

He's posted a couple times about it.

Mr. Un-Lucky is in the kill file.

--
Telamon
Ventura, California

wrote:
Good rig. I think you'll love it. Too bad I don't have Sat 800 to compare it
to. It's well made and solid. Speaker is just great. It's like it's radio
inbetween being a tabletop and a portable. Kinda like in a class all it's
own.

They're known as 'portatop's'.

and closer to a porta-potty than a tabletop

for that kinda money you can buy a used tabletop..a real radio

That's the problem I have with the whole concept of a $500 portable.
The same investment (or even less) in a tabletop will buy you more
performance.

This high-end part of the portable market puzzles me.

Steve

I am not knocking Lucky or his new radio.It is his money and he
certainly is entitled to spend it his way.It is the $500.00 price of the
radio I am knocking.
cuhulin

wrote:
wrote:

Good rig. I think you'll love it. Too bad I don't have Sat 800 to compare it
to. It's well made and solid. Speaker is just great. It's like it's radio
inbetween being a tabletop and a portable. Kinda like in a class all it's
own.

They're known as 'portatop's'.

and closer to a porta-potty than a tabletop

for that kinda money you can buy a used tabletop..a real radio


That's the problem I have with the whole concept of a $500 portable.
The same investment (or even less) in a tabletop will buy you more
performance.

This high-end part of the portable market puzzles me.

Steve



It's not exactly a new concept. Both Sony and Grundig have both
fielded portables that topped a kilobuck. Some, by a great deal. I
remember at the CES in 1989, Grundig displayed a portable that had
so many features you couldn't capture them all. Even had WeFax. For
more than I paid for my first Mercedes.

I"ve known a number of hobbyists that bought such rigs as more or
less 'one stop' centers for all their listening needs. And in
today's climate where an external antenna is the moral equivalent of
shotgunning the neighbors' dogs, a good table top is less attractive
than a portable of presumed higher performance.

I know, when I was living at home, my father was absolutely
intent on preventing any radio in the house that couldn't sit on a
table and be completely self contained. External antennae were
forbidden on principle. Internal antennae were more than
sufficient. Even though the color TV in the family room wiped out
listening on all bands on every radio in the house. But he wouldn't
hear of anything different. And even when I did A/B comparisons
right in front of him, he wouldn't admit that there was a
difference. He was committed to denying that good listening required
an external antenna. And he wasn't alone in that thinking. So, in my
neighborhood, there were a lot of higher end portables. Often with
highly disappointing results.

Still, they sold in considerable numbers.

The mentality persists even today.

This mindset is also fueled by an appetite for gadgetry that
high feature portable radios feed nicely. Look were they sell:
Gadget stores.

You're right. For listening, you can spend the same money or
often less and get a much better package of performance in a table top.

But performance isn't often the only priority when selecting a
receiver.

"Peter Maus" wrote in message
news
It's not exactly a new concept. Both Sony and Grundig have both fielded
portables that topped a kilobuck. Some, by a great deal. I remember at the
CES in 1989, Grundig displayed a portable that had so many features you
couldn't capture them all. Even had WeFax. For more than I paid for my
first Mercedes.

I remember a Sony portable that was 2 or 3 grand. Then suddenly AES closed
them out for about a grand. I bet there were a lot of ticked off SWL's. Was
it the CRF-1 maybe? I don't remember the model # right off hand. I would
have loved to have one but the price was too high for me. It looked like it
was quite a large radio. Anyone remember the model #? Anyone have one?

DeWayne

DeWayne wrote:
"Peter Maus" wrote in message
news

It's not exactly a new concept. Both Sony and Grundig have both fielded
portables that topped a kilobuck. Some, by a great deal. I remember at the
CES in 1989, Grundig displayed a portable that had so many features you
couldn't capture them all. Even had WeFax. For more than I paid for my
first Mercedes.


I remember a Sony portable that was 2 or 3 grand. Then suddenly AES closed
them out for about a grand. I bet there were a lot of ticked off SWL's. Was
it the CRF-1 maybe? I don't remember the model # right off hand. I would
have loved to have one but the price was too high for me. It looked like it
was quite a large radio. Anyone remember the model #? Anyone have one?

DeWayne


You might be thinking about the Sony CRF-V21A

There's a description on this page:

http://www.dxing.com/rx/crf330k.htm

wrote in message
oups.com...

wrote:
Good rig. I think you'll love it. Too bad I don't have Sat 800 to
compare it
to. It's well made and solid. Speaker is just great. It's like it's
radio
inbetween being a tabletop and a portable. Kinda like in a class all
it's
own.

They're known as 'portatop's'.

and closer to a porta-potty than a tabletop

for that kinda money you can buy a used tabletop..a real radio

That's the problem I have with the whole concept of a $500 portable.
The same investment (or even less) in a tabletop will buy you more
performance.

This high-end part of the portable market puzzles me.

Steve


Well Steve,

if you look around, everyone seems to be getting out of the good tabletop
models business or they stopped production and got out long ago. So the only
good rigs up for sale to new comers are used and years old. What's left
that's brand new and a decent rig for $500? The R75 that's about it. Unless
you go the transmitter route and use it for receive only.

So, I already have many of these good rigs but they are used 2nd hand except
my R75, Degen 1103 and the Nav fax 100 which doesn't even count. All the
rest are years old.

So, these companies know the customer base is limited and don't want to
spend gobs of money on new receivers like they made years ago. Here the Eton
E1comes along . A decent receiver with all the goodies and sat radio to
boot. Add to that it took years to get it out, and it's not "too serious"
for newbies to learn but serious enough for us hobby types who like the
outdoors.

So there you have it. You can satisfy some of the people all of the time, or
all of the people some of the time but with SW radio folk, you can
definitely NOT satistfy all the people all of the time.

You'll have to wait a couple years before you see used ones for $250 if
ever. You can always buy one for fun and give it back 59 days later

Or maybe you'll keep it.....

Lucky

By the way, what's the tuning resolution on the E1?

Steve

10 hz...



wrote in message
ups.com...
By the way, what's the tuning resolution on the E1?

Steve