My new Raddy RF886 arrived from Amazon right on time, so let’s unbox:
I was shocked at how big it was. I had expected something about the size of the Raddy RF75A, but boy was I in for a surprise. It’s smaller than a Tecsun PL-330, but looks huge in comparison with the RF75A.
When the radio arrived, handling it caused to the display light to come on for a few seconds. The non-replaceable battery seemed nearly fully charged (3 bars) and the lock was not set. There are 13 buttons, 9 on the front and 4 on the side. The relatively sturdy antenna only extends to 24.5 cm; the RF75A antenna is longer! There is an earphone jack, but no earphone supplied. Well, who doesn’t have a box of earphones already?
Category
This radio fits in my Swiss Army Knife category with a Bluetooth music player, flashlight, MW/FM/SW, weather band with alerts and VHF. (It doesn’t have an MP3 card slot.)
I had intended to compare this radio to the RF75A because of similar frequency coverage and size, but size turns out not to be comparable. The RF886 will fit in a shirt pocket but it might fall out easily because it’s 5″ tall. I would hesitate to call it a shirt-pocket radio.
Documentation
As I said before, the manual that comes with this radio is a big step up from similar models, but still needs work. It’s a single sheet of paper that folds out to 24 pages total. I rate the print size as acceptable.
The manual assigns numbers to buttons and uses those numbers to refer to them later on:
Errata
The first problem was figuring out how to turn on weather alerts. The manual says:
Button 3 “Lock/Set” is the wrong button. It’s really Button 4 “Storage/Stored Memories/Alert.” Fortunately, the word “ALERT” is under the correct button. “Time mode” is the no man’s land between on and off where the time is displayed. To get to it, long-press the power button until the radio goes off (if on) or short press the power button to turn it on (if off).
The second problem is that the PDF version of the manual is not searchable. That’s made even worse by the lack of a Table of Contents. You basically have to visually scan the whole manual until you find what you want. Hint: setting the FM frequency range and MW step is on page 18.
The telescopic antenna is called the “straight pull” antenna.
I’ll add to this as I find stuff.
Basic setup for North America
FM Frequency Range and MW step is a combined setting described on page 18 of the User’s Manual. The setting is made in “time mode.” If the radio is on, turn it off, and of the radio is off, turn it on to enter “time mode.” Press and hold “Button 8” (CH+) for 2 seconds to enter the selection mode, then use the arrow keys to scroll through the options until arriving at “87” and then press Button 8 again to save the setting.
My radio came already set correctly for North America.
Clock setting is straightforward, see page 15. This one has a 12 or 24-hour clock.
Audio
The radio is loud. It should prove acceptable listening, although there is not much bass response. I tried a pair of quality monitor headphones and the result was unimpressive. Still no bass and the result seemed a bit tinny. I note that the equalizer feature works with radio.
Weather Alerts
A quick test showed that my local weather station was easily received. It’s a strong station.
The NOAA weather alert test is scheduled for some time in the next 30 minutes, and the RF886 has its WB icon on and ALERT flashing. I’m expecting an SOS siren and a flashing light. Most weather radios will allow listening to the weather information by pressing any button following the alert. The User’s Manual suggests that long press of Button 3 (which we know is really Button 4) is required to listen to the alert message, but it is somewhat ambiguous.
It’s sort of a bummer that the flashlight can’t be turned in Weather Alert mode, all the buttons are disabled.
Well, I didn’t get an alert at the assigned time. I had two radios on, so the problem is with my local weather station and not the Raddy. Try again next week.
MW/FM
I had low expectations for these bands because of the narrow width of the radio for the internal MW antenna, and the very short telescopic antenna for FM.
There was something odd with FM. As I scanned the band, there was a bit of hiss on the empty channels, but then there would be dead silence and the LEVEL display would be half way across the display or more. I got out another radio to make sure there was no real station there, and there wasn’t. There were a total of 6 frequencies with this characteristic.
Shortwave
The telescopic antenna (what the manual calls the “straight pull antenna”) is not even a foot long. Given that the radio ships with an external antenna, it makes sense to me to test the radio that way.
So I went out around 2:30 PM local time when reception is generally poor. I clipped on my 20 ft. wire up a tree antenna and did a band scan. It stored 36 stations, most of which were something real. Radio Exterior de España on 17.855, was very good. CHU in Canada on 7850 was very good. The scan didn’t store WWV on any frequency, but manually I found the 20 MHz signal good.
Later around 00:00 UTC, local sunset, I did another band scan with the 20 ft. antenna, this time snagging 91 frequencies. Here are the results:
Unlike most radios, this one seems to work best when it is not held.
VHF
I never hear much if anything on VHF except a repeat of the weather band station, which I got here. There was a broadcast band image on 31.525. The VHF band is WFM and NFM, which is not compatible with AIR band that uses AM.
Bluetooth
Bluetooth connected quickly and with no hassle to my Windows computer, and worked as a Bluetooth speaker.
Operation
Operational convenience is important to me.
The first thing I noticed is that a short press of the Power button acts as a mute for the radio. This is very convenient feature when comparing to radios, just push the mute button on both radios to instantly switch between them. I notice that the Raddy RF75A also uses the power button for muting. Other radios use different buttons, or lack the feature.
Tuning will be the biggest challenge. Shortwave coverage is from 3.2 – 21.95 MHz. That’s 3,750 5 kHz shortwave channels. The options are to press the arrow key thousands of times, press and hold an arrow key for a faster scan, use the Meter button (Button 3) to skip through the bands, to 4.75, 5.60, 9.90, 12.10, 13.87, 15.80, 17.90 or 21.85, or use auto tune storage (ATS) and let the radio scan the bands and pick up likely stations. If the CH +/- buttons are long pressed, sometimes they go into really fast forward mode. I haven’t found how to make it work reliably.
There are 99 ATS memory locations for each band, for a total of 396 (no ATS on the weather band). An ATS scan on shortwave took 6:07, noting that it scanned from 3.2 – 21.95 MHz continuously, not just the international broadcast frequencies. The only listenable station that it found was Radio Exterior de España on 17.855.
Conclusion
Meh. Really inexpensive but mediocre radio. It’s too big for a pocket radio, and it really needs direct frequency entry if it’s going to be that big. FM sensitivity should be better. The flashlight is good and the speaker is loud.