TR629 Portable Shortwave Radios, Digital Radio AM FM Plug in with DSP, Support Backlight LCD Display, Digital Tuning and Preset, USB, Micro SD, Clock, Recorder

This radio really does a nice job of pulling out even weak low power daytime and distant am stations at night and makes them clear as if it's a local station. These radios have a digital tuning receiver chip and it seems to have an AGC circuit that kicks in to pull those weak stations better. Works very well and better than a conventional AM/FM radio even better than my car radio. A little tricky on the am tuning but especially at night it picks up a allot of weak stations. FM works very well. It is a great radio for emergency use or backup.

I had spare change to buy something for my belated birthday, so I bought this. This radio came the next day thanks to 1 day shipping, shipping was fast. I took it out of the box, and it came with a cord, and also took the D cell batteries out of an SW boombox that I hardly use. I powered it up for the first time using the cord, and set up was very easy. The AM Band (MW Band) is permanently set by default to tune from 522 kHz to 1620 kHz at 9 kHz increments. The AM reception is very clear, and I bet it will be very good too at night. To pick up distant stations you will need to use a tunable loop antenna and couple to the receiver or use a ferrite rod coupler for your active and passive antennas that is for the AM bands. Since it only tunes 9 kHz stations, you will have to enter the local / distant AM stations you want to hear and enjoy or take your time to slowly tune the tuning know at 1 kHz increments. It's a very good AM receiver to use on the bedside or anywhere day and night. The SW bands are great, and this receiver give you, the listener the ability to tune from 2.3 MHz (120 meters) to 21.195 MHz (15 meters) to hear the world such and international news, music and events, and sports. You will need to use the telescoping rod antenna for moderate the strong signals on the short wave bands, and a wire antenna indoors or outdoors for weak to moderate signals during the day and night. This radio is very easy to use, even for a beginner, and since it's digital tuning it should be much easier than using a analog dial. It does give you the ability to preset the memories as many as you need to through the ATS tuning or memory feature. I would recommend that you purchase also a reeled up wire antenna to use indoors and outdoors since there is no external antenna input jack. FM Band is great since it's able to tune from 76 MHz to 108 MHz which is likely you will hear TV NTSC channels 5 which is 81.75 MHz, and channel 6 for NTSC audio on 87.75 MHz, and also the entire FM broadcast band. If you happen to be around Japan when travelling, this radio is able to tune the local Japanese FM broadcast band from 76 MHz to 90 MHz, and the rest of the world from 88.1 MHz to 107.9 MHz. For best reception use the telescoping rod antenna and move away from noisy sources. Also you can still use a dipole antenna by clippng one lead to the telescoping rod antenna. It does have th ability to receive local and distant FM stations without the receiver overloading. The best time to listen to distant / remote FM stations is mostly during the late spring to early fall season. The Recording / Playback feature is a great addition which has the ability to use a up to a 32 GB micro card (not included, but required) to collect your local and distant radio programs and talk shows, and international short wave radio broadcasts and share your recordings with your friends and family. There is no settings required to change the bit rate or anything, so everything is set and ready to go already. It can playback MP3 and WAV files even from a USB WAV recorder that I used to plug in and tested the playback feature which most of the files on it were MP3 and WAV formatted. This radio is a very easy to use radio, and it will give someone started in short wave radio listening and eventually get prepared for bigger complex receivers with single side band and other modes, and eventually help prepare that short wave radio listener for to get on the air with a amateur radio license to talk and help support the world in need.

This is not my first rodeo -- er, radio! I'd never heard of Retekess before now, but have owned dozens of radios spanning decades. It's smaller (and thicker) than the pictures make it seem. I like the overall styling, but I wish the volume knob was on the side. Regarding the sound -- it's passable. The 3" speaker does okay, but sounds more like a "transistor" radio than anything else. It's very clear (with lots of treble) but has zero bass. A deeper sound comes from my Sangean PR-D18 handheld radio...which has an even smaller speaker! I appreciate the direct-entry buttons under the display...which is also big and easy to see. The backlight comes on each time a button is pressed and It's very easy to select a station on any of the three bands. But I haven't tried to set any presets yet. I don't usually do that with radios anyway. And I also appreciate the carry handle. The recording feature is pretty unique. I've certainly never seen that before. I tested it briefly with a thumb drive I had lying around. It works! ... and seems easy to figure out. I can't attest to whether it has recording-length limits or not. But it's a cool feature. Most of my radio listening is done with AM, so I bought it, hoping that it had reasonably good sensitivity on the AM band. I was pleased to see that it actually does. HOWEVER, after plugging it in, and playing with it for awhile, I was disappointed (at first) that most of the out-of-town AM stations I tuned to had a lot of interference, and the reception wasn't very good. FM (as expected) was just the opposite. Normally when I listen to AM stations at 30 miles away and farther, I use a Terk (external) AM antenna, to boost the signal. The radio responded well using that method. Stations that were basically non-existent when I tuned to them, came to life when I put the Terk next to it. (which is what is supposed to happen) The picture I attached shows the radio and the Terk antenna together. So, a day or two passed, and I finally decided to put batteries in it. BINGO!!! The static and interference I was hearing on AM, was gone! This also improved the radio's ability to pick up distant stations :-) I was amazed at the amount of RF NOISE the AC plug caused. So......if you want to use this receiver for AM -- USE IT WITH BATTERIES ONLY! And I would recommend NiMH RECHARGEABLE batteries. (they're available in D size) I'm not much of a shortwave listener, and I actually haven't even been able to find a SW station that the radio will tune to. My house is only a few miles from a "clear channel" 50,000 watt transmitter...so it's only picked up "splatter" (on SW) from that tower. Bottom line; the Retekess seems to be pretty well built, and the antenna (for FM/SW) is a good length. If you don't care about AM distant stations, or AM at all, then the TR629 should be a good fit for you, and you can even use it on AC power.

The Radio will not recognize the USB or SD card if the audio files are written to the wrong format type. To be able to use the USB and SD cards it is required that the format type be FAT32. This is NOT mentioned in the brief User Manual information delivered with the Radio. Limit the drive size to 16GB. MP3 files sound great! The sound and product quality is surprisingly GREAT for the price charged. It's Simple, yet it is solid.

Great little radio for the price. I just wanted a plain radio with NO fancy features. Great for older people who get confused with technology. Also perfect for when the power goes out. Very happy with this purchase.

In a bygone era there was a store named sears. It deflated due to bad unamerican management. All that was left was burst balloon in an empty store. If there were an archive time travel to back in the day when they sold the patrolman radio. It had a big tuning selector with a bandspread. It covered all bands. It sounded really really good. And it was loud. A fine radio for 39.95. Since there isn't any time travel directly to the point. My review of this purchase from Amazon, an all band radio for 39.95. This radio is complete junk. The tuning knob on the front is a volume control and on and off switch. It works smoothly. The two little side knobs jiggle. Hardly any play between positions. The tuning knob is a smaller knob on the side like most cheap radios. Works about as well. The led light on the front display indicates that the power is on. It stays lit all the time for who knows whatever reason. There is no light in the display. Now for the higher tech side it has an sdd card usb slot memory and bright display. All fine and good except even if it works the sound from this device is poor. The speaker makes a popping noise on peaks. So when someone talks on a radio talk show all the T's C's P's are accented with a distinct popping noise. At first thought the speaker was blown. Nope, it happens evenly at all volume settings. Built in or something. This makes this radio completely useless. Lastly the size as usual is not as lead to believe from the advertising pictures, which seems to be common on Amazon. It is wide short stubby and cheap plastic. If you found one of these things shiny on the top of a dumpster and took it home and plugged it in you would make a return trip later to put it back in the dumpster. And don't get me started again on the little Besos and his tiny model rockets and Amazon.

I have a battery-powered Sony radio that I have owned for years. I think the style is discontinued. It is beginning to falter in its sound so I knew I had to buy a radio to replace it. . I bought and tried different ones sold through Amazon and other sellers. I eventually had to send them back. The problem was that the ones that I tried had odd volume control. The sound would go too immediately from soft to loud(er) too loud. (The volume on the Sony has different levels of softness before going to loud or louder). That is what I wanted in a new radio. The Retekess TR633 AM FM Radio is decently good regarding this. The sound does not go to very loud from soft. Better than other radios I have tried. The sound is also decently good and not "Tinny" or "Static-y." I think it may be a tad expensive as it is just an older-type of radio, no Bluetooth function and it only has AM and FM. I use the radio in the home so I don't think I can use the antenna function but for people who can use this feature it is good that it is there. I guess I would recommend it for generally listening to common AM and FM stations. One big plus to it is that it only uses four AAA batteries. It makes the radio less heavy than one that uses large D-sized batteries. I probably will keep the Retekess TR633 radio in storage until my Sony completely conks out. So it is possible that when I do start regularly using the Retekess TR633 it may last only for a certain amount of time before it starts faltering in some way, the volume, the sound, etc. It may last much less than what my Sony lasted. No way to know that. I am hoping not. But otherwise this is a pretty good radio . I will update as I am able to.

I picked up this Retekess TR629 expecting “pretty good.” What I got was a straight-up workhorse. The reception on this thing is ridiculous. MW, FM, SW it doesn’t matter. I’m pulling in channels loud and clean, including shortwave stations I’ve never been able to catch on any of my other radios. I’ve got a whole lineup now that I didn’t even know existed. The interface is simple and actually pleasant to use. Big display, clear buttons, and a tuning knob that feels solid instead of cheap and loose like a lot of radios in this price range. It scans quickly, it saves channels easily, and switching between bands is instant. There’s no learning curve with this one you pick it up and you’re off. The speaker surprised me the most. Even at low volume this thing kicks. Bright, full and way louder than I expected. I almost wish it had a half-volume setting because the quietest notch is still punching. Definitely not a bad problem to have. The build quality is solid. Nice weight, strong handle, good antenna, and nothing feels flimsy. It feels like something that’s going to survive road trips, garages, and late-night shortwave hunts. The backlight is clean and easy on the eyes and the battery indicator actually works, which is rare in radios at this price. I picked this up to replace an old radio that struggled with AM and shortwave and I ended up getting something way better. I’m already hearing stations from across the world that my other radios never touched. This thing is going to live at work with me and it’s absolutely earning its spot. If you want a radio that punches way above its price tag, pulls in stations like it’s showing off, and is just flat out fun to use, this one’s it. I’m genuinely impressed.