DT-400W Weather Alert Pocket Radio, AM/FM, Yellow

I had been using the Sony SRF-M37 for 6 or 7 years until I had damaged the earphone jack. I have replaced the Sony with the Sangean DT-400W and have no regrets. My experience with the FM reception on the Sangean is that it is superior to the reception on the Sony. For example, I use a whole house transmitter to broadcast a signal from my Sirius Satellite radio receiver on an FM frequency. The Sony was able to pick up that signal most of the time but there where spots in the house where it dropped the signal. So far, the Sangean is definitely picking up the signal in more spots of the house and the signal comes in much clearer than it did on the Sony. The Sangean can even pick up the whole house transmitter in the garage, which the Sony was unable to do. I also have much better reception on the Weather Band selection than I ever had on the Sony. I have not tried the weather alert function on the Sangean (which the Sony does not have). I prefer the structure of the presets function on the Sangean compared with the Sony. The Sony has 10 FM presets and 5 AM presets. However, the Sangean has 19 presets which can be used for either FM or AM, in other words you can have all 19 presets on FM, or all 19 presets on AM, or you can have a mix of any number of AM/FM presets. Also, you can cycle through the presets either forward or backwards with the arrow buttons. If you are not using all of the presets, I am using 10, the favorites button only cycles through the 10 saved stations as opposed to all 19 presets. I have a desktop radio by another manufacturer that cycles through all presets whether they have a station saved or they are empty, very annoying. One downside compared to the Sony is that the Sangean is a little bit bigger, and a little bit heavier. Partly the weight difference is due to the fact that the Sangean uses 2 AA batteries as opposed to the 1 AAA battery that the Sony uses. Another downside is that the earbuds that come with the Sangean have pretty poor audio quality. I use a $5 pair of Radio Shack buds that work great and have much better sound quality. Lastly, I spent about $20 more for the Sangean than what the Sony sells for, it is worth it because you get what you pay for. Bottom line is that I was happy with the Sony SRF-M37 but I am Excited to own the Sangean DT-400W. Also, I am glad that I took a shot on the Sangean which I had no past experience with (as opposed to going with the Sony again, which I almost did.) By the way, the back light shuts off within a few seconds after having pushed a button. It does not stay on for long, so no worries on draining the batteries. This is a quality radio made by a company whose main focus is making radios and because of that, Sangean produces a solid product.

I really Like the DT-400W Radio, I also have the C Crane Pocket, The C Crane Pocket is a superior radio in several ways and worth the little extra money. I also have the Sangean DT-200 also which is the same radio as the DT-400 it just has the Weather Alert and NOAA weather, and its Yellow. Other than that they are the Same radio. Quality of product is Good, Sound Quality from speaker Is Good. FM stereo sound quality Is Good from Good quality Earbuds. The earbuds that come with the radio are Not ones I Like to use, I like the press In ear type earbuds. AM reception is Good for a Pocket radio of its size, With No external AM antenna it does pretty well. When I want to Pull in More AM stations I use My Tecsun AN-200 adjustable Loop AM Antenna they are awesome for really bringing In those weak AM stations, On a weak station it goes from: I can barely hear/understand it to, Wow what a great Improvement and very clear sound and even music on AM is nice to listen to with the external AM Loop antenna. This is a small radio that is easy to program, This is a Emergency Radio, the speaker sound is descent, it designed to NOT use a lot of battery power but conserve it, so Earbugs Good ones are a better choice for higher quality sound. As for FM reception Earbuds act as the FM antenna, It also comes with a separate plug in antenna, either one works as a antenna when playing sound through the speaker. Deep Bass Button works well through the earbuds. For better FM reception while playing through the speaker, I have a Sangean ANT-60 reel SW FM antenna that works well for bring in weak stations. Things I like about this Radio: I like the size of this radio, and the color. Sound quality, it Locks in stations very well, The Battery Life is very good, In a emergency situation It is nice to have a radio that can play for 80 hours straight before battery replacement is needed. I like the Plug in Wire FM antenna, The metal Telescoping antennas can get bent or broken fairly easily as they are fragile, But a wire is flexible. You can plug in a Longer wire FM Antenna to improve FM reception Into the headphone jack. I bought a few extra Headphone jack plugs and attached a 75foot wire to this little radio to get further stations it works well. Things I would have Liked to have had is a button press to see the time while the radio is on, you have to turn the radio off to see the clock Not a big deal. for such a Great radio, Maybe a countdown on the 90minute timer, that's the only thing. It really is a great radio

I've had mine for a handful of months now. It is a great pocket radio. I work outside and keep it on all day. I basically listen to AM stations, but my few experiences with FM were fine. FM may sound a little better than AM. Keep in mind that it is a very small radio with a tiny speaker. The laws of physics say that a single, tiny speaker cannot reproduce the full audible spectrum or play real loudly w/o distorting (regardless of B---'s marketing hype). This speaker is mostly for voice, and plays loudly enough to overcome nearly all background noise (I'm including trains and big trucks here). I've never tried the earbuds. It goes weeks between battery changes. The battery indicator's been down to one bar for a week, but it hasn't died yet. It automatically turns off after 90 minutes. I'd rather it didn't but, on the other hand, it a quick, easy way to keep track of time. The weather bands are very handy. Working outdoors, it's nice to be able to check on those clouds that're rolling in. I've dropped it a couple of times. It's been rain splattered a few times. Cleaning chemicals have gotten on it. No problems yet. The only bummer is that I'm so completely satisfied with it that it won't be available when I DO need a replacement ;). joe 29 May 2010 addition... I got caught in a thunder storm last week, and forgot the radio was in my shirt pocket. It got soaked and quit working. I opened the battery door, removed the batteries, blew the radio out with compressed air, and hung it in front of a 6" fan, in my work truck. 2-3 hours later it worked as good as new. I left it in front of a desk fan overnight. Great radio. June 2011... I got caught in a sudden thunderstorm again. Radio was in my shirt pocket, and quit working. I repeated the above battery, canned air, and fan routine. The radio was working again a couple of hours later, and works fine now. Again. 08 Nov 2011... Guess what... Sudden rain, soaked radio, dead radio, battery removal, canned air, truck fan, working radio. Again. Wish I could add stars. 14 May 2012... I broke it. Not the radio's fault, it worked flawlessly 'til I slammed it in a utility cabinet door today. Of course, when the door wouldn't latch I slammed it harder, rather than look first. I'm ordering another right now. 12 May 2015... The second one is doing fine. 07 May 2016 Well, the second one broke. I don't know what happened but the speaker just plays quiet static now. This time I replaced it with C. Crane's CC pocket am/fm/wb radio. It came yesterday and, so far, I can say its controls are a little more user friendly. and the fm works without adding an antenna wire.

Bought this for its external speaker, weather band, and AA battery power. The sound is pretty good, particularly from such s tiny speaker. The reception is good, but not any better than the little $20 radios. One real flaw bugs me- it doesn’t stand up well, so it tends to fall over when using the external speaker. And you have to have the earphones plugged in as an antenna even when using that speaker. Kind of a pain. The battery life is pretty good, and rechargeable batteries work fine. The included ear buds sound pretty good. It’s a good radio, but hard to accept it is worth the big premium over the myriad of models priced about $50 less that have 90% of the functionality of this one.

Yes, I have a smartphone that can play radio from anywhere in the world, but I like listening to live, local radio. And the Droid is swell, but I like to keep it close to the vest and to protect it from dropping, water, and scratching. So, for me, a little radio is far more practical than using an app on the smartphone. So why this format? A little radio with a functional little speaker gets the job done, is easy to carry around, is not intrusive to others, lasts a long time on rechargeable batteries (two AAs), doesn't require headphones, and can be used under my pillow at night without bothering my wife. Ok, so that's why a radio and why a little radio with a speaker. So now the choices available on the planet drop to just a handful, really. So why this one? It's got great features. The way the presets work is far superior to its predecessors (I've owned two earlier versions of the Sangean, a Panasonic, and a Sony... hey... I'm an older guy, 'k?). The sound quality is fine for the little speaker. I give it only 3 stars because it's mono (stereo with headphones), small speaker = limited frequency reproduction, and the volume is limited. The volume is perfectly adequate for my needs. Don't expect to be able to hear it through the shower curtain or while using a table saw, but it's fine for normal, relatively quiet environments. I also like that it has nice fine control at the low volume levels. I can easily set it so I can hear it fine but others can barely hear it at all. The night light works great without wasting battery life (it turns on briefly when you press a button), the lock button is conveniently located, the tuning is intuitive, having 20 presets where you can mix in AM stations is great (go Red Sox, Bruins, and Celtics), and the package seems physically well put together with the volume dial well protected. I think the price is excellent considering what this radio delivers. Finally, sensitivity is excellent. I live on the reception borderline between Boston and other metropolitan areas. Plenty of other radios (including those in cars) have a hard time pulling in stations I want to listen to, but this little guy does just fine. What would I change? I'm looking forward to a day when I can get HD stations in a little radio like this. Until then, this is just great.

The radio is OK. Sounds OK for a very small radio. It struggles due to its small speaker size. The CC Crane Pocket radio sounds way better than the Sangean. I tried it today. The CC Crane is loud and sound is much fuller and richer than the Sangean. The memory mode on this radio works like this. Let's say you are on the AM band and are on AM station x1. You go to store it in Memory. The number "1" comes up on the display and you press MEMO again to store AM x1 in the number 1 position of the memory. You then select AM station X2 and do the same thing but the number "2" comes up on the display. Store it by pressing MEMO again. Or you can go backwards to "1" and store in there thus replacing AM X1 that was already stored in memory position 1 earlier. Or you can scroll forward and store it in position number "3" or "4" etc. When it comes time to select a stored station from memory, you cycle thru the list until you reach the one you want. You do not even have to change the band as AM and FM stations are stored in the number position you original stored the station under. That can take a lot of presses of the button if you have 19 stored stations in the memory. You can always skip the Memory option and tune into a station manually by pressing the up and down buttons. Where I live, only 1 of the 7 Weather Channels works. Nowadays with internet access both at home and on mobile phone, the Weather Channel feature is less useful unless you live in an area without internet access or do not have a smart phone with a data plan with you.

So I have had a problem. When I go to football games or when I am at work, i have poor reception. I have bought multiple radios, digital and analog, over the past 3-4 years searching for a product that would fit the bill, and nothing came up. I wanted something that was portable, Battery replaceable (not rechargeable internal) that had AM capability, digital tuner, and the ability to lock the device buttons to not be accidentally pressed. I found many items from 9-29 dollars that fit all but the button lock and tried all of them. While some were nice, some were crap as you would expect, the reception on all of them was just plain incapable of good enough reception for my needs. I figured since I exhausted the cheap market, id start looking more expensive. I went on Google and then eventually several different AI chats to ask for the best for my needs. Grok eventually came up with a list of 10 possible canditates. I went down each one...one by one, with prices from 40-200 and eventually settled on this one and its non weather band brother (same, black, no weather channel, slightly cheaper). I opted for this one because i could eventually use it as an emergency radio in the case of emergencies. After it arrived, i could clearly say the reception was way above the rest I tried. Finally i was able to take it to work and to the football games.....and its perfection. While true audiophiles would disagree with the term "perfection" for my needs, i couldnt have asked for a better product. The only way it could be better is if it was color matched to my school colors. (for football reasons). If i was overly critical i could say that the belt clip itself wasnt big enough, but lets face it, none of them are. for the price point, it wasn't "cheap" but it does hit that quality metric making the price worth it.

So why do people buy this radio? Bright yellow color? Size? Regular stations performance quality? Open memory? or the NOAA weather channels? For me it was first the availablity of NOAA, then the size, then the quality of am/fm functionality. Well the design on the NOAA FEATURE seems to at best be impaired. And at worst it is something likely to fail when you MOST need it... I.E. "STORM TIME USA". Maybe some option exists that I am missing on making this function ADEQUATELY. If so, my rating changes to a 5 star....but I doubt it is other than a design issue. I have had this complex, highly engineered hi tech company product for about 20 minutes and set it up and tried it. Picture this ...I live in the suburbs in the middle of a 6 million population metro area . No intervening buildings or mountains etc. in the way....flat and only cluttered by single family homes and a broad open sky. Why can I not get any NOAA reception in my house? ..ok in my backyard if I stand a certain direction and hold the radio just right.... away from house...I can get an average quality signal on one of the channels.. PS my portable ham radio gets two channels and some old radio shack weather radio picks up 2 channels inside the house. BUT IF I HANG THE PLASTIC WIRE ANTENNA...all bundled in a loop with a twistie tie....stuck in the top , in the antenna / ear plug hole, then reception works for NOAA in my home. Another options seems to be keep your earphones plugged in all the time and let it be your antenna of sorts. At least the twistee tie earphones don't cover the volume or on off switch...but are still in the way and can get lost or broken. NO REAL HURRAY here... having to step outside during lighting or heavy rain if my little detachable wire bundle/or earphone gets misplaced or broken....is NOT a functional solution of any value I guess the absence of NOAA in Japan or Korea or where ever makes it hard to come up with a decent solution.... BUT GEE HOUR ABOUT an extendable permanently attached steel antenna????????? Ground breaking design I guess for Sangean??? Then I could use the ear jack only when I want to for what it is for...and have easy acces to the antenna covered up volume and on off controls........ AND not worry either about losing the plastic antenna wire bundle... or if stepping outside to hear NOAA (in true wireless fashion) catching another signal...i.e. some aerial to ground voltage. I wish I had my first am / fm transitor portable radio today.... granted NO NOAA ....but it had an extenable metal antenna; useful when needed and out of the way otherwise. I could send it to SANGEAN. THAT was ground breaking engineering design as recently as 1959 (when I got it)for zenth or bulova or whatever it was ...not much of a breakthru today, 50+ YEARS LATER. DO YOU GUYS MARKET OR CONSUMER TEST YOUR PRODUCTS? Maybe other customers don't care. Maybe this unit is unique or plagued by operator error? ( yeah look at the "manual".. hard to see any directions being missed) I guess for Sangean, NOAA must mean...NOT OPERABLE ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION. While AMAZON IS GOOD ON RETURNS, I HATE TO WASTE THEIR TIME OR MINE.