• AM/FM/SW/Single Side Band Receiver
• Dual conversion technology, wide/narrow AM filter
• Four tuning methods: direct, manual, scan and preset
• Built-in alarm clock and sleep timer, two colors available, Silver and Black, If you do not specifiy what color, we will ship whatever available, Silver or Black !
• 1 Year Warranty

This high quality world receiver receives all the stations in shortwave spectrums, plus side bands, SSB. The special designed circuit is a high sensitivity one, but no noise.This unique digital radio starts FM from 70.0 MHz, most of Campus radio station can be tuned in within this range. The KA1102 can decode SSB Single Side Band broadcasts. It is much better than other radios costing much more and in a smaller size. 190 memories (10 pages of 19 / page 10 is used to allow SSB use) can store your favorite stations.Thanks to the dual conversion technology, this radio has a super sensitivity in shortwave bands. This radio comes with 3 Ni-MH AA rechargeable batteries, the AC adaptor not only works as DC power source, it charges the batteries automatically, the built-in charging system gives you full protection on the batteries and radio itself.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but not perfect
Comment: This is a nice little world radio, but it is not perfect. Sound quality on AM/SW is pretty poor. Sound quality on FM is fine. I get a motorboating sound on 800 khz when the backlight comes on and on 790 khz when it is off. This is very annoying. I have only used it on AM and it seems pretty sensitive, but not very selective close to local channels. Battery life is only about 4 hours, but I guess that is acceptable. Despite its problems, I really like this little receiver and think it is worth the price.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A little disappointed
Comment: I received the Kaito KA1102 a couple of weeks ago, and although it seems to be very well made and easy to use, I am a little disappointed. It may be that my expectations were too high. I bought the radio primarily to use the AM and shortwave bands. I like to listen to sports events at night as I am relaxing in bed and I was hoping to be able to pull in some AM stations from outside of my area (I live in the Detroit area and sometimes the local stations don't carry national games). However I have not had much success in doing that. I was also hoping to listen to some shortwave stations. I have never had a radio that receives shortwave so I don't have any experience with that. However so far I have not been able to pull in any English speaking stations clearly enough even with the supplied external antenna connected and strung outside a window. Maybe I'm just in a bad location. Based on my experience, if you are considering buying this radio in hopes of getting great AM reception and a variety of shortwave stations, you may want to look at another radio.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A mini-portable Worldband radio that actually works well.
Comment: Since the features of the radio have been covered already by the other reviews, I'll just review the performance real quick. I've owned countless SW radio over the years, and never had a mini-portable that worked well. Until now. The KA1102 simply works very well. Will it replace my Sony 2010? No, of course not. But I will be taking my KA1102 with me when I need a small portable. SW reception is surprisingly very good. The narrow filter is better than on radios I own costing 3 times as much. Even when the bands are crowded, the narrow filter allows me to listen to stations 5kHz apart. Amazing on a radio costing $75. The only slight negatives are: MW performance is average, and the radio's functions take a little time to get used to. ..This radio will be one of my "keepers".

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointed With Sound Quality
Comment: I spent several days with this radio learning how to operate it. The manual is not clearly written but it's usable. The radio feels solid and the design has a number of nice features. The user interface could stand some improvements. I wish the clock would display simultaneously with the frequency. I wish the batteries could be charged simultaneously with playing on AC. The problem I couldn't tolerate was the distorted sound. The amount of distortion was not too bad for voice but horrible for music. I couldn't stand the distortion so I returned the radio.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Extremely fine portable AM (MW)/FM/SW radio
Comment: This is my second Kaito portable radio and it is indeed an excellent product as all the other reviewers have pointed out before me. It seems extremely well made and should last a long time if treated with care. The radio is both very small and readily transportable yet the reception is still excellent on all available bands.

I especially like being able to change the AM(MW)/SW narrow/wide (bandwidth) filter setting, the DX/local RF gain switch as well as the news/music (narrow/wide) filter switch in order to improve reception of any desired signal. Using the SSB BFO fine tuner on page 9 is also very easy and straight forward as well. The ability to step tune with very small increments on pages 7-9 is also excellent in my opinion once a signal of interest has been located.

I also really like the highly useful system of storing presets with the ATS system on page 0 and then being able to use the copy command to transfer them to other pages after they have been thoroughly edited into a useful list.

I didn't think that I would like the digital volume controls before I got the KA1102 based on other digital volume controls that I have tried previously, but I have totally changed my mind on this very nice feature. The steps between each setting are sufficiently small that very precise control of the volume levels can be attained, especially when using earphones which is my most common mode of operating this radio. In addition however, since the volume controls are totally digital, the common problem of accidentally turning an analog volume control knob and thus changing the volume level significantly from the last use of the radio is no longer a problem at all. Too many times my ears have suffered from not properly checking an inadvertent change of the analog volume control knob setting on other radios that I have used!

In addition, several people have complained about the poor English Kaito/Degen manual, but if you can't figure something out, just download the Grundig/Eton G5/E5 manual (based on the recent reworking by Grundig of the poor ergonomics of the Kaito KA1103 radio) where all other relevant details are readily explained. Grundig/Eton has recently significantly changed the fine manual that was available online until February 2008, but the new manual is still better than the Kaito manual for providing many explanations for poorly explained features.

The unavailability of the LW bands on this unit is something that should be rectified by Kaitousa (pun intended) at some future date (although I have read that the Kaito KA1103 was introduced to make that specific adjustment/correction among others).

Also a screen version of the signal strength meter (now done using 4 red LEDS, except in FM stereo mode where only three LEDS are used for an indication of the signal strength- see also below) should also be added as well as an indication of the DX/local switch setting as also pointed out by another reviewer.

One additional idea: Kaito should make future editions of this radio so that the internal AM/MW ferrite antenna could be disconnected from the system and replaced through the external antenna jack by either an indoor or an outdoor antenna for even better AM listening (UPDATE- 5/06/2008: This am antenna decoupling has now been done for the Grundig G5 made for Grundig by Degen, the Chinese parent company for all Kaitousa products. The G5 is the updated and more expensive version of the KA1103 with all its odd ergonomic problems corrected including the famous volume control problem). Kaito still offers an antenna that inductively couples to the internal ferrite AM antenna along the top edge of the radio, but that is a clumsy way to get even better AM reception in my opinion since there is no easy way to attach the coupler directly to the radio.

Finally, the choice of listening in the stereo FM mode seems to be presented redundantly (twice) on the KA1102 by the presence of both the 4th small red LED below the LCD screen and by an indication on the LCD screen itself (through the symbol, ST)?

I look forward very much to having the fun of using this radio for the very high quality sounds of music, news and just general shortwave listening from all over the globe for a very long time.

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