Retekess TR614 Unboxing & Review!

[@stephenstevens6573]

Morning! Thanks!

[@StevenS757]

That rechargeable battery is actually a standard size, it's called an 18650 cell. Common in a lot of electronics from China. You can buy replacements from a lot of places, including Amazon

[@stanleycostello9610]

I have a table radio which I got for Christmas in 1982 during my grad school years. I have it sitting on my desk. Walnut case. In typical 80's, it has slider controls for the bass, treble and volume. Since my brother was working at a Zenith distributing center he got it wholesale. AM/FM, mono, 6 inch speaker and a bass port. ("The Quality Goes In Before The Name Goes On" really meant something.) It has an analog tuner which Iike. I got a Sony receiver a few years ago, which has digital tuner and it doesn't have a dial. It displays which station it's picking up with a strong signal, and nothing in between. I listen to classical music and it picks up the stations that I listen to, so I don't mind. You would think that Sony would have done better on this.

[@ralphreinhardt6020]

This is a good unit for listening to music in places were there ain't no cell reception. Like up at the lake or camping in the mountains.

[@Madness832]

I noticed that it doesn't tune the extended AM band (non-US model?). Also, the battery is an 18650 (very common type).

[@rexoliver7780]

On your radio-listening to AM-try to turn off as many other digital devices and unplug switching type "wall wart" or brick adaptors as you can.These make noise on the AM band-often wiping it out.At the SW plant I am at right now NO transmitters are on air.Some SW broadcasts have cut back on airtime-often at night.SW transmitters being 50KW-500KW output power cost a LOT to run.Can add up to over $1000 per hour.Out transmitters will come on at 1000 GMT time.Sometimes on SW sets-there may be terminals on the back for an external long wire antenna.The telscope antennas are primarily used for FM.Not so good on SW becuase of the longer wavelength-longer than FM.-So the antenna needs to be longer.

[@steveweinberg462]

Try FM and shortwave with the antenna up. Also SW over 13 MHz may be better during the day. Perhaps try the AM elsewhere in your home? I've seen other videos where it did well on MW. It doesn't have the extended AM band, which may be important to some?

[@greylocke100]

So you are saying that we want a more tactile experience. As for what I have been looking for personally, is a stereo compact cassette recorder that is actually GOOD. I bought a new old stock car tape deck and want to make some mix tapes from my music library but I no longer have a stereo with a tape deck. And I used to drive from Corpus Christi Texas area to St. Louis Missouri several times a year. So I FEEL your pain.

[@garrypeak4277]

Looks nice, but doesn’t work well enough. Pity, because I think there’s still a place for stuff like this. I’ve got a dozen aquariums running in my garage, all I have put there sound wise is a radio receiver that was my Dad’s from the 1970s, that I grew up with. Still sounds great. It’s nice to get out there and potter around just with a radio on like that….

[@retekessradio1714]

30% off now, ends March 1

[@blackmore1030]

Retekess, though grammatically incorrectly, means filthy in Hungarian :)

[@ajworrell]

The reason you''re having trouble picking up AM signals may have to do with 'dirty' (unsupressed) power supplies or motors within your home, rather than the radio itself. Try moving to a different room, or even outside and you may get a better result

[@7JANEWAY]

Just curious: do you do record shows? That would be a good way to meet people who subscribe to your channel, and meet people who can be new subscribers after meeting you as well.

[@larrylarry1]

Testing FM and SW without extending the telescoping antenna limits the results. I understand you were very tired. The radio looks very good. Get your rest!

[@dougbrowning82]

SW really requires a long wire antenna, such as one would string across the back yard. The telescoping rod is usually for FM. But not extending the rod doesn't explain the lack of MW AM, which uses the internal ferrite antenna. This radio probably uses two chips, one for RF and one for AF, and I'm assuming it's a defective RF chip, or something is seriously blocking local reception. The radios I grew up with were mostly TRFs and Superhets, tube and solid state, although frequency synthesis was starting to come out in the late 1970s.

[@larrylarry1]

@@dougbrowning82 Yes I understand Shortwave reception needs a long length of wire to work well. My parents house has such a wire I installed as a kid in the attic stretching the longest length of the house. FM works better if the telescoping antenna is deployed.

[@markanderson350]

I think the processing interferes with the reception, something we only dealt with clock radios maybe way back. It's a cheap radio.

[@timfaracy754]

SW was really interesting in the late '60s when I first heard it but by the late '70s it was already declining. By the '80s I rarely went there anymore. The digital tuning is bad too, no DXing. The AM tuner sounds defective on this unit.

[@retekessradio1714]

It may be that the interference of the signal is getting more and more serious, and it is more and more dependent on the antenna.