Ohm Electric Released RAD-T550N 3bands Portable Radio

New three bands radio RAD-T550N released on June this year and now available.

- AudioComm DSP Portable Radio[Item No]07-6595 | Ohm Electric (Japanese)



Ohm Electric is one of the business company that deals with cheap Audio/Visual and other electric appliances in Japan.


The product page says;

[Features]

• A Tabletop Radio which has large buttons, easy to read display with backlit, easy operation and high sensitivity
• AM, FM-Wide(76-108MHz), Radio NIKKEI can be listened to
• One-touch tuning, automatic scan and store, alarm, sleep with clock
• Lock function avoids unintended operations
• Two way operations(AC or batteries)

[Specifications]

• Power : AC100V 50/60Hz, 6VDC("D"cell x 4, optional)
• Power consumption : 5Watt
• Receiving Frequency Range : 
• AM... 522-1710kHz 9kHz step
• FM... 76-108MHz 100kHz step
• SW... Radio NIKKEI1/2 3.925/3.945/6.055/6.115/9.595/9.760MHz
• Antenna :
  
  • FM&Radio NIKKEI...Telescopic Antenna
  • AM...Built in Ferrite Bar Antenna
• Speaker : 4.17" (10.6cm) diameter, 1W audio output
• Ext. Input : 0.138"(3.5mm) diameter Stereo Mini Jack
• Phones Output : 0.138"(3.5mm) diameter Stereo Mini Jack
• Battery Life(New alkaline batteries, reference only)
• At speaker output : AM/340hrs, FM/310hrs, Radio NIKKEI/340hrs
• At phones output :  AM/390hrs, FM/360hrs, Radio NIKKEI/390hrs
• Case Size : 9.33"(23.7cm)W x 5.83"(14.8cm)H x 2.52"(6.4cm) w/o protrusion
• Weight : 26.6lbs(756g) w/o batteries
• Clock Precision : +/-30seconds within per month
• Supplied with AC cable and Japanese instruction with Warranty Card(for Japan only)

The RAD-T550N might also be made by TECSUN China because Ohm Electric is selling many re-branded radios made by TECSUN.

Specs as above are similar to SONY three bands portable ICF-M780N. Limited six SW frequencies customized for Japanese residents, which equals to useless when you use outside of Japan. No tuning step selector found.

Considering appearances and operations, it looks poor.

There being no tuning/volume knob, it'd be hard to adjust frequency and volume.

The preset buttons are three, which means nine frequencies(AM/FM/SW of each) can be stored. If you can count numbers up to three only, that feature might be preferable.

As the instruction described, FM stereo can be played only when the phones jack is connected. The RAD-T550N has one speaker, not stereo.



Current price of the RAD-T550N is under $50 excluding shipping cost.

While SONY ICF-M780N has volume knob, five hardware preset buttons and 100hrs battery life, the RAD-T550N has stereo input jack(monaural sound output from the speaker), FM stereo output only from phones jack, snooze function, more than 13days continuous battery life and cheap(half price of ICF-M780N).

I think the RAD-T550N would be a nice competitor against SONY ICF-M780N if it truly has high sensitivity.