Sangean PR-D4W AM/FM Weather Alert Portable Radio with Bandwidth Narrowing, Black

This is one of the best AM/FM with NOAA Weather Alert radios on the market. You can listen to AM/FM and an alert will break in on your listening. Few radios with weather alert will do that, and there is no $20 buzzword for this feature so you will not find it in the product description nor most reviews and is difficult for search engines with or without "AI" to find it. The CCradio 2E and 3 and Midland WR400 do the same. I appreciate the large and easy to program separate favorite stations buttons. Because of the larger size than a pocket radio it has much better sound as well due to the larger and better 3" speaker. Battery backup with common alkaline (4D cells) is nice but puts this like the 2E and 3 more in the table top class due to weight, not as light and more portable like the Qodosen DX-286 or the XHDATA D-109WB but I can say the same about the CCRANE 3, 2E, EP Pro and EP and YES I own them all and more. So take this review from someone that owns them all and uses them, has experience and has compared them, this is a great radio. Hands down this beats all the older "super radios" whether transistor or tube. Read Radio Jay Allen reviews, he is generally spot on. There are no "perfect" radios on the market, there are always tradeoffs. Due to the weather alert feature, you will want to run this off of mains, the batteries are there in case mains power is lost like during a severe weather event. This radio unlike the WR400 does NOT use S.A.M.E. Which incidently the best radio in that class is the Midland WR400 but reception is lacking. You can increase any radios reception in a surprising way if you need to. Wrap several loops of the power cord around a large 240 size powdered iron toroid core, this will supress an amazing amount of EMI coming from your homes electrical wiring. My ultimate %231 radio is the CCrane 2E or 3, %232 is this PR-D4W, %233 is the XHDATA D-109WB. All others including the Qodosen which is not weather band capable, I rank lower for all sorts of reasons. Not even 4 D cells can match the energy density (storage capacity) of a single 18650 Li-Ion cell so that is where these table top radios all fall short. However, the true portables that use Li-Ion are smaller and have smaller speakers. It's a tradeoff. If you are looking for BT or MP4, this is not the radio for you. If you are looking for stereo HD, look to the HDR-16 but it does not have weather band. I have had this radio plus a CCradio 2E outside on roof covered porches (they do not see rain nor direct sunlight) for several months with no problems. We listen to broadcast FM and there is one station in particular that most radios have difficulty receiving if at all. The PR-D4W picks this station up as long as the antenna is pointed appropriately. The CC-2E is a little more forgiving and the Qodosen and XHDATA pick it up the easiest. At this price point versus the CCradio 2E, the PR-D4W is a clear winner. I recommend it, get one, you won't be disappointed.

Very strong sound - not tinny or base - light weight - like the weather band. A handle would make it perfect!

Good product...Great reception

It came packaged very well. It's very sturdy but is missing a carrying handle. AM reception is great as it has a booster that kicks in when a station is tuned. Sound quality is very good. FM distant station reception is only fair. Presets are a great feature, and all knobs are where they should be. CCrane Pro is a tiny tad better on AM but Sangean has a booster so you don't have to crank the volume. Crane radios have better FM. But in my opinion this PR-D4W is likely the most sensitive AM receiver made by Sangean. Battery drain is notable. I'm overall a really happy owner of this radio.

Read a lot of reviews before buying this. As a AM radio this thing is excellent. The tuning is a little strange because of the way it locks onto the signal, but you get used to it. The bandwidth tuning is great. Some have criticized the FM performance and I would have to agree if that is what is important to you, this is not the radio for you. Overall an excellent buy for the dollar spent. Some have rated this up there close to the C.Crane CCRadio 2E and I would tend to agree. The smaller form factor is nice. Would definitely recommend this radio for purchase.

Great sound quality, great sensitivity. Can control tunning bandwith. I wish it had a button/switch to leave the display light on at will. It always turns off after few seconds even when connected to AC.

Excellent radio with advanced features for signal reception. At night, it pulls in 1020 AM KDKA in Pittsburgh which is 800 miles away. Living at the beach, the weather band is great for continuous updates/alerts on the ocean conditions. This is a relatively large but handy sized portable with a good full range of sound for both music and talk from a 3 inch speaker. The rated battery life is 120 hours with four D sized alkaline batteries and it has an AC power adaptor (not battery charger).

Portable radios are hard to find. I have an older model of this same radio and it sounded better and was easier to carry around. This model takes D cell batteries which makes it very heavy and the sound isn't as good. However I got more than 15 years from the old one. I'm hoping this one lasts that long.

Be sure that you like this radio before purchasing it. It's sold by a third party distributor, not Walmart, and getting a refund isn't easy, if it's even possible.

While a nice radio and quite nice sound for a small speaker, the radio had trouble pulling in even local FM stations. Repositioning the antenna improved the sound marginally. FM band narrowing also did not help the reception. AM stations were also spotty in terms of a good clear signal. Other radios (including another Sangean) do a much better job in pulling in stations. I am trying to return the radio now, but it is a third-party seller and the process seems slow.