Sangean DT-250 SILVER

Being a radio enthusiast for over 50 years, I've lost count of how many radios I've had - large and small.Of the small radios the Sangean DT-250 is the best, especially when it comes to FM reception.I was impressed with how good this radio performs when it comes to selectivity and sensitivity on the FM band. I had no trouble in receiving stations on adjacent frequencies only 200 kHz apart and in one case, I was able to receive a weak station only 100 kHz from a medium strength station, this is quite impressive for a little radio like this. I did a comparison test between the Sangean DT-250 and my Sony ICF-S10MK2, on FM the Sangean won hands down as it heard signals that were non existant on the Sony.On the AM medium wave band the two radios where more even. I found that the Sony received signals slightly better around the middle of the medium wave around 800 - 1200 kHz, but the Sangean was better on the higher end of the band around 1400-1600 kHz. Again the selectivity on AM was impressive on the Sangean with good reception of signals only one channel (9 kHz) above or below a strong station, this was not the case on the Sony.Another thing I found impressive with the Sangean was it's strong signal handling abilities, as I said this radio is sensitive, but I found it's ability to handle strong signals without overloading to be excellent.Now on to the basics:Setting the Clock - With the radio off, you press and hold the 'MEMO' button until the clock display starts flashing, then use the up/dwn tuning to set the hour, again press the 'MEMO' and the minute will flash and use the up/dwn again to set the minutes - another press of the memo button and job done.Setting Memories - Either plug the headphones in, or the supplied aerial into the headphone socket. On the left side of the radio there is a 3 position slider switch, slide it down to 'SP' to engage the internal speaker.There are 19 memory pre-sets, you can programme them in any order, so you can set say 1 - 10 for FM and 11 - 19 for AM, or you can mix AM and FM in the order of your choice.Programming a memory is simple, switch the radio on and press the 'BAND' button for AM or FM. Tune to the station that you want and press the 'MEMO' button (the M will start flashing) then press the up/dwn for the memory number you want the tuned station on and press the 'MEMO' button again and the station is memorised to the number chosen. When you have stations entered into the memory bank, to access the memory channels press the 'My Favourite' button on the right side of the radio, you then use the up/dwn tuning buttons to go through the memories - press the 'My Favourite' button again to go back to normal tuning.The key lock on the right hand side is self explanatory.The Timer - When you press the on/off button on the top, the radio defaults to 90 minutes of operation and will switch off automatically after this period. If you want the radio on continuously, press the on button and keep it pressed until the 90 min timer on the display disappears.Switching between 9/10 kHz tuning on Medium Wave - The normal tuning steps in Europe and many other countries (Region1) is 9 kHz on MW. The exception being North and South America and a few other countries (Region 2) where 10 kHz is used.To switch between 9/10 kHz tuning - With the radio switched off, press and hold the 'up' tuning button and at the same time press and hold the on button (StP 10) will flash (keep pressing the buttons until the radio displays 520) the radio will now be in the 10 kHz tuning steps range.To switch back to 9 kHz, with the radio off, press and hold the 'down' tuning button and press and hold the on button until the radio displays 522.Note: If you have any Medium Wave memories saved, these will be deleted if you switch the tuning step, so you will have to re-programme any MW memories.On FM the radio covers 87.5 - 108 MHz in 100 kHz steps.On AM the radio covers 522 - 1629 kHz in 9 kHz steps and 520 - 1710 in 10 kHz steps.My Likes and Dislikes of the Sangean DT-250:Likes - It's a great radio for it's size, it has the ability to receive distant stations on FM, so would be a good choice for portable Dx'ing by radio anoraks. It has very good signal handling, sensitivity, and selectivity.Dislikes - Only one, that is the wire FM aerial.... I made a whip aerial by using a 3.5mm stereo plug and a thin knitting needle. In the plug I snipped off the two small contacts for the left and right signal for the headphones and put a small blob of hot glue where the contacts were, as the shield connection of the plug is used on headphones as the aerial, it was a simple job of soldering the knitting needle to the long connector which would be the screen of the headphones. Although the knitting needle length is slightly shorter than the headphone lead this doesn't appear to reduce the reception to any extent.One final point, the supplied earphones are ok but I replaced them with a pair of genuine iPod earphones and the improvement in audio quality was fantastic.Would I recommend that you buy a Sangean DT-250.... You bet I would, it's a great versatile little pocket radio - the best small radio I've ever owned.

I saved a few quid and bought an Eton m400 thinking that it would do the job, but it was a disaster. I have never known a radio so fussy about the batteries that went into it, so I did what I should have done in the first place and bought this. Other than the manual having gaps in explanation it is a fantastic bit of kit. Especially useful is the wire antenna, which plugs into the headphone socket. You would think that would stop the sound coming from the speakers, but no, there is a switch on the side of the radio which sends the sound to the speaker. This is to use when camping, where antenna often get broken, but this will be fine. Most surprising thing was that the reception is a lot better than my expensive Roberts radio, which was 3 times the price. The radio does look a bit cheap, the downside of a silver finish, but so far it seems a really fabulous bit of kit. I am really pleased with it.

So far i have not used on my travels.... However have tested at home and my first impressions are that this is liked... I found it easy to programme...the quality of sound is fine for a small radio.... my use will be mainly with headphone...and with these the radio is good.... The test as to receiving signal in far flung places remains to be heard....

This is the best of several pocket radios I have had over the years. The digital tuning (and saving favourite stations) is much better than the dial-type tuning and the push-button on/off switch is much better than having that function on the volume control. The flex aerial or earphones used as aerial are much better than the pull out rod aerial.

Meet the nanny radio ! It turns itself off every 90 minutes lest you inadvertently leave it on and waste your batteries !All very well, but this is a function that can't be disabled, why ? Also, programmed presets can't be reset.Those gripes aside, it's a great little radio. It's compact, with great sound and reception. It comes with a belt clip and a flexible and detachable aerial, so suited to listening on the move..... and if it's attached to your person, you won't forget to turn it back on.

Disappointed very poorly made especially were the batteries keep disengaging would not recommend or buy further products from this make.

I bought it because I thought it was hackable into a ghost box. You can’t.Still a good radio nonetheless

Overall disappointed with this product , it's great the quick change in presets but does not hold the station signal as it claimed to do.Not worth the money.