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Reviews For: Kaito KA1103

Category: Receivers: General Coverage

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Review Summary For : Kaito KA1103
Reviews: 59MSRP: 109.99
Description:
This high quality world receiver is made in the best radio factory in Asia and it receives all the stations in shortwave spectrums , plus side bands, SSB. The special designed circuit is a high sensitivity one, but no noise. FMSTEREO/FML/MW/SW1/SW2/Single Side Band (SSB)

Product is in production
More Info: http://www.kaitousa.com
# last 180 days Avg. Rating last 180 days Total reviews Avg. overall rating
00594.4
JIM1701 Rating: 2007-08-13
Better than Eton E1! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I bought a eton E1 from a place that had "Refurbished" units from Drake. Well I used it a couple of times. Then one night I broke out the Eton and was trying to get stations in Chicago (at night) to no avail. And it was big. So I sold it on ebay. Then I bought the Kaito 1103 and wasn't expecting much. I took the radio out and started to scanning the bands and I was shocked!!! I was getting AM stations that I never heard B4!!! Never with the Eton E1... So this radio is a winner!!!! I paid 400.00 for the E1, I Paid 97.00 (including shipping) for the Kaito and I hear stations I never heard B4!!! BUY IT!!!!! Forget the Eton E1!!!!!
WB6TNB Rating: 2007-06-04
A pleasant surprise Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
After a very positive review in Passport to World Band Radio I bought a demo Kaito KA1101 from Universal Radio (not a scratch on it) for $15 off the regular price ($50 delivered). I was immediately extremely impressed. Passport's review of the KA1103 went overboard about the unusual ergonomics. Don't let them calling the ergonomics "hostile" deter you from this fine little radio. After Google searches took me to many glowing reviews of the KA1103 I decided to take the plunge and I'm glad I did. It was about $81 delivered. What a pleasant surprise. Yes, controlling the volume is a little weird and the numerical keypad layout is different. I actually like the fake LCD analog readout. I've been a ham for 38 years (age 51) and I'm impressed with how good the SSB is. Both sensitivity and selectivity on SW are excellent. I'm a MW DX'er and it performs extremely well there. A few months before buying the KA1103 I bought a Sony ICF-SW7600GR and was very happy with it. I haven't used it much since getting the 1103. I mainly use it when the synchronous detection is needed. I highly recommend this slightly unusual radio. You won't be sorry you bought it.
RAGGLESTEIN Rating: 2007-06-01
I Really Like This Radio Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
Hmm well here goes. I got the KA1103 and spent ages on reading the instruction manual. Then I said, 'the heck with that!' I let my intuitive nature take over and had an absolute ball! I really like this little radio. It more than performs to my expectations, which I must say, are very demanding. My interest is primarily shortwave dx, but I like to listen the the ham bands. The Kaito did well. Sure its not your table top performer, but I was able to get some good dx on the 80 meter ham band and had no trouble resolving ssb with the help of the narrow band filter and the clarifier (fine tuner for ssb). I keep discovering this radio is full of little quirks. I can have the BBC 9740 kHz on a memory, then scan down to say the am band where I had been listening before to my favourite talk station. With a press of the M/F button, I was back to the BBC again. The dual usage buttons take a little getting used to, but then after that its easy. As most of my other radios have various broadcasters loaded into 'pages'. I found having a full 268 memories to load up a little daunting. Then I remembered that I have a Uniden scanner that uses 'banks' so, I set about storing frequencies in multiples of tens. No problem. Sensitivity wise, this radio compares with the various Sony and Sangean receivers I have as well. The display is unusual, but then it 'grows' on you...well I found it did LOL. This radio also has the 'twiddle' factor...I love using the jog wheel to tune around and the light stays on as long as you are moving around the bands. This is great for night time listening. One test that I use, and this is cruel, is to use a radio near my computer. The Kaito did well on the sw and am bands, but the fm band filled up with noise. The fm sensitivity is not that great, but then this is not my area of interest. When it comes to am listening, the radio is more than adequate. I was able to tune to a station that is over 1,000 miles from where I live no problem, and pulls in distant am well. The sound quality from the speaker is better than that of my other portables, except perhaps that of my Sangean ATS505, which sounds really good on fm. Overall I rate the Kaito 1103 as sensitive, but not overwhelmed by the stronger broadcasters on sw and able to handle busy bands.
VICTROLA927 Rating: 2007-03-19
Great for AM, FM, and SSB Time Owned: more than 12 months.
I have what you would call a love/hate relationship with the Kaito KA1103.

Love: I really love the AM and FM portions of the band. The SSB works better than any other radio I have ever owned. The sound is phenomenal for this size radio, especially on FM. I also love the rechargable battery function. Price paid off ebay was about $60 shipped to my house.

Hate: I get very poor reception on all shortwave bands. I have barely received more that 5 good stations since I bought this radio. I mentioned it to the Chinese gentleman I purchased it from (ebay) and he did not seem to care. I absolutely hate it when I accidentally bump an alarm button and my alarm keeps coming on at unexpected times. I hate the way the volume is controlled on this unit. It took me a while to get used to the small tuning knob, but I am doing better with it now. I do not really like the way you cannot stand the antenna completely vertical. I would like to set it closer to a wall, but cannot because of the antenna.

Conclusion: If you want a great AM/FM radio with great sound, good battery, and portability this should be at the top or your list. I have had a bad experience with the short wave bands, which even my lowly Kaito KA009 and Grundig Mini 100PE blow this unit away on reception. I find this unit hard to use at night, and while the owners manual was translated well, the way the unit functions as a whole is not really intuitive.
KE5JKC Rating: 2007-03-07
Had to send it back to Kaito for repair Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
Nice little radio...supplied antenna seems to work great...on FM and AM...I bought it to listen to SSB. My issue with the radio is that it went totally silent when you switch to SSB. It has been sent back to Kaito for repair. Thank goodness for the warranty. We'll see how Kaito does on the warranty repair.
ANDREWK Rating: 2007-02-25
Great Value Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
I paid $80 for this radio through Ebay, and I'm surprised by its performance. As mentioned in the previous review, I also have the DX-398, and this unit performs slightly better.

FM: The radio has better sensitivity and selectivity than the DX-398. It's better than my car radio, and I can pick up adjacent FM channels that I couldn't get on any other radio. It starts at 76 MHz, which allows me to hear my local channel 5 audio. The outstanding FM reception is my favorite part!! And the antenna doesn't even need to be fully extended for this.

MW: Very excellent reception here too. It picks up distant MW signals, and it has LW starting at 100 KHz. I don't care about the LW though, since there's nothing on it in my area.

SW: Surprisingly better than the very expensive DX-398. Excellent sensitivity on SW.

Ham and Amateur SSB: Slightly better sensitivity than the DX-398, but the selectivity is crappy compared to the DX-398. This unit can pick up all that the DX-398 can, but most is not listenable due to adjacent interference, and the filter isn't much help.

I like this unit because I can tune all of the SW bands fast without any intervals of muting. I just cruise from one end of the band to the other end, which I can't do with the DX-398. I do feel that the buttons are cheaply made, and the volume control is still annoying. It's a very compact radio.
KC9CWB Rating: 2007-02-09
A Very Desirable Radio! Time Owned: 3 to 6 months.
This is a compact radio that receives well and sounds great. I have had several different models of radios and this one is my favorite. It receives better than my Radio Shack DX 398 (Sangean ATS-909). It is easy to operate and very fast to tune into the desired stations. Included rechargeable batteries charge by turning the digital display indicator to the # of hours or the wall wart can be left plugged in for non-battery listening. Speaker sounds good. Can operate in total darkness easily because the individual buttons are backlit when the light switch is slid on.
KC7PSX Rating: 2007-02-08
wow, a lot of bang for the buck! Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
I was looking for a easy-to-use, portable shortwave that my kids could afford for me for Christmas. I noticed the number of these on sale on auction sites so I looked around for online reviews. I saw the review KG0WX posted and decided on this radio.

On Christmas day I opened the package and WOW!

ALL the basics were enclosed, batteries, headphones, antenna (a neat little longwire with a clip) charger and a little velour carrying bag.

In no time I had it set up and running, everything KG0WX said was dead-on, the multifunction stuff was no different from my Uniden scanners so it was no big deal.

Hefty, neat display, _unbelievable_ sensitivity for such a tiny gizmo AND I was able to listen to 40-meter SSB communications. I could even sort out different conversations within what must have been a tight 2 or 3 khz passband

I have a lot of older radios, usually use my DX-160 for SWLing, but I keep this radio close, especially handy during power outages.
KG0WX Rating: 2006-12-15
Simply amazing what can go in such a small package Time Owned: 0 to 3 months.
When I picked up the box for my KA-1103 the first thing I thought was "wow - this is heavier than I thought". Then I opened the box and took out the 1103. Even without the batteries, it felt heavy for it's size. I added the batteries (Rechargeable AA batteries *included*? What planet is Kaito from?) and proceeded to work on an external antenna connection and read the manual while the batteries charged. The antenna connector is a 1/8" mono headphone jack so I made a pigtail and connected the KA-1103 up to my home station's antenna system (TA-33M, R-7000, Dipoles).

I fully expected to get hammered from signal overload. OK.....where's the overload.....maybe the preamp is off.....nope....maybe the filter is set to narrow....nope...what? NO OVERLOAD???? But I'm on 20 meters on a Saturday! Can't be......

I was so surprised at how good the rig handled the antenna farm that I went out to check my antennas!

To put it plainly, this rig is NOT some wimpy SW receiver with a BFO added to get SSB users to buy it. It is a competent receiver with the only limitations being that it does use a BFO. How Kaito managed to produce such a fine rig for $69.95 (eBay) is beyond me.

Anyways, it rocks on HF SSB/CW - how about HF AM? Even better. I've never heard WBCQ cleaner except maybe on my TS-850SAT. Heck - even CB sounds as good as CB can. Now on to AM BCB (MW) - would you believe it can separate strong DX stations only 10khz apart? For example: I have here KFTI on 1070 (50kw) yet I can easily pick up WHO (1040) with no co-channel interference. I even tried listening 10khz away and I could just barely detect the presence of my local station. Nice!

I noticed that the coverage goes all the way down to 100khz so I tried 415khz (45 miles away) and 333khz (16 miles away). These are LF Non Directional Beacons ("NDB's") and the 1103 picked up the 25 watt AM signals easily. Wow - this rig just keeps on surprising me with it's performance!

OK, enough of the glitter - here is what I didn't like: The volume control (very minor) and the charging system. With the volume control you have to tap the VOL button then adjust the volume with the main dial then wait a few seconds to get your tuning knob back. I can get used to it. The battery charger is weird - you have to TELL the 1103 that it has NiMh batteries on board and how long to charge them *today*. It's nice if you just want to top off the batteries with a 1 hour charge but IMHO a automatic charger would have been both easy to implement and much more battery friendly. Oh well -I can live with that, too. :-)

BTW There is a Kaito 1103 users group on Yahoo Groups if you need more info.

Ken KG0WX
K8JDC Rating: 2006-07-26
Excellent Radio! Time Owned: 6 to 12 months.
After doing some research last year on small portables, I asked Santa for one of these and he left one under my Christmas tree. This is really a great radio for the price and I've dragged mine on overseas trips and family vacations this year as a result.

What I like:
- Very nice (sensitive) receiver (Have picked up ZS stations on 20m SSB using just the included wire antenna laying on the floor. AM/FM reception also very nice.)
- SSB reception at a low cost
- Direct keypad frequency entry
- Love the built-in battery charger with user-selectable on/off timer.
- Love the two, independent alarms with their ability to have the alarm come on a specified memory channel at a specified volume
- External antenna jack
- General user interface is fairly intuitive, in my opinion
- Nice size - not too large nor too small.
- Attractive packaging
- Decently-solid "feel" - doesn't feel like a cheap piece of plastic

What I would change:
- From my research, I knew the volume control was a little unusual (shared access via the tuning control), so I was prepared for it. It's manageable, but I sure wish they had provided a dedicated volume control.

Overall, the Kaito 1103 has definitely impressed me. It's well-designed and an excellent value. I've certainly enjoyed mine so far.

73

Dave / K8JDC