"For a first time listener, at $50 this radio
can be considered OK, "

Well......dugh......

What are you bitching about....it is a cheap analogue radio with dials,
strings and variable capacitors tuning a high frequency oscillator. Why
people keep comparing this nice little cheapie to digital (more expensive)
radio's is beyond me.

The S350 is what it is.....leave it alone and enjoy the darned thing the way
it is....it's a wonderful cheap radio that performs well within its own
limitations.


wrote in message
oups.com...
A friend bought a S350 for $50 at Circuit City.
After testing the the FR-200 I decided to take a
listen to her S350.
It is a POS.
The S350 has a bad drift problem, getting worse
as you go to higher freqeuncies. It does sound
good, and has good sensitivity.
The FM connector is a PAL instead of the "F"
connector that is more often found on receivers
in the USA. The FM sensitivity is OK, but
nothing to get excited over. AM/MW/BCB reception
is really good, not a GE Super-tuner, but good enough.
The selctivity on AM/SW is very ho-hum. The WIDE
is very wide and the NARROW is still way to wide.
For a first time listener, at $50 this radio
can be considered OK, but it is nowhere near as
good as a Radio Shack DX-398 for example.
She will be taking it back early next week. I was
able to trade a used DX-398 from a friend for an
unused WinTV card. She compared the S350 to our
DX-398, we both have one, and she really liked the
better selectivity the DX-398 offers.
Perhaps this is just a bad sample, and most other S350s
are decent radios, but, passed on my 1 hour listening
test of this S350 I am going to have to give it a big bad
minus. In many ways is reminds me of a Panasonic RF-2200.
But aside from a good sound, it is lacking in too many
ways to be a radio for a serious user.
The FR-200 is a much bettter radio from a stability and
selectivity viewpoint. It is easier to tune the S350,
but given the speed with which it drifts, the FR-200
is relly easier to use. Harder to find a specific
frequency, but when you find it, it does tend to stay put.
This test was made with a very stable, HP723, regulated
power supply. I suspect it will be much worse on the supplied
wall wart power supply.
Terry