For years, I've used my Radio Shack DX-360 and my Sangean ATS606A for
SWLing but this changed for the most part after the 2004 hurricane
season. Because I was so annoyed at not having any news sources during
the often 24 plus hours without power here in Florida, after Hurricane
Charley I bought a sand-colored Grundig FR-200 at Radio Shack for $40.
This radio proved to be much more useful than any AC or battery powered
radio that I've ever used. The construction is solid, the sound quality
is excellent and the built-in LED flashlight and hand-crank made the
power outages a little more bearable. Cranking the generator for a
minute provided nearly an hour of good sound and the flashlight came in
handy if the power ever went out at night and I didn't have immediate
access to my regular flashlight or candles. Now after almost two years,
this radio still works perfectly and the hand-crank still powers the
same rechargeable battery pack as well as it did back then. I've
cranked it for a minute almost daily since the summer of 2004 (its
being semi-waterproof makes for a great bathroom radio) and it has yet
to fail or fall apart, while the rechargeable battery pack still holds
a good charge after all this time. More recently, I've started to use
it for SWLing and found that barring the usual disadvantage of an
analog display (not knowing the exact frequency I'm on is strangely
thrilling at times), its quality easily rivals that of my more
expensive Radio Shack DX-360 and my Sangean ATS606A. I highly recommend
this fine little radio because it helped me through those dark days and
nights in the summer of 2004 and has been a pleasure to use for DXing
today.