Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought the KA500 to use for emergencies and camping. I have 3 other Kaito radios: the KA007 crank radio, the KA-1103 multiband, and the KA2100. The 1103 and 2100 are really fine radios with truly impressive reception, especially the 1103. On the other hand, I was very disappointed in the KA007, as the radio reception on all its bands is barely acceptable, with terrible selectivity resulting in stations bleeding through all over the dial. The weather reception on the 007 was awful, as was the VHF and the FM. I hoped this would be a better performing version of the 007, and it is -but barely. The weather reception is improved over the 007, but not as good as a dedicated weather radio. The SW seems more sensitive now, and seems to have slightly better selectivity. However, the FM is still pretty bad. Here in the Boston area, there are two public radio stations that are fairly strong, and come in on pretty much any radio - yet I could not get either one on the KA500, let alone the weaker local stations. Same for AM - could not pick out almost any stations, even being less than 10 miles from downtown Boston. In short, this is barely usable for emergencies. You could probably pull *something* in, but not much. There is no question that this radio has about every feature you could ask for in an emergency radio (except maybe a siren of some kind). It's very well thought out, and the ability to power it in so many ways, as well as charge other things from it is great. However, given that Kaito's higher end radios have really impressive sensitivity and selectivity, it's a shame they still haven't created an emergency/crank radio that uses any of their higher end technology. After all, wouldn't you want the best possible receiver in an emergency? Kaito's digital world band radios start around $55, and their analog high sensitivity models can be had for $35. I'd have happily paid another $15-20 for a much better receiver. Currently, none of the crank and solar panel radios are much better - they all seem to sacrifice receiver quality, which makes no sense to me. I hope in the future Kaito will offer a model with the features of the KA500 but a receiver at least as good as the KA1101.