Kaito Voyager KA500

[SgtRock04]

Hello HFU, i'm a newbie to this Industry(?) & just purchased a Kaito Voyager KA500.It has many bands & power options to this radio,however, my Realistic $10.00, 15yr old hand held transistor radio has twice the reception than this $55.00 survivalist radio has?? I'm realizing that I waisted my $$ & will not be able to check out SW 1 & 2 channel,weather,NOAA. Very disappointed & even hooked up 10ft of bare #12 CU wire, still no reception in my basement of house?   SgtRock04

[Beerus Maximus]

What are you primarily interested in listening to? AM (mediumwave) or shortwave?

I'm not surprised the Kaito isn't a stellar performer, as most "emergency" radios are a compromise that try to stuff as many doo-dads into the box as possible. But listening in your basement doesn't help much either.

You might want to research a radio that is a step up in performance. There are some recent suggestions in this thread:

http://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,14339.0.html

An outdoor antenna would help a lot too, for both mediumwave and shortwave.

[BoomboxDX]

Try adding another ten feet to the wire, and get the radio out of the basement.

Basements aren't the best place for SW reception, unless you have a lead going from your basement to an outdoor antenna..

Same thing with the weather channels. The weather band is VHF, which means the higher the radio is, the better the reception will be. Once again, a basement would not be the best place to try to pull in a weather broadcast.