Specifications

70 MONITORING TIMES November 2005
F
IRST LOOK
CONSUMER RADIOS AND ELECTRONICS
T
here is a radio revolution tak-
ing place and the leader of that
revolt is a new entry into the
shortwave portable market, the Eton
E1XM.
The E1XM, part of the new Eton
Elite Series, is the world’s first radio
to combine AM, FM, Shortwave, and
XM Satellite Radio* technology into
one unit. The E1XM offers reception
through a digitally synthesized PLL
tuner with a synchronous detector,
passband tuning, and selectable band-
width filters. Manufactured in India (not
China) it has 1,700 station presets, and
a robust memory scan function.
But more importantly, and what
sets this radio above any other portable
in the marketplace today, is the plethora
of features, level of performance, and
inclusion of the XM satellite reception capabil-
ity, all in one neat and trim package.
❖ Inside the Box
The first thing I noticed when I took the
E1XM out of the box was a sleek, well-built
portable radio. Gone are the huge boom box
and quality control issues of its predecessor,
the Grundig Satellite 800. The case appears to
be made of a type of hard plastic. The ergo-
nomics are good, though some of the buttons
on the front of the radio are a bit on the small
side.
Applying power and tuning around in
the AM/FM bands, I was impressed with the
excellent and clean audio. Tuning through both
broadcast bands, I noted that signal levels were
good (especially in the FM broadcast spec-
trum). The base and treble controls allowed for
a wide range of adjustment to set the audio just
right for the station being received. The use of
selectable filters (2.3, 4.0 and 7.0 kHz) regard-
less of mode is something you don’t normally
see on most portable radios and is a welcome
feature. A DX soft key turns on a preamp to
improve reception on weaker signals.
As I dug deeper into the operation of the
radio, I sensed the feel of a Drake design. A call
to Walter Hess, the technical support manager
at Eton, confirmed that Drake did have a major
hand in the electronics of this unit.
One of my chief complaints with many
shortwave radios is their much-hyped “syn-
chronous detection” feature. The E1XM has a
selectable sync detector that actually works. In
fact, it worked very well indeed. In the shadow
of nearby local stations, AM Sync allowed me
to monitor weaker AM signals as close as 10
kHz away from the local station.
Another nice surprise was the Pass Band
Tuning (PBT) control. This is well implement-
ed, with a numeric indication on the display of
where the control setting is set. It also does its
job very well.
The AGC has a Slow/Fast and Auto mode
which keep the AGC in fast mode while tun-
ing so you don’t miss weak signals. Though
it works well, I would have liked to see an
additional setting of “off.”
Single Sideband (SSB) reception is also
good. And as an extra bonus, there is a feature
in the radio’s menu system that allows you
to enable or disable Enhanced SSB. When
enabled, it adds another 30dB image rejection,
which is a very nice feature.
As I mentioned above, the E1XM has
1,700 memories that can be used to store and
recall commonly monitored frequencies. The
first 500 are called “memory” channels and the
remaining 1,200 are referred to as “Country”
channels. These 500 memory channels can be
scanned using the “seek” function which can
stop on any stored channel with a predeter-
mined squelch level.
The “Country” feature is used to enter
all known signals from countries you listen
to regularly. These country memories can be
scanned using the T.SCAN function to selec-
tively monitor desired “memory” channels.
The following receiver controls and informa-
tion can be stored in each memory channel:
frequency, mode, bandwidth, AGC and PBT
settings, and synchronous detector settings.
❖ Antennas
You can choose from the internal
antenna (whip) to an external antenna,
using one of two slide switches on the
side of the radio. One switch is for FM
and one for HF (LW/MW/SW).
The manual states that a PAL to fe-
male F adapter is included for external
antenna connection. This was not the
case in the initial shipment from Eton.
Mr. Hess says anyone wanting the
adapter can contact Eton and they will
be supplied with one. But if you don’t
want to wait on Eton for the adapter,
you can pick one up from Radio Shack
(#278-265B) or buy a cable from Uni-
versal Radio that has an F to SO-239
connector.
And one final antenna note: this ra-
dio does not have a built-in ferrite loop antenna
for LW/AM broadcast reception. According to
Mr. Hess, the display was generating a lot of
noise and they decided not to incorporate an
internal antenna for those bands. Instead, you
will be using the whip antenna or an external
antenna (not included) if you want improved
reception in those bands.
❖ The Display
Speaking of the display, it is a dot matrix
type (which might explain the noise issue
noted above), and it is nice, big and clear. You
can adjust the brightness and contrast, or turn
it off completely. You can choose between off,
dim, medium or bright, using a multi-purpose
switch on top of the unit. The display defaults
to dim when turned off or you can turn it off
completely when the AC adapter is used. With
batteries, the display will turn itself off to save
energy. And when it is off, it will display either
the local or UTC time (if set).
❖ XM Radio
XM Radio is a subscription service, and
A Radio Revolution – Eton E1XM
By Larry Van Horn, N5FPW
MT Assistant Editor
MT First Look Rating (0-10 scale)
Audio Quality ...................................... 8
Audio Levels ........................................ 8
Back light/Display ............................... 5
Battery Life .......................................... 7
Ease of use ......................................... 7
Feature Set ......................................... 8
Keyboard/Button/Control Layout ......... 7
Overall Construction ........................... 8
Overall Reception ................................ 7
Overall Manual ................................... 6
MT Rating: 3 3/4 Stars