A tale of 3 Naxa radios

This is confusing. I bought what was described as a Naxa NX-716 radio on eBay. I paid $9.98 for it, including shipping. I bought this “cheap” radio because it looked cool. Here’s the picture from the auction:

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I didn’t pay much attention to the radio when it arrived, except to note that it worked. However, when I tried it on the AM band, there was a problem because the step was 9 KHz rather than 10 KHz, the USA standard. To see if there was a way to change the step, I checked on the Internet. However, when I searched, I used the model number on the radio itself, which is NR-716 (rather than NX). That led me to the radio for sale at Amazon.com, with this picture:

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Now you can see right off that the two radios are different. So at first one might think the eBay seller just sent me the wrong radio. But the problem with that is that my radio doesn’t look like either of these two! Mine looks like this:

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Notice that mine has 4 buttons on the right side rather than two knobs (the color is off in my photo due to lighting).

So I went to the Naxa web site and got the product manual for the NR-716 and it was for the for second model pictured above, not mine. I have my own product manual that came with the radio that says NR-716 and matches my unit. Naxa doesn’t list a NX-716 at all.

So I have a Naxa radio that says it is a NR-716, manufactured in June 2011. It’s different from the radio pictured at Amazon.com that’s called a NR-716. Ebay sellers list two differently pictured NX-716 units (top two photos above). I have yet to find one that looks like mine and I still don’t know how to set the step.

What’s cool is that I got a digitally-tuned radio for under $10.

About Kevin

Just an old guy with opinions that I like to bounce off other people.
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3 Responses to A tale of 3 Naxa radios

  1. Kevin says:

    The 9/10 kHz issue has come up on several of the radios I’ve directly bought from China. The good sellers on eBay will be up-front with you about the limitation. I found through experimentation that some of them can be set even though the documentation says no. The Naxa, however, resisted all my efforts. I haven’t tried opening it up and cutting wires yet. 👿

  2. H.E.Lively says:

    Hi Kevin;…..I have the same radio (the third picture shown) and based on what you are saying….it looks like naxa is dumping junk on the American market , knowing that the American am frequencies are 10kc spacing rather the 9kc spacing that is in Asia….that is confirmed by the e-mail that you received from customer service,stating the spacing differences………..it looks like the have found a sucker market to peddle Asian junk, and knowingly getting away with it. Thanks in part to the thinking of the Current Government…..but I am not concerned anymore…….I ball penned my model and deposited it in the proper receptacle, boycotting any and ALL of their fine products

  3. Kevin says:

    I emailed Naxa customer service and received a prompt and courteous reply that the AM tuning step cannot be changed on this radio.

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