Eton Adventure Series: Quest- All-Band Emergency Radio with Bluetooth, Ambient Light, and RDS

The Quest is the latest (and most expensive) emergency radio yet from Eton. It has AM, FM with DAB+ (supposedly), Shortwave, and Weather band with alerts. The weather radio works great. I pick up our local station perfectly clear, and most of my other weather radios (an old one from RadioShack and several from Midlands) are hit and miss. It has alert functionality, but not S.A.M.E., so the alarm will go off for EVERY alert in the broadcast area, not just your county. FM has excellent reception as well. The radio claims to have DAB+ capability, but that is worthless in the US, since we use HD Radio instead of DAB, which is used primarily in Europe. It also claims to have RDS capability, but I went through the entire FM band and never found a station that displayed any data. The FM radio has the ability to scan and automatically set up to 20 presets, but you cannot set your own presets manually or delete ones you don't want. AM reception is pretty terrible. I'm not sure if there's some kind of interference nearby, but nothing was what I would call listenable. I could only pick up a few stations, and all had interference. The AM antenna is an internal ferrite bar, so you have to rotate the radio to pick up the strongest signal. Shortwave was even worse. The tuning knob only moves 5 kHz at a time, and it has a range from 3.2 to 22 MHz, so it's going to take a LOOOOONG time to get anywhere. I tried tuning in WWV, which broadcasts on 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz and I was just barely able to pick up a signal on 5 MHz. It was so garbled as to be nearly useless. I'm about 500 miles away from the transmitter in Ft. Collins. It was still daytime, so it presumably will work better at night, but I should be able to get something during the day. There is no provision for an external SW antenna. The radio also has Bluetooth and Aux input capability. Setting up Bluetooth was a piece of cake and it probably took me longer to type this sentence than it took to pair my phone. The Play/Pause button works as you'd expect, and the tuner knob works as a forwards/backwards control. Pressing the light button cycles through the side flash light, which is pretty bright, the rear ambient light, which isn't quite as bright, and a red ambient light. There's also a dedicated "SOS ON/OFF" button, which flashes the red ambient light and sets off a rather loud siren. You're probably going to hit this button by accident at some point, since it's pretty close to the power button. They should have made it so you have to long-press it to turn it on. The instructions in the manual for setting the clock are incorrect. In standby mode, long-press the Menu button, select 12/24 hr time using the tuning knob (not the buttons), then press Play (the manual says to press Menu, this is wrong). Use the tuning knob to adjust the hours, then press Play. Then use the tuning knob to adjust the minutes, then press Play. The instructions for setting the alarm are similarly wrong. The input charge port is USB-C, but the output charge port is USB-A. The radio comes with a (short) USB-A to USB-C charge cord. It does not appear to support any sort of fast charging in either direction. This model has a 5,200 mAh lithium battery, which appears to be the biggest one Eton has used yet and double the capacity of the Sidekick. The lithium battery is user replaceable, and it appears to be a pair of standard 18650 cells, but they are soldered together into a battery pack; in the future you're either going to have to buy a replacement pack from Eton, or break out the soldering iron. It can also use 3 AAA batteries, and like all Eton emergency radios, has a solar panel and hand crank. The battery door does not require a screwdriver, and appears to be better designed than previous models. Switching off the unit using the main power switch under the protective cover kills power to the internal clock, but does not appear to erase the FM presets or the Bluetooth pairing. It does not appear to be able to charge the battery when the main power switch is off. All the buttons are on the front of the device (except the light, which is on top of the handle), they're not hiding under the handle like the Sidekick or FRX3+, so it's a lot easier to see what you're doing. Overall it appears to be the best, most capable radio Eton has made yet. The only things that appear to be lacking are S.A.M.E. support on the weather band, a faster way to move through the shortwave band, a provision for an external SW antenna, and for the love of God, make it so you can't turn on the blasted siren by accident!

Nice emergency/weather radio. Living along the coast where tropical storms/hurricanes and sometimes just bad weather can be an issue, one of these type of radios is must during power outages. This is a nice radio, seems well built, a little larger than some but still very easily carried to the pool, beach, camping, etc. It has AM/FM/Shortwave/NOAA weather channels plus Bluetooth capable. I have another smaller compact radio that's another brand. The plus on this radio is has a little larger speaker so better sound. The minus, and why I docked one star, the reception of this radio is noticeably not as good as my other one. Living in a more remote with a small city about 40 miles away, it does not pick up AM/FM stations very well. It does pick up the NOAA channel adequately. I did just recently buy this one to carry to the beach, pier, etc so it should better reception in open areas. I read a similar review on the Midland brand emergency radio and why I did not buy it. Overall I am pleased with the purchase.

I was so disappointed I could not keep, cause this thing is high quality, but it turned out to be more than I needed and some of the steps to get it to work were either wonky or I just didn't get it – probably me. But, If you are good with these things, get it.

Awesome & quick delivery! Jesus loves you 💜

This radio is a big improvement over prior models. For example, inclusion of USB-C charging input is very convenient. The solar panel charger actually seems to work on this model two where it previous models receive limited charge. The one downside of this model is that the control buttons are not backside illuminated, so in the dark, you won’t be able to read what the buttons do.