This sale is for an Eton EXM1 radio that has had the sticky finish removed.  Eton manufactured the E1XM with a rubber coating that would turn fly paper sticky after a few years when exposed to humidity.  Thus, it is imperative to remove this outer finish and the process to do this is tedious and is both tricky and time consuming.  You have to use isopropyl alcohol and leave it on for a short spell and then wipe the goo carefully away.  If you leave the alcohol on too little, too long, or wipe too hard, the underlying cabinet coating can be noticeably cosmetically damaged.  

A personal friend cleaned this cabinet for us and he did an amazing job, and while the cabinet is in above average condition, you will see a couple of minor imperfections as to be expected.  The display is sharp and clear, but the plastic sheet overlay tends to distort this on the display.  There are two small chips to the corners of the radio cabinet that we show in a close-up and it is common to see such small items on these radios.  This is not a perfectly pristine radio and we ask that you please view our HD pictures for cosmetics.  

The E1/E1XM radio was manufactured in rather limited quantities.  Eton manufactured about 9600 units of the E1XM and then a final production of another 400-500 units of the E1 version.  The serial number on this E1XM unit is 06272 making it a mid production unit.

There were some quality control issues during manufacture that resulted in failure of some of these radios most notable with the display developing lines or totally going blank.  If the radio didn't suffer from such a quality control issue (AKA being a lemon), it likely will go the distance.  We have our personal original E1XM purchased about 2005 that still works nicely other than developing the yucky sticky finish.  Others of these E1 and E1XM radios have been lost over the years to fire, water, or other environmental damage.  Finally, many of these radios were discarded when they developed the sticky finish if the owner didn't want to take the time (or was unfamiliar) with the process of cleaning off the sticky finish.  Thus, we estimate that less than half (or about 5,000) of these radios survive today and likely the number of survivors may be as low as a third of the original production. 

Operationally, the radio has been fully tested and we did not detect any issues or shortcomings.  As is common for the E1XM radio, the sensitivity was excellent.

In purchasing this E1XM radio, the buyer will also receive the following items which include many free copies of reviews and other documents not likely found elsewhere:

Those of you who follow our Ebay listings know that we have offered a wide variety of vintage tube and contemporary semi-conductor receivers for sale here on Ebay.  We sell beginner's receivers, advanced receivers, and collector's receivers.  Our hands have been blessed with the chance to handle a couple of hundred different receivers in the past few years.  Of all the portable radios that we have sold, none of them endears themselves to us like the E1XM radio.  We are aware that there are many people who would argue about what is the best portable radio and much of hobby listening is admittedly subjective relying on the application of the radio, what each person values, and the cost/benefit of options and features.  For your reference, we are very familiar with this radio as we have sold probably 300 of them on Ebay (new and used) and have personally owned and operated one of these E1XM's for about 19 years.  We currently have one located in our shop and another at our bedside.

Therefore, we hope you allow us to offer a survey of the E1XM to help you become familiar with its features. 

In a capsule, the E1XM is a desktop communications receiver in a larger size portable package.  Its wealth of operational features, that at the time of manufacture, have never been offered on any other portable at a similar price point.  The E1XM was discontinued in 2007 and the next model, the Satel*lit 750, while a very nice radio, is not the caliber of the Eton E1XM.  We now want to take the time and list the features found on this radio all of which contribute to its value:

           1.  Variable rate tuning knob

           2.  Direct keypad entry

           3.  Up/down slew tuning

           4.  Scan tuning

Now let us elaborate on some of the features listed above.  First of all, the frequency range and reception modes of this radio means that you will always have something to listen to.  Listen to AM radio...if not, then listen to shortwave....if not, then listen to FM....if not, then listen to satellite (with subscription & proper antenna).  Many radios may have AM/FM and not shortwave.  Shortwave radios often offer AM broadcast, but not always FM. 

We want to point out the difference with the sync detector on this radio.  Many newer portable radios now offer a sync detector, but the performance is sub-par.  In utilizing the sync, the audio is muffled or distorted.  In addition, when you do find it on a radio, it is not always sideband selectable and we uncommonly find a double sideband sync on most portables.  The sync detector will allow for wonderful listening on shortwave as it gives the user the ability to minimize distortion from fading and allows side channel interference to be minimized by utilization of the sideband sync.

However, despite having a good sync detector, our experience has been that the radio is so stable that you can actually tune using ECSS (exalted carrier selectable sideband) with similar results.  Many DXer's prefer to tune AM signals in SSB and then carefully tune to clarify the signal and eliminate the growls or distortion.  It is unusual to have this stability on a portable radio and some advanced hobbyists claim that ECSS tuning offers advantages over using the sync detector.

Then there's the pre-amp.  Most radios do not have a pre-amp.  If they do, the pre-amp is disabled on the AM broadcast band and not available at all on FM.  With the E1XM, the pre-amp is universal.  Its advantages on the AM broadcast band and shortwave are self-evident.  However, the sensitivity it offers on FM is also outstanding.  FM stations broadcast their programming in stereo and if you are on the fringe of reception, the stereo will cut in and out making for tiring listening.  Now with the pre-amp (labeled DX), you depress the button and those fringe stations come in clearly and other stations that could not be heard suddenly appear on the dial.  Yes, it is that effective.

When listening on shortwave, it is important to tune in to the station when the station signs on to acquire the station ID.  With a broadcast in progress, it is important to get the station ID on the half hour or hour time marks.  To be able to do this, it is important to know the exact time.  Knowing precise time is also helpful when applying to a station for a QSL card as you inform the station of broadcast specifics and the time heard.  If your clock is off a couple of minutes, it can affect the reliability of your reporting.  With the E1XM, if you live within broadcast range and have your radio powered using the power AC adapter, the radio can be set to synchronize automatically with the WWV time standard in Fort Collins, CO so that your radio will always display accurate local and GMT time.

With the E1XM, you have 3 IF bandwidth filter choices....7 KHz, 4 KHz, and 2.5 KHz.  Interestingly, you can even hear and understand the shortwave broadcasts using the narrowest 2.5 filter and if the frequency is slightly off-tuned, this can clarify the sound even further.  We contend that the filter bandwidths are well chosen.  Additionally, the filters are not mode dependent so you may use them in AM or in sideband giving you additional flexibility. 

Some of the controls are obvious...bass/treble, headphone, and volume.  However other features are less obvious but hold great advantages.  For instance, the stereo output jack allows you to connect the E1XM radio to a home stereo system to fill the room with high quality sound.  Conversely, the stereo input jack allows you to connect an MP3 player, CD player, tape recorder or other audio device to the E1XM and use the radio's speaker and tone controls to play your personal music.  If you use your imagination, you can expand into other capabilities.  To give you an example, we have taken our personal E1 radio with us whenever we travel.  We can directly connect the E1XM's stereo output to our automobile sound system input and get great sound when driving down the highway while listening to shortwave ( we use an external roof antenna).  The large display and wealth of memories means that we know where we are at in the bands at quick glance.

We find that our E1XM is a great bedside radio.  It has a large display and the backlight can be dimmed to 3 different levels or completely turned off.  In addition, it has a variable sleep timer.  If you push the sleep button on top, you then can turn the main tuning dial to select the amount of time you want the radio to play before shutting off for the night.

Other nice features of this radio are fast / slow AGC settings, passband tuning, and the ability to scan.  How often do you hear of a portable radio giving you an AGC option or passband tuning?   With the scan feature, this is a scan that actually works.  In fact, it is the only radio that we have every enjoyed using scan.  We place our favorite stations in the memory and then scan the memory for active broadcasts.  This is not the same as band scanning, but there are many occasions when we do not have that time and do not have a transmission broadcast schedule available for reference.  By scanning, we can get our favorite shortwave broadcasts during the time we have set aside to listen.  Most scanning shortwave radios do not work properly as they want to stop on a dead frequency.  With the E1XM, you can adjust the squelch to eliminate such from happening. 

In addition, Eton has set up 1200 of the memory locations found under various country headings.  This means that you can not only save your favorite stations, but do so in an orderly fashion for easy location at a later time.  If you want to listen to Romania, for instance, you can locate the country and select any of the frequencies on that page. 

The balance of the 500 memories allow you to designate alpha characters with the frequency so that you can save favorite AM or FM stations and label them as well.  Finally, when you save a frequency to memory, you can also save such things as sync detector position and bandwidth and this eliminates the necessity to reset these other functions each time.  We have found that reception is pretty consistent.  If there is interference on a side channel on Monday, it is likely to be there on most of the other days of reception as well so setting these secondary functions in memory in retaining these specific signal settings is most helpful.

Finally, we want to mention as a summary what we find to be exceptional about the E1XM radio....its combination of features.  You may not need 3 bandwidths, or passband tuning, or the pre-amp, or sideband selectable sync detector.  But if you do any real DXing, you will use all of these features regularly and the nice thing is that you may be required to use a combination of them to enable you to hear a transmission that would be deaf or unintelligible on another radio.  That is the attractiveness of the E1XM radio for listening and DXing hobbyists!

Please note that the use of a telescopic antenna by the E1XM for all the listening bands has been criticized.  Most of the concern is for those AM broadcast enthusiasts that cannot direct the radio to improve reception as they could by rotating a radio with a ferrite bar antenna installed.  We guess that this could be a fair criticism, but we listen to a lot of remote AM stations using just the telescopic antenna and typically do not find the absence of a ferrite bar to be a major problem.  Reception is good with this antenna.  However you do lose the ability to null out an interfering station by turning the radio from side to side as can be done with a radio using a ferrite.  It is our understanding that Eton used a telescopic antenna to avoid an internal ferrite antenna from picking up RF noise created by the large LCD display.  If you want to connect an external shortwave or broadcast antenna, we sell the unusual antenna connector offered for sale separately in our Ebay store.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/183744148659  (for PL-259) (copy and paste links into your internet browser)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/182638891204  (for BNC)

While this is a "portable" radio, it is better described as a portatop.  You cannot slip it in your pocket and it is void of a carry handle.  When we tote our unit around, we grab the radio by the scruff at the top.  But the size of the radio with the fact it does not have a carry handle is disappointing and a manufacturing oversight.  Some experimenters have added a handle and a couple of the home-brew handles are quite clever.  Others have purchased a travel case similar to one used for a smaller laptop computer.  

Okay, that's about all we have to offer for evaluation.  While there is no perfect radio, the Eton E1XM fills our wish list of most desirable features and we live with a couple of the undesirable ones.  You can decide on your own.  But for a portatop radio, you will be hard pressed to find a better performing radio with all the mentioned features AND can be operated remotely off of 4 D cell batteries.  For DXers, this is a dream.  If you really want performance, the E1XM allows for the attachment of an external antenna and the E1XM then operates similarly to many highly regarded desktop receivers.  Many people who visit our items for sale on Ebay ask about a good shortwave receiver.  Some want a portable while others prefer a desktop unit.  The E1XM can work into both niches and give you maximum versatility in one package with one invested price.

Please use the Ebay shipping calculator to determine your shipping cost.  This cost includes proper packing materials for safe delivery and insurance cost against damage or loss.

Those buyers living outside the USA are also welcome to purchase from us.  We have shipped to 112 countries during the past 26 years on Ebay and we are happy to ship virtually anywhere in the world as served by Ebay's Global Shipping Program (which unfortunately excludes many countries in Europe).  You may use the shipping calculator to determine your shipping cost.

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to look at our Ebay items!