Deborah Kendrick
There are more ways to access your favorite news and entertainment sources today than you can count, but some of us, perhaps especially baby boomers who grew up with Motown and top- 40 broadcasts, still have the deepest affection for good old-fashioned radio. But even radios have gotten more complicated to operate in the 21st century.
Have you been unable to operate a radio made, say, in the last ten years? You want to switch from AM to FM, to find your favorite station on each band, or maybe just to scan for the sake of discovering which stations are near you. Like so many other devices and appliances, modern radios often have flat touchscreens or buttons that detectable only by sight. So when I heard about the Sangean PR-D17 radio, reportedly designed for blind and visually impaired people, I was eager to check it out. Anyone who enjoys radio and requires accessible controls will be pleasantly surprised by this sleek product.
The Sangean Radio
Measuring only five by ten by two inches, the Sangean is a small boom-box style radio with a carry handle on top, tucked up against the extendable antenna, that folds flat when not in use. The radio is black with light orange buttons, each of which are distinctly tactilely identifiable. It has an easy to read display for those who can see it.
On the front are two speakers, left and right, about two inches in diameter, with the visual display between them. Near the bottom of the front are two rows of five button each, with the Power button above them. The top five buttons, each bearing a distinct tactile symbol, are for changing from AM to FM, setting the alarm, checking the time, etc., while the bottom row of five, each embossed with braille numbers 1 through 5, are for setting up to 10 preset stations, five AM and five FM.
On the right side of the radio are two round knobs, one for tuning stations, the other for volume. The tuning knob is particularly unique in that it is used to execute commands as well as to rotate from one station to another. On the left side of the radio is a switch to move from stereo to mono, and jacks for auxiliary connectivity, headphones, and the AC power adapter.
The Sangean can run on AC power or, if you want to take it out by the pool, on six C batteries. Plug it in, press power, and it begins speaking to you.
Set Up
Setting up the Sangean radio is fun and intuitive. All prompts that appear on the display are also spoken in a clear, female voice. It first asks you if you want Spanish or English. Turn the tuning knob for choices and press it to select. As you go along, this will be the method used repeatedly for setting the clock, setting an alarm, choosing the band increments for the AM tuner, and more. Voice prompts are there each step of the way.
Press a button to hear its function announced. The first button on the left end of the top row, for example, says "AM" when pressed, "FM" when pressed again, "Auxiliary" when pressed again, and then back to "AM." When you first power on the radio it will announce which band it is currently set to and the frequency of the station. To set the alarm, you press the button that announces that you are setting the alarm. Then, use the tuning knob to choose an hour, press it in to select. Turn it again to choose the minutes, and press it in to select.
When you press each button in the bottom row of five preset buttons, the voice prompt will tell you the frequency currently held on that preset. To choose a different station, first use the tuner to find your station and then press and hold the preset button until you hear the announcement that the station has been stored.
If you've set an alarm and turned the radio off when it was set to a particular AM or FM station, the alarm will play that station when it goes off. Alternatively, if you have tuned the radio to the auxiliary band and set an alarm, a not entirely unpleasant beeping sound will occur. It ascends in volume and pitch for several steps, and then repeats, until you press the Power or Alarm button to turn it off.
Finding stations is a particular treat, since here, too, there are voice prompts to guide you. If you want, say, 92.5 FM, first press the band button until you hear "FM" announced. Then, begin turning the tuning knob. There is a distinct haptic and audible click for each frequency. As you turn the knob, you will hear, "89.7, 89.8, 89.9..." To cover a lot of ground quickly, you can turn the knob rapidly for several clicks, pausing to hear the frequency periodically.
Performance
No matter how sleek it looks or how clearly it talks, a radio isn’t much use if it doesn’t perform its radio tasks. This one definitely lives up to the task!
To scan for stations, press in the tuning knob and you will hear “seek up.” Wait a few seconds and the Sangean voice will announce the frequency of the station it has located, and then the station begins to play. Seeking stations in this manner, I found 15 loud and clear AM stations, moving from 520 to 1710, and 20 loud and clear FM stations moving from 87.5 to 108.0. On the AM band, many more stations were identified than the 15 I am referencing here, but those additional stations did not play clearly so are not included in my count. It warrants mentioning that I executed this experiment with the radio sitting on a kitchen counter, without benefit of being near a window and without extending the telescoping FM antenna. While the sound wasn’t as clean and robust as, say, my Bose Wave system, it was decidedly clear and pleasant.
Bonus Points
The Sangean radio has a 3.5mm headphone jack for private listening as well as a 3.5 auxiliary jack for playing another device (an iPod or Victor Stream, for instance) through the radio’s speakers. It has a built-in AM antenna and a telescoping FM antenna that folds neatly under the carry handle, which also folds flat against the top edge of the radio. For such a tiny package, the Sangean’s sound quality is quite nice. You probably won’t need a user’s manual, but if you do, it's completely accessible when downloaded from the Sangean site.
Simple Pleasures
If you want a simple way to access your favorite news and entertainment, the Sangean PR-D17 is a radio you can put on your nightstand or take to the beach. It's lightweight, sounds good, and is completely and delightfully accessible to users with visual impairments.
Product Information
Product: The Sangean PR-D17 radio for the blind and visually impaired
Available from: Amazon
Price: $89.
For additional information, visit the Sangean website or call 888-726-4326.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
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