[Findm-Keepm]

The Chinese must produce hundreds of them hourly - I see cheapo giveaway radios all the time. Mostly with big insurance company logos....

On a port visit to the UAE, we visited Dubai, and on an excursion away from the gold souk, some friends and I visited one of their versions of a 5 and dime store. Everything in the place was less than 15 Dirhams (~ $4.50). Among the dozens of radios they had for sale were multiband "Sonny" and "Grundid" radios for 6, 8 and 10 dirhams, and these little clip-on FM radios with autoscan and earphones for 5 dirhams. No volume control, no on-off switch, just a scan switch that moves you up the FM band (not marked, but scans locally just fine). You plug in the earphones and it comes on. I bought three to play with - the scan up the FM band was quick and the reception was remarkably good, but mono. I tore one open to see the chipset, thinking it might be a TDA7000 knockoff, but no markings on the chip at all, nor any of the two or three surface mount transistors. I still have one of them - the battery is dead, but it probably still works. Really thin plastic case - fragile as can be.

I left the place after spending about 11 dollars (42 Dirhams) and got 6 multimeters (like those that Harbor freight gives away, with batteries and nice leads!), three radios, a half dozen white LED-based tap-lights, and a multipack of some really nice mint gum.

A buddy bought one of the little multiband radios for 8 Dirhams, and picked up just one station - on about 3 or 4 points on the dial. One IF can , one chip, and two diodes in the whole radio - for 6 bands? Pure crap.

The one Radio Shack I found in the mall there had a whole wall of power transformers - and they were ALL 120V primary! This in a part of the world where 220/240 is the line voltage. I thought that to be quite odd, if not stupid.