cobalt pet shortwave / mediumwave weblog

01 December 2005

waiting for porsche design

When I first visited the Eton website around July 2005, they were advertising two Porsche-designed shortwave radios: the P'7131 and P'7132. The P'7132 is still nowhere to be found, and when I emailed Eton about it a couple weeks ago, their response was "it will be at least six months before we have anything specific on this model." Following the P'7132 "product specification" link on the Eton website results in a "details coming soon" page.

I don't understand why they leave this pre-announced product on their website. A few weeks back, RadioIntel published news about the Degen DE1106's rebranding as the upcoming Eton E5. The E5 briefly appeared on the European Eton website. Supposedly it is also appearing in print advertisements with a list price of US$150. It will be interesting to see when that product reappears on the website and when it is released.

The XM-capable P'7131 has turned up in a couple places. Unfortunately, Eton's specifications for this product are not detailed enough for anyone who's serious about shortwave radio. With a Froogle search, I found a vendor called Surray Luggage that carries the P'7131, and they told me it is in stock. There was also a recent eBay auction with someone selling a P'7131 demo unit for $299.

(04 Dec) Update: The p7132 just appeared on the Universal Radio catalog pages as a future product.

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