The Emerson PSW-4010 came to my collection in 1988 through the late, lamented DAK catalog. It revitalized my interest in shortwave listening, so it holds a special place. It was also my traveling companion for many years, riding in my suitcase around the US and to Europe. Now it's the radio I listen to every morning as I am getting ready for the day.

The PSW-4010 was manufactured by Sangean and was also marketed as their model SG-789. It's also been sold under the Siemens name (among others) throughout the world. A nearly-identical version of this unit, the Sangean SG-789L, had longwave.

Coverage is as follows: 530-1600 kHz (MW); 88-108 MHz (FM); 2.3-5.0 MHz (SW1); 5.8-6.2 MHz (SW2); 7.05-7.5 MHz (SW3); 9.45-9.9 MHz (SW4); 11.55-12.05 MHz (SW5); 15.05-15.5 MHz (SW6); 17.45-18 MHz (SW7); 21.45-21.95 MHz (SW8).

The unit is sensitive for its size and is a nice "station finder" since it's a quiet analog set. In the early 1990s, I knew a guy who had one of these radios at his desk inside an iron-skeleton building in downtown Chicago, and one afternoon he amazed me by holding the set next to the window and the BBC came in, loud and clear!

My guess is that DAK sold this radio as a closeout for the usual reasons (overstock at manufacturer, etc.), but one glaring problem is that the GMT conversion map on the back of the radio is completely wrong. They have the GMT zone marked over Japan, which puts Greenwich, England, in the GMT -11 time zone! It doesn't affect performance, of course...

The sound is typical of a shirt-pocket radio, but connect a pair of headphones and you've got stereo on FM.

In all, it's a very nice "yeoman" of a portable multiband radio.

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