Hi all - my name is Mark and I'm a new member here in the group, this is my first post. 

I noticed that there's a thread focusing on the Retekess V115, but not much mention of 'the other brother' - the AA powered analogue V117, from the same brand. 
I own both of these units and I must say that despite the online reviews claiming that the 115 is one of the best radios on a budget, without doubt I do get a lot more enjoyment from the superior build quality and user friendliness of the V117.
The smooth analogue tuning knob is a hugely better than the loud clicky hard plastic buttons on the 115 and, because of this you therefore don't have to go through the tuning 'fiasco' that's mentioned on the original post. Of course being analogue you don't have the precision of inputting directly, however this process on the V115 can sometimes prove to be a bit problematic anyway. The V117 unit as a whole has IMHO a far nicer feel to it and is both easy and enjoyable to scan the bands, old school! 
I've not had much use of the radio in AM or FM, however the performance in the SW band is admirable, for such a cheap unit (I paid £16 UK).
From a recent trip to central France, I had no problems locking onto UVB-76 on 4625khz, the Russian Air Horn on 3510 kHz, Brother Stair coming out of North America on 6070kHz and China Radio International on 7415 kHz, but to name a few. Signals were good, interference mild and there was little in the way of bleed over from nearby frequencies. This was all using nothing but the unit's built in 48cm antenna and listening through the small (fairly good quality) speaker, without earphones. 
All in all I'd say that this portable definitely fits the bill of an 'ultralight dx' radio, being about as basic as you can be. However there's something very nice about that and it works as it should do with no fuss or niggles. 
I'll look forward to having a bit more time with it in the future exploring the AM and FM bands. 

Hi all - my name is Mark and I'm a new member here in the group, this is my first post. 

I noticed that there's a thread focusing on the Retekess V115, but not much mention of 'the other brother' - the AA powered analogue V117, from the same brand. 
I own both of these units and I must say that despite the online reviews claiming that the 115 is one of the best radios on a budget, without doubt I do get a lot more enjoyment from the superior build quality and user friendliness of the V117.
The smooth analogue tuning knob is a hugely better than the loud clicky hard plastic buttons on the 115 and, because of this you therefore don't have to go through the tuning 'fiasco' that's mentioned on the original post. Of course being analogue you don't have the precision of inputting directly, however this process on the V115 can sometimes prove to be a bit problematic anyway. The V117 unit as a whole has IMHO a far nicer feel to it and is both easy and enjoyable to scan the bands, old school! 
I've not had much use of the radio in AM or FM, however the performance in the SW band is admirable, for such a cheap unit (I paid £16 UK).
From a recent trip to central France, I had no problems locking onto UVB-76 on 4625khz, the Russian Air Horn on 3510 kHz, Brother Stair coming out of North America on 6070kHz and China Radio International on 7415 kHz, but to name a few. Signals were good, interference mild and there was little in the way of bleed over from nearby frequencies. This was all using nothing but the unit's built in 48cm antenna and listening through the small (fairly good quality) speaker, without earphones. 
All in all I'd say that this portable definitely fits the bill of an 'ultralight dx' radio, being about as basic as you can be. However there's something very nice about that and it works as it should do with no fuss or niggles. 
I'll look forward to having a bit more time with it in the future exploring the AM and FM bands. 

I read your thoughts Paul and it seems we are of pretty much the same opinion, regarding the v115. The v117 is the only analogue radio I currently own, so I might put it to the test against something else in the not so distant future. 

Cheers, 
Mark 

Mark,

Great post & pictures on the Retekess V 117...nice report. I agree with your comments but one thing surprised me - that you were able to tune to 3510, 4625 and 6070 MHz on SW as it is spec'd down to only 8 MHz and mine bottomed out just a little below that. If yours were just a small amount lower in frequency I would suspect unit to unit differences but to reach into the 3 Meg range makes me wonder if there has been a change, although I note in your pictures the back of the radio still shows98 MHz on SW. I guess you're lucky!

I wrote a review of this radio early this year:

https://wp.me/P1wpLu-1jk

Jay