As documented on the E1 Yahoo group, some of the units from Circuit city appear to be pre-recall - there was a fault with some of the early E1s that posed a fire hazard if batteries were left in the radio while AC is applied. Accept only those that have a Drake sticker, which I understand is found near or in the battery compartment. These are ones RL Drake has refurbished, and from all accounts, work even slightly better than the originals. I'm going to see if I can pull the original RDI comments, which has the affected serial numbers and will post in a few minutes.
Proceed with caution.
73s Mike
[Edit] Found it in the E1 Yahoo archives - note that some newer versions also had problems with the displays going blank or getting vertical streaks through it - moral is, save your receipt and box. Here's the exact announcement from Eton -
Eton has issued a recall for the Eton E1XM AM/FM/Shortwave/XM Satellite Radio receiver, for units found in serial range 3,067 - 5,462.
The issue that Eton has discovered is a missing trace on the circuit board. In the event that a customer has the unit plugged into an
electrical outlet, using the AC adapter for power, and has a set of batteries in the unit, it could cause battery heat-up, leakage and
possibly rupture. This may cause fire and/or personal injury.
Since the reports of display failure seem to be going down, I would assume some changes have occurred in later production units. Remember, Drake is the service center for this radio. Be certain to save your receipt and box.
By the way, the E1 uses a rather odd F connector for the external antenna jack. The E1 group has diagrams of how some folks solved this rather odd dilemma. And this is a portatop - something of a cross between a portable and a true tabletop - that handles a decent antenna well, from all reports so far. Radio Database Int'l sells a White Paper on this radio - it's a very in depth analysis, very technical in nature. If you're interested, it's worth having. It doesn't have all the little tricks that folks have found on the Yahoo group, however....
