If you're prepping on a budget and want to get into shortwave but don't have $500 to drop on a fancier unit, you may have ended up with a Retekess V115 in your preps. I learned about these from a friend a while back and picked one up not long afterwards.

For $25, they're hard to beat. You can easily throw one in each of your vehicles, toss one in a bug-out bag, and keep one in your desk drawer at work. They don't take up much space at all, are lightweight, and can easily fit into a pocket.

They're not the strongest shortwave radios out there, but, again, they're $25. Like the Baofeng UV-5R, this is an inexpensive tool, but it still can be a very valuable tool. We've briefly mentioned this a bit in the past here at The Organic Prepper, but I've found that radio tends to be intimidating for a lot of people.

To make the process for you as simple as possible, I've written a real simple how-to guide for you with what you actually need to know about the Retekess V115 – just the essentials. No fluff.

How to listen to shortwave on your V115

The first thing I'm going to show you is how to switch modes from AM, FM, and shortwave (SW). You can listen to all three of those parts of the radio spectrum with the V115, and each of them has its benefits and uses. Seeing this is a shortwave receiver, though, that's probably what you're predominantly going to be interested in, however.