President Walker 3 FCC – New AM/FM Radio

Now that the FCC in the USA have legalised FM the new radios just keep on coming. President Electronics have released a new version of the Walker, and this is the third generation for the US market. President radios that carry the FCC designation are designed for use in the Americas and have been approved by the FCC. They are different to the European versions and the Walker 3 is based on the European Walker 2 radio. This is good news as the Walker 2 is a darn fine radio. The European variants can normally be expanded into an export mode which opens up the radio to cover more frequencies and increases power output, but the FCC versions generally have this functionality removed. Just to complicate matters, the European Walker 2 also shares the same PCB as the President Richard so are fundamentally the same. The list of differences between an expanded Walker 2 and an expanded Richard is very small. Anyway, back to the Walker 3 FCC…

There is no Single Side Band (SSB) functionality in this radio but everything else is present. It’s great to see RF Power, RF Gain and Mic Gain controls directly accessible and the classic old school bar graph accompanied by a modern digital display.

The headline features of this radio are:

• 40 channels AM/FM
• Channel rotary switch
• Volume adjustment and ON/OFF
• Manual squelch and ASC
• Multi-functions LCD display
• Frequencies display
• S/RF vu-meter
• Public Address
• Scan + Scan Skip
• Talkback
• Beep Function
• Roger Beep
• Tone
• ANL filter, NB, HI-CUT
• RF Gain / Mike gain
• RF Power
• Mic type electret / dynamic
• F function key
• VOX
• Mode switch AM / WX
• Preset emergency (EMG 1/2)
• SWR (Power Reading /SWR)
• Weather channel with Alert
• Front microphone plug
• External loudspeaker jack
• USB 5V 2.1A

Comparing the two radios, the European Walker 2 and US Walker 3 FCC you can see the similarities between them but some key differences.

The Walker 3 FCC has Weather Alerts and a dedicated AM/FM button (Mode is pressed to cycle AM/FM and FM UK on the Walker 2) along with a quick access button to the Scan mode. The Walker 2 allows you to change the radio into different frequency ranges dependent on the country you set it for, which is why the EU letters are displayed. Available options are EU, PL, d, EC, U or IN. This has been removed from the Walker 3 FCC and it’s fixed to the US 40 which is from 26.965MHz to 27.405MHz.

The Weather Alert feature is something the European Walker 2 does not have and European radios in general do not have. The Walker 3 FCC supports 7 weather channels as follows:

The white face plate looks great on the Walker 3 FCC and makes it really stand out from the crowd. It would have been nice to have had this option on the Walker 2 so I could quickly distinguish between my two President Richards and my Walker 2. Just so you can see what I mean this is the President Richard:

In summary, the President Walker 3 FCC is a fantastic radio and shares most of the great features of its cousins. It must be an exciting time in the USA with all the new radios being released and you won’t be disappointed with this one.

You can download the user manual from here President Walker 3 User Manual