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> Grundig satellit 500 shortwave radio *collector's alert
Grundig satellit 500 shortwave radio *collector's alert
Over the years, the Grundig Company has made a name for itself among radio enthusiasts for it's quality of products. It's world band receivers are considered some of the best products made and Grundig has quite a corporate heritage in making receivers that are sensitive, dependable, and nice to look at and listen to. This Satellit 500 was manufactured in Portugal from 1989 through 1992 using Grundig engineering facilities and upholds the strong traditions of the Grundig line of products. The Satellit 500 has become a collector's receiver and good radios like this still trade for nearly new value among enthusiasts.
This Satellit 500 is in fantastic original condition rating a 9+ and showing only minimal signs of use. It comes with a scarce smoke colored plexiglass cover that was sold as an aftermarker accessory, the brief operating manual, the full multi-language manual, and a couple of Grundig shortwave guidebooks. In addition, I am including a CD that contains the user manual. Finally, the radio comes with a class two adaptor that is not a Grundig adaptor, but works beautifully with this radio.
Everything about the Satellit 500 seems to have been well thought out. First of all, the radio picks up virtually all of the usual broadcast frequencies. Users in Europe and other areas will enjoy reception on the longwave band, even though this band is not a commercial broadcast band here in North America. Then just above the LW band, listeners will be able to pick up the full range of AM frequencies. If you like to listen to local or regional broadcasts, news, sports, weather or talk shows, then this radio will allow you to get good reception on this band of frequencies.
Just above the tropical band is the heart of world band radio broadcasts. It is here that the listener will enjoy transmissions literally from all over the world. The Satellit 500 really shines in this area as it will allow the user to pick up broadcasts with ease from both the high power and low power stations from dozens of countries. What is important for Americans is that these broadcasters often include programs in English so that the listener is treated to a wide range of programs from all parts of the globe. Each day, I tune into a variety of programs like drama from the BBC in England, music from Greece, Cuba and Russia, cooking and recipes from Romania, sports from the ABC in Australia, PBS like reviews from the CBC in Canada, cultural information from China Radio, language lessons from Russia and Germany, travel info for Taiwan, business and economic info from Radio Japan and much much more.
I would guess that in any given week, I listen to between 2 and 3 dozen foreign broadcasters in English and get news from all over the world. If you like a more balanced perspective in the news, you really need to tune into shortwave. If you think that the mainstream media in this country gives news, well once you get by the info on Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears and Tiger Woods, you may hear a couple of minutes of hard news. On shortwave, you will get the slant from that particular station and country, but at least you hear it and can get a different perspective. I especially enjoy getting news from domestic shortwave broadcasts as this news is either later reported on by the mainstream media or totally neglected by them. This information has been valuable to help me be a better informed citizen and make informed decisions regarding my personal life.
Beyond the shortwave bands, the user will find the upper amateur radio frequencies in the 20, 15 and 10 meter bands, Citizens Band frequencies, and finally FM broadcasts. The FM on this radio sounds fabulous and the radio is able to pull in stereo signals from a wide surrounding area. I live in a remote part of central Penna that is void of many high powered stations and the available lower power stations are located quite a distance away. And yet, this Satellit 500 snags even some of the weaker stations along the reception fringe.
Back to the Satellit 500. Grundig has not shorted this receiver on features. The user expect to find a well organized radio that makes sense when in use. The radio is rectangular and the folks at Grundig have placed the volume, tone and tuning knobs within the cabinet confines so that nothing protrudes. This gives the radio a stylish look that is not common in this day of rapid consumer product offerings. I especially like the analog knobs for tuning as opposed to only push buttons and Grundig has designed the radio for the best of both worlds. Even the handle folds out for use and then neatly folds back into the top and out of sight when not needed curving to match the contours of the radio as can be seen here:
The Satellit 500 is a feature laden receiver that gives the gadget guru a lot of time to explore. Here are some of the features that you will expect to find on this radio:
* Built in ni-cad battery charger
Direct keying-in of frequencies and SW metre-bands, (LW/MW/SW frequencies can be entered in kHz or MHz, FM in MHz only)
40 broadcaster/156 frequency ROM table.
User programmable presets
Manual or automatic ROM/memory scan
* 42 Station Memories - stores mode, bandwidth and mono/stereo where appropriate, with 4 character user input alphanumeric name assignment
* Separate bass / treble controls
* Recording and speaker outputs
FM: 87.5-108 mHz, tuning steps 25kHz.
LW 148-353 kHz, modes: Synchronous AM/USB/LSB; tuning steps 9kHz (scan), 1kHz (manual tuning), 100Hz (manual SSB/Synch fine tuning). Bandwidth. Automatic/Manual Gain Control.
MW 513-1611 kHz, modes: Synchronous AM/USB/LSB; tuning steps 9kHz (switchable to 10kHz for use in the USA) (scan), 1kHz (manual tuning), 100Hz (manual SSB/Synch fine tuning). Bandwidth. Automatic/Manual Gain Control.
SW 1612-30000kHz, modes: Synchronous AM/USB/LSB; tuning steps 5kHz (scan, within metre bands only, including amateur bands), 1kHz (manual tuning), 100Hz (manual SSB/Synch fine tuning). Bandwidth. Automatic/Manual Gain Control.
If you would like to read more about the Satellit 500, you may find some info here :
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/grundigradioboy/sat500faq.htm
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/525
