
Grundig Satellit 650 Radio - sohkamyung
https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/gadgets/the-consumer-electronics-hall-of-fame-grundig-satellit-650-radio
======
Johnythree
What an idiotic article!

Almost every paragraph has multiple technical errors of a fundamental nature.

" ... but it was equally capable with AM (about 510 to 1620 kilohertz, which
was referred to as “medium wave” in olden times), and the spectrum below that
once quaintly known as long wave (148 to 420 kHz), and also FM."

AM and FM are modulation modes, not frequency bands. For example, most
shortwave stations also transmit in AM. And on course FM is used in many
places besides the VHF Broadcast band.

The Medium Wave and Long Wave bands are not "quaint". Those are the
international designations for those particular wave bands.

"The preselector is a mechanism for filtering out frequencies that are closely
adjacent to the frequency the operator selects, minimizing the potential
interference from other signals on those nearby frequencies".

Completely wrong. Close in stations are removed by the main IF filter. A
Preselector is a manually tuned RF stage which is intended to remove Image
frequencies and other spurious responses.

And to say that a Preselector is "rare, possibly even unique" is utter
nonsense. Good quality radios have an automatically tuned RF stage, it's only
in cheap radios that a manual control substituted.

And it's a Band-Pass-Filter, not a Low-Pass-Filter.

"Hams on various Internet message boards argue about the relative technical
merits".

No they don't. This is not a specialised Ham Receiver. It was specifically
designed for Short-Wave Listeners.

I could go on.

~~~
Johnny555
This wasn't written for a technical audience (or they wouldn't have had to
explain what each band was), "everyone" knows what AM and FM radio are, and
few know (or care) that they are modulation modes.

 _Medium Wave and Long Wave bands are not "quaint". Those are the
international designations for those particular wave bands._

Why can't they be both "quaint" and international designations?

The wikipedia description of a "preselector" sounds close to what they
described:

 _A preselector typically is tuned to have a narrow bandwidth, centered on the
receiver’s operating frequency. The preselector passes through the signal on
the frequency it is tuned to unchanged, or only slightly diminished, but it
reduces or removes off-frequency signals, cutting down or eliminating unwanted
interference. However, a preselector does not remove interference on the same
frequency that it and the receiver are both tuned to._

 _" Hams on various Internet message boards argue about the relative technical
merits"...No they don't. This is not a specialised Ham Receiver. It was
specifically designed for Short-Wave Listeners._

Are you sure they don't? Are you claiming that there's no overlap between hams
and shortwave listeners? Here's one:

[https://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/526](https://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/526)

Several of the commenters have their ham call-sign as their userid. So if
there's just one more message board where hams discuss the unit, this
statement can be marked true.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _This wasn 't written for a technical audience (or they wouldn't have had to
> explain what each band was), "everyone" knows what AM and FM radio are, and
> few know (or care) that they are modulation modes._

Aiming at non-technical audience means you need to make things _simpler_ , not
_wrong_.

Also, since when non-technical people hang out at ieee.org?

~~~
Koshkin
Maybe, the ones who have typed "Grundig Radio" in the browser's search box?

------
jnord
As a former DXer, I used the Satellit at a time when the shortwave tropical
bands were filled with exotic stations. Nowadays, I have my SDR with technical
specs we could only dream about back then but on the same bands I struggle to
find any stations at all. Blame the migration of shortwave stations to FM and
the Internet over the past 30 years where they enjoy far better fidelity.

~~~
jdietrich
Blame the weather on the sun.

Shortwave DX relies on ionospheric propagation. Solar particles cause
ionization of the upper atmosphere, which becomes mostly opaque to shortwave
frequencies. Activity on the surface of the sun follows a roughly 11-year
cycle, with alternating periods of high and low activity. We're currently
approaching the low point of that cycle, but the most recent cycle offered
unusually poor propagation conditions.

There has been an overall reduction in shortwave broadcasting, but there's
still plenty of activity in Africa and South-East Asia. You're not hearing it
because it's all drifting off into space rather than ricocheting around inside
the atmosphere.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skywave)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle)

------
hudibras
I'm trying not to get too worked up about it, but it's insane that they picked
the Satellit 650 for the "Hall of Fame" instead of the Sony 7600 series, a
revolutionary radio that was truly portable (615 grams) with great reception.
The 7600 was also (not coincidentally) the all-time top selling shortwave
radio and was in production for over 40 years (1977-2018).

[http://stephan.win31.de/sony7600.htm](http://stephan.win31.de/sony7600.htm)

~~~
lb1lf
Oooh, The ICF-7600GR. Bought one in Vantaa Helsinki Airport on my way to
Russia almost 20 years ago to be able to listen to news I could understand
while there. (After having lusted for one for ages, me being an intrepid DXer
since late primary school an' all - drooling over the ads in every edition of
the WRTH which arrived at my local library. (I suspect at my request - I seem
to recall I only found references to my library card in the borrower list in
the back of the book...)

Still listen to the 7600 almost daily - even as SW stations dwindle and the
(lack of) solar activity does nothing to help matters, I still get excellent
reception of the BBC World Service here on the west coast of Norway. (Which,
much to my puzzlement, I still prefer to listen to on HF, even though it is
available on DAB+, too...)

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aasasd
This all looks woefully incomplete without a review of knob and button feel,
in the spirit of the youtube channel:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOdrpe1CUJg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOdrpe1CUJg)

~~~
lazyjones
I'd love to have knobs and buttons on my iMac for audio volume etc. ... And
no, something made from cheap plastic that transmits a bad approximation with
noticeable lag over USB won't do. Perhaps it's time to get out the soldering
iron.

------
resters
As someone who is interested in amateur radio, there is certainly something
magical and romantic about signals propagating from all over the world.

------
KC8ZKF
Miss my Yacht Boy. Had it sitting on top of my car, while listening to a ball
game. Forgot got it was there, and drove off. It hit US Route 11 at
approximately 65 MPH after serving me faithfully for many years all around the
world.

RIP little Grundig.

~~~
mudil
I've been using Yacht Boy as my alarm clock continuously since at least
1991-92. Love it: still produces great sound to wake up to. Go and find one on
Ebay and get yourself a Yacht Boy!

------
maxxxxx
Totally forgot about Grundig. They used to be such a solid company and now I
don't even know if they still exist. IT's always amazing how quickly a well
known brand can disappear.

~~~
owenversteeg
They're still around in some incarnation! Apparently they got bought by
Arçelik, a Turkish household appliances manufacturer, in 2007.

Here in the Netherlands, they now have a large range of cheap things, from
button cell batteries to earbuds to remotes, cables, flashlights, cameras,
navigation systems, you name it.

It's all ridiculously cheap (competitive with Aliexpress prices and sometimes
better). Quality is not always great, but not as bad as it could be, and some
things I've gotten are surprisingly well built (competitive with things 10-20x
the price.) For example, a flashlight I got for 0.99€ with a solid metal
construction that's survived whatever I've thrown at it so far.

And yes, they still make radios! Much lower quality, and not shortwave, but
still.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
They're still around only as a name for the owning group to slap on cheap Beko
product.

The Grundig with the well deserved reputation for absolute top of the line
quality and build is dead and gone.

~~~
voltagex_
I've got an AM-FM radio with an auxillary input that's still going strong
since around 2007. How'd you find the owning group / what products they're
rebranding?

~~~
NeedMoreTea
The grundig site has a Beko UK security certificate! I'm pretty sure the
Turkish group renamed some of their old Beko electronic divisions, including
radio, to Grundig after the takeover. Not sure about appliances as Beko
already had decent presence at the cheap end of the market, so Grundig was
maybe a chance for them to try to move upmarket a bit.

Takeover was around 2007 so you could possibly have one of the last "proper"
ones. No idea which particular products or if any old Grundig products
survived a while longer. What shows up in search now is nothing like the type
or quality I'd have once expected of the brand.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I remember selling Beko products back in my electrical retail days (around
2007 in fact). FWIW they were cheap and cheerful but not absolutely terrible
quality at the time. Probably a step up from most of the supermarket own
brands. Not sure how the company has progressed since then.

------
ggm
There was a small orange digital(ish) Sony I lusted after a few years after
this unit. I think it even came with a premade dipole on a spool to plug in.

------
Aardwolf
The brand name Grundig evokes images of TVs and radios (sometimes wood
paneled) from the 80s that were still around in the 90s (of decent quality,
but gradually getting replaced by black plastic stuff from e.g. sony) to me.

The device pictured in the article certainly does not invalidate that memory
:)

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zhrvoj
Approx 270 eur one Satellit 600 here: [https://www.njuskalo.hr/linije-radio-
kasetofoni/grundig-sate...](https://www.njuskalo.hr/linije-radio-
kasetofoni/grundig-satellit-600-professional-oglas-27263233)

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zwieback
I had this Satellit 2000:
[https://www.petervis.com/gallery/Vintage%20Advertisements/gr...](https://www.petervis.com/gallery/Vintage%20Advertisements/grundig-1975-1976/satellit-2000.html)

It had an insane mechanical drum tuner which spread out the shortwave bands
but over time it corroded and got flaky.

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xvf22
Loved my Satellit 700! I was pretty hard on it when I had it as a teen but
hopefully I can find some time to fix it up. Still has my carefully programmed
EPROM chips in it.

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W-Stool
Anyone remember the Sony 2010? Fantastic portable SWL radio back in the day.

