![]() ![]() It manufactured the Satellit 650 from 1986 to 1990 or 1991 or perhaps even 1993 (sources disagree). Slowly, most of the big names, including Sony, retired their portable shortwave lines.” “Occasional new models came to the market, but they were old wine in new bottles. “By the mid-1990s, the period of innovation in portable shortwave receiver design had largely ended,” he wrote in his book. While the ongoing devotion to the model may be due in some measure to nostalgia, the radio was also from an era in which shortwave radio engineering had reached a high point, according to Berg. Photo:Įven today, on the rare occasions when one shows up on eBay in good condition, a Satellit 650 can fetch upwards of $500. What’s the Frequency?: The Satellit 650 had dual digital and analog frequency displays, a unique feature among shortwave radios at the time. To them, it was one of the rare consumer electronics triumphs in which the quality of the cabinet, controls, and display (it had both an analog tuner and a digital readout) was as high as that of the electronics inside. Grundig chose to use pressure-chamber speakers, which can produce sound comparable to speakers twice as large.Īmong portable radios, the 650-at 8.5 kilograms (almost 19 pounds)-was heavier than most, but its fans liked the heft. Its single speaker was generously sized for a portable radio, but there was more to it than met the eye. The Satellit 650 also incorporated a powerful 15-watt amplifier. The feature appears to have been rare, possibly even unique, in the portable shortwave receiver category at the time. 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. The Satellit 650 was equipped with a preselector, essentially a low band-pass filter. The sound quality started with the tuning system. In terms of build quality, it was basically a tank and provided excellent sound quality. The radio was designed with 60 presets that users could program, 32 of them set aside for shortwave frequencies. ![]() The Grundig Satellit 650’s raison d’être was shortwave reception (1.6 to 30 megahertz), 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. Sources vary on the list price, but at introduction it seems to have ranged between US $900 and $1,000.Įlectronics Entrepreneur: Max Grundig, seen here in a 1970 photo, started with a radio shop in 1930 and built it into a global electronics conglomerate that he sold to Philips in 1984. With the Satellit 650, though, it planned a return to worldwide distribution, including in the United States, according to Listening on the Short Waves, 1945 to Today by Jerome S. Grundig had had some success selling radios in the United States in the 1950s and ’60s, but had since withdrawn from the relatively huge market. By the mid-1980s the company was doing well enough in Europe with tape recorders, televisions, high-fidelity stereo systems, dictation machines, VHS recorders, and, of course, radios. And one receiver seems to have earned their undying affection more than any other: the Grundig Satellit 650.Īs a manufacturing company, Grundig traces its roots to Max Grundig, who began making and selling radios, some in kit form, in Germany shortly after the second World War. So when they come to favor a piece of equipment, they don’t just like it, they become devotees. For DXers, as they’re known, there’s a powerful enchantment surrounding the chance reception of a signal from somewhere remote and mysterious, like the Australian Outback, the Namib Desert, or a lonely island in the Shetlands. Though they’ll likely deny it, long-distance (DX) radio enthusiasts are also often romantics. ![]()
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