Yesterday I bought, from a local Radio Shack, a Grundig G5 SWL receiver
and found myself quite pleased with it and decided to share this with
y'all. $150.

For some time I was looking for a replacement, new portable SWL receiver
for my old GE portable SWL receiver (runs on 6 D cells, about the size of
two big Kleenex boxes, and all of its switches, pots, varicaps are now all
noisy as hell and hard to do anything with, plus other problems).

I was very interested to see, recently, that some (ham) handi-talkies now
have SWL capability, and even SSB/CW capability. So, I was thinking about
those, too, but the ones I asked about are about $300 each. More than I
wanted to sink into a toy of this nature.

While in the RS store, they had a G5 sitting on the shelf and with good
batteries in it (a good omen) and in ten minutes of fiddling with all the
buttons to see how much I could figure out without reading the manual, I
was encouraged to give it a try. You could not hear squat in the store,
maybe because most of these new stores have metal 2x4s, metal roofs, and
local electrical noise, but I had the hunch that maybe this thing was
going to be decent.

Here's the short skinny: Its about the size of two king-sized cig
packages. 4-AA cells. Comes with its own walwart AC supply.

Really nice performance on features I was interested in. the PLL local
oscillators allow _continuous_ tunning from 150 kc to 29999 kc, on AM and
SSB (and CW), and in one-kc readout steps on the digital frequency read
out. For SSB and CW fine tuning, there is a vernier bandspread knob on the
side which seems to give you something like a +/- 2 kc range for RIT, so
you can get SSB stations tuned in if they are not on exact 1 kc
frequencies (lovely!). It has an AM "bandswitch" button that cycles you up
through starting frequencies of the major SW bands so you can tune to
where you want to be more quickly. The manual tells how to do direct
keyboard entry if you know the frequency you want to all digets, and that
works, too. It also has 700 memories but I have not tried to learn the
complicated process to use them.

So, sitting in my livingroom favorite chair (house is wood frame
construction, no sheilding problems), I was tuning up and down the
80-75 meter to 20 meter CW and SSB bands, and with the built in three foot
extendable "whip" antenna alone, was copying a large number of all of
these stations (when the bands were open) all over. The frequency was also
stable, at least over the time periods I was listening. Signal strength,
receiver sensitivity was better than I expected.

There is a built in "S meter" with bar levels, but you only get five
groups spread out from 1-9 (but, what else do you need?).

There is a two step switch for IF selectivity. Narrow (voice) and wide
(music) that (I did not measure) feels like maybe 5-7 kc on narrow, maybe
10-15 on wide. You can easily tune both LSB and USB with the vernier
frequency. But, in wall-to-wall crowded conditions, might give you
trouble (qrm).

It also tunes the standard broadcast FM band (88-108), and in stereo.

There is a "local-dx" switch for attenuation for close, strong signals.

Downside: there are birdies and PLL noise all over the bands, poor image
rejection below 550 kc, and birdies worse in some segments than others,
but for the price and size, I'll live with that. There is a "lock" button
that kills all access to anything and you have to read the manual to get
it unlocked so don't push the lock button if you play with one. IIRC, you
have to press and hold that button for more than 3 seconds to get it to
unlock everything.

I had the impression that the receiver might be usable in a portable
situation (eg motel, vacation) if you could bring a transmitter along and
suitable antenna. The receiver has jacks for earphone, ext antenna, DC
input, etc. An external narrow audio filter might help in the CW band if
it is crowded.

Last but not least, I am not affiliated with Grundig, not related to
anyone there in any way, this is not a post in response to some favor
they did for me, in any way, shape or form. This is a pure FYI, FWIW "I
was pleased with the unit" report and I'm going to have a lot of fun with
it.

On Jul 10, 10:07 am, A wrote:
Yesterday I bought, from a local Radio Shack, a Grundig G5 SWL receiver
and found myself quite pleased with it and decided to share this with
y'all. $150.

For some time I was looking for a replacement, new portable SWL receiver
for my old GE portable SWL receiver (runs on 6 D cells, about the size of
two big Kleenex boxes, and all of its switches, pots, varicaps are now all
noisy as hell and hard to do anything with, plus other problems).

I was very interested to see, recently, that some (ham) handi-talkies now
have SWL capability, and even SSB/CW capability. So, I was thinking about
those, too, but the ones I asked about are about $300 each. More than I
wanted to sink into a toy of this nature.

While in the RS store, they had a G5 sitting on the shelf and with good
batteries in it (a good omen) and in ten minutes of fiddling with all the
buttons to see how much I could figure out without reading the manual, I
was encouraged to give it a try. You could not hear squat in the store,
maybe because most of these new stores have metal 2x4s, metal roofs, and
local electrical noise, but I had the hunch that maybe this thing was
going to be decent.

Here's the short skinny: Its about the size of two king-sized cig
packages. 4-AA cells. Comes with its own walwart AC supply.

Really nice performance on features I was interested in. the PLL local
oscillators allow _continuous_ tunning from 150 kc to 29999 kc, on AM and
SSB (and CW), and in one-kc readout steps on the digital frequency read
out. For SSB and CW fine tuning, there is a vernier bandspread knob on the
side which seems to give you something like a +/- 2 kc range for RIT, so
you can get SSB stations tuned in if they are not on exact 1 kc
frequencies (lovely!). It has an AM "bandswitch" button that cycles you up
through starting frequencies of the major SW bands so you can tune to
where you want to be more quickly. The manual tells how to do direct
keyboard entry if you know the frequency you want to all digets, and that
works, too. It also has 700 memories but I have not tried to learn the
complicated process to use them.

So, sitting in my livingroom favorite chair (house is wood frame
construction, no sheilding problems), I was tuning up and down the
80-75 meter to 20 meter CW and SSB bands, and with the built in three foot
extendable "whip" antenna alone, was copying a large number of all of
these stations (when the bands were open) all over. The frequency was also
stable, at least over the time periods I was listening. Signal strength,
receiver sensitivity was better than I expected.

There is a built in "S meter" with bar levels, but you only get five
groups spread out from 1-9 (but, what else do you need?).

There is a two step switch for IF selectivity. Narrow (voice) and wide
(music) that (I did not measure) feels like maybe 5-7 kc on narrow, maybe
10-15 on wide. You can easily tune both LSB and USB with the vernier
frequency. But, in wall-to-wall crowded conditions, might give you
trouble (qrm).

It also tunes the standard broadcast FM band (88-108), and in stereo.

There is a "local-dx" switch for attenuation for close, strong signals.

Downside: there are birdies and PLL noise all over the bands, poor image
rejection below 550 kc, and birdies worse in some segments than others,
but for the price and size, I'll live with that. There is a "lock" button
that kills all access to anything and you have to read the manual to get
it unlocked so don't push the lock button if you play with one. IIRC, you
have to press and hold that button for more than 3 seconds to get it to
unlock everything.

I had the impression that the receiver might be usable in a portable
situation (eg motel, vacation) if you could bring a transmitter along and
suitable antenna. The receiver has jacks for earphone, ext antenna, DC
input, etc. An external narrow audio filter might help in the CW band if
it is crowded.

Last but not least, I am not affiliated with Grundig, not related to
anyone there in any way, this is not a post in response to some favor
they did for me, in any way, shape or form. This is a pure FYI, FWIW "I
was pleased with the unit" report and I'm going to have a lot of fun with
it.

I cannot understand why you changed the heading and not just start
your own posting to advertise this SS, modern receiver on the
Boatanchors forum?

On Thu, 10 Jul 2008, Richie wrote:

I cannot understand why you changed the heading and not just start
your own posting to advertise this SS, modern receiver on the
Boatanchors forum?

Who knows why he replied to an existing message, but obviously he
had to change the subject header because whatever message he replied
to wouldn't have been about this receiver.

He must be clueless, since he posted it to
rec.radio.amateur.equipment
rec.radio.amateur.boatanchors
rec.radio.swap
rec.radio.amateur.equipment
none of which really have relevance.

..equipment is about amateur radio equipment, and this isn't.

..boatanchors is about old and heavey equipment, and this isn't.

..swap is for buying and selling, and this isn't

I have no idea why he had .equipment twice in the newsgroup header.

And the one place where there is real relevance, rec.radio.shortwave
is missing.

And he seems to be saying it's a lousy receiver (all those birdies)
yet a good bargain.

Maybe he's saying that despite the digital readout it's about par
with all those low end junk shortwave receivers we had to put up
with forty years ago because it was all we could afford, even if
they were never appropriate for ham use with the ham bands taking up a
quarter inch or so each on the dial, and the backlash for the tuning
was so bad that you had to tune out of the band before you could tune
back in.

That Grundig Satellite 700 that I bought a month ago for 2.00 at
the Rotary Club sale was a great bargain, and at least it is halfway
old enough to be a boatanchor. All those years of going to rummage
and garage sales and never seeing a shortwave receiver, and this is
the second Grundig I've found (and bought) in three years. I wouldn't
really use it as a serious ham band receiver, but it sure beats a lot of
junk from the old days.

Michael VE2BVW