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AT A GLANCE: THE GRUNDIG SATELLIT 800 RECEIVER
OVERALL WORLD BAND RATING
★★★★1/2
（Five stars is best）
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The Grundig Satellit 800 is an especially welcome entry into the world of portatop receivers. Portatops other something approximating tabletop performance, but in a quasi-portable package.
The S-800, although much larger and heavier than regular portables, Is designed for ready use in the yard or car/RV trips. And, unlike tabletop receivers, it offers generally excellent reception of FM broadcasts - mono through the built-in speaker, stereo through headphones, the lire output or outboard speakers - as well as the ability to eavesdrop on certain aeronautical frequencies.
The S-800's overall performance is close to that of costly tabletop models. Indeed, in North America. where Grundig products are most attractively priced, it is the best performer anywhere near its price class - tabletop, portatop or portable. It also offers properly performing synchronous selectable sideband, and audio quality is excellent through the supplied headphones, line output and front-firing speaker. Its ergonomics are superb, as well.
Nonetheless. it doesn't replace kilobuck-plus receivers, as it lacks various sophisticated "racket control" features - noise blanker, notch filter, passband tuning, DSP functions and the like -- found on no-holds-barred tabletop supersets. Serious DXers will continue to gravitate to these top-end models.
That the Satellit 800 offers all it does for under $500 is without precedent. Although there are a couple of excellent portables on the market, even these are not quite in the S-800's league. And you'd have to cough up another $300 or more a to obtain a tabletop or other portatop receiver that rivals the S-800's level of performance and features.
Bottom line is that the Grundig Satellit 800 provides virtually $800 performance for less than two-thirds the price. It also otters a quality of ergonomics rarely found even among the most expensive of receivers.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION: WHAT THE S-800 IS
The Grundig Satellit 800 is the ultimate Radio Godzilla - 20 3/8 inches wide by 10 1/4 inches high by 8 inches deep (517 by 260 by 205 mm), including protrusions. It weighs in at no less than [5 beefy pounds or 6.8 kg with batteries, but without the AC adaptor.
Although-the 5-800 is exceptionally heavy and large, it can be toted around the house or yard, or taken along in a car or on RV excursions. Forget airplane trips, though - it's like schlepping an extra carry-on and raises suspicious eyebrows during security checks. If you insist on flying with an S-800, bring along six good "D" cells to prove to skeptical gumshoes that the radio really works.
The S-800 is based on, and performs similarly to, the Ohio-made Drake SW8 portatop receiver that is both thoroughly debugged and highly rated. Unlike the SW8, however, it is designed to be a consumer electronics product rather than a specially receiver for shortwave aficionados.
Swords into International Plowshares
In 1997, Lextronix - Grundig's North American office - signed an agreement of cooperation with Drake. The first offspring from this liaison has been the Grundig Satellit 800, which first began appearing in limited fed quantities in mid2000.
The result is such a monument to international teamwork that its symbol could well be a globe on the tuning knob. The receiver was conceived by Lextronix, a California firm founded by a former Iranian businessman and World Bank official. Lextronix is the guiding light for world band products from Grundig, a respected Bavarian company that long ago turned swords into plowshares by locating on land formerly put to ill use by pre-War political rallies. The S800 was engineered and is serviced by the legendary R.L. Drake Company of Ohio in the United States, and manufactured by the same Tecsun plant in China that for years has been turning out various other Grundig world band models.
The Grundig Satellit S-800 is a benchmark receiver, being the first model ever to offer such a level of near-tabletop performance at portable prices. It is based on the design of the Drake SW8, but incorporates a number of differences - yet it sells, incredibly, at less than two-thirds the price of the Drake parent model. And as if that weren't enough, its ergonomics are among the best of any world band receiver on the market, regardless of price.
In part this is because the radio is manufactured in China, albeit with what appears to be reasonable build quality by established consumer-electronics standards. Of course, only time will tell for certain, although the S-800 is clearly not in the same radiophile-hardware league as the Ohio-manufactured SW8.
The last two large Grundig Satellit models, the S-600 and S-650, were made at Grundig's plant in Portugal. As we found to our dismay while testing one of these back then, the entire digital display and related circuit board were held in place by a plastic tab that broke during shipment, causing the entire business to fall into other parts of the radio circuitry. Thankfully, as far as we know nothing like this has yet happened with the S-800.
The result is that the S-800 is not only a receiver of unusual value, but one which is actually improved over the SW8 in a number of ways, even if not in others.
Shortwave, Mediumwave AM, Broadcast FM and Air Band Coverage
The S-800 covers the mediumwave ("AM band") and shortwave portions (including all world band segments) of the radio spectrum from 100 kHz to 30 MHz in the AM, LSB and USB modes. The 118-137 MHz aeronautical band is covered in the AM mode only and includes a squelch facility. while there is also coverage of the usual 87-108 MHz FM broadcasting band in the FM mode only.
Battery or AC Power
For portable use, the S-800 uses six internal "D" batteries, not included. There is no circuit for built-in recharging NiCd batteries, but our tests show that alkaline cells will power the S-800 about 34-39 hours before the radio shuts down, bringing the approximate operating cost to 25 cents per hour.
The battery cavity has springs facing the negative terminal in one row, the positive in the other, so you need to take care not to install three of the batteries in the wrong position or the radio won't turn on (otherwise no harm, though). Ail batteries fit snugly into the cavity. However, in our hands-on tests the cover once popped off and the batteries ejected when the radio was bumped in a specific manner, although no damage was done.
The "smart" illumination for the LCD and signal-strength meter goes off when not needed if battery power is in use, helping cut battery drain by roughly 20 percent. For example, if you move the tuning knob or press a frequency slew key, the light comes on until this activity ceases, then a moment later fades off. There is also an indicator to-let you know when batteries are becoming exhausted, although it doesn't come on until immediately before the radio mutes from low voltage.
For non-portable use the S-800 may be operated more economically from its UL-approved AC adaptor. Until July, 2000, the S800 was provided with a multivoltage adaptor having both American and European Plugs; the earliest samples caused buzzing below about 900 kHz, but this was quickly corrected. However, since then only singlevoltage, single-plug 120V or 220V adaptors have been provided, presumably because nobody is likely to lug a behemoth tike the S-800 on an international trip, anyway.
Excellent Features
The S-800 comes with an impressive roster of useful features, notwithstanding its relatively modest price. For example, three bandwidths come standard and are suitable for voice and music programs. And there are two 24hour clocks. although unfortunately neither can be displayed independently of the frequency read out.
Other features include outstanding synchronous selectable sideband. a one-level attenuator, continuously variable bass and treble tone controls, 70 programmable and tunable non-volatile memory presets, a built-in telescopic antenna for both world band and FM reception, selectable slow/fast AGC (but not AGC off), a huge illuminated liquid crystal frequency display, an illuminated analog signal-strength meter, FM stereo through headphones or outboard speakers, a manly carrying handle, a way to select 12 pre-programmed shortwave bands, a memory-scanning scheme, an inboard ferrite-rod antenna for the 0.1-1.8 MHz range, and a variable-rate tuning knob with a fixed "speed" dimple.
On the back panel are connectors for high- and low-'impedance antennas for 1.8-30 MHz (not 0.1-30 MHz as indicated in the initial owner's manual), a switch for choosing between them, and a connector for an external FM broadcast antenna and associated switch. There are also connectors for external speakers, stereo line audio outputs and DC power.
Lacking are some of the goodies that serious DXers cherish for cajoling the last erg cut of a hard to-recover signal. For example, there is no passband offset, notch filter, RF gain control, AGC off, or digital signal processing found on various kilobuck-plus tabletop models. Also lacking is signal-seek frequency scanning, which is found on most other digitally tuned world band models regardless of format or price, as well as an antenna input for the longwave and mediumwave AM bands.
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