Woolman Penn's Review of the Grundig Transistor 865

 

While tuning the shortwaves this morning I came across a station playing Gospel music at 7.490MHz. It was WWCR and the program was Inspirations Across America.   http://www.andercom.com/  

Long ago I acquired a taste for Gospel music while listening to Wolfman Jack on his flamethrower out of Del Rio Texas. There used to be many AM (MW) stations near and far playing Gospel music. Gospel's use of the Hammond organ, driving bass guitar and chorus of deep baritone voices place the music into the optimal portion of AM's dynamic range.

It doesn't hurt that I am listening on an old Grundig. When one hears deep full throated music emanating from the wooden cased Grundig, one understands the reasoning behind the bass emphasis for which many German radios are known. Higher audio frequencies are limited on AM and are the first to fade when the signal weakens but the audio frequencies most prominent in Gospel are in the more punchy part of the carrier and ride through a lot of the signal fading that is characteristic to AM.

The bass emphasis is not ideal for FM but is perfect for AM. That is probably the reason that many of these radios feature separate controls to adjust their bass and treble emphasis.

I notice on Herculodge that the emphasis in shortwave radios today is on pocket size radios. Their small speakers cannot possibly reproduce the entire range of mid and lower audio frequencies available. I suggest using an external self powered speaker system with a sub woofer as are commonly available for computers. Turn it up. This will provide a much more listenable signal for both music and voice on AM/Shortwave.

 

Comments

[Angelo]

I had a Grundig model (I believe the 865)that I sold on E-Bay a while back. Yours seems to have a different speaker grill pattern than mine did.
Is your radio made in Germany or Portugal? Mine was made in Portugal.

[Keith]

I had never questioned the 865's country of origin but I just took a look and see that indeed it is from the Portugal factory. Grundig produced many similar models with different names depending on where they expected to export them. Some of Grundig's most renown latter day products were produced at the Portugal factory so they must have been running a tight ship there. Thanks for asking.

[Terry]

Oh, real Grundig. Nice.

I need to figure out how to recap my Satellit 210 so it picks up SW again. One of the problems with vintage radios.

[Angelo]

No doubt that the 865 had "The Grundig Sound." Everything they made back then seemed to sound great, Portugal or Germany. I don't think today's Made In China "Grundig Branded" radios are quite up to par.