Matt Finds He's Getting Better Quality with the New Batch of Grundig S450DLX Field Radios

 

 

I got the Grundig S450DLX for Christmas & I was nervous because I had one of the earlier ones back in February...But this one is fantastic!

The display on FM is spot on now, and the I can get one of my favorite FM stations that about 50 miles away from me with no problem. The AM band is free from all the tuning hash the earlier one had.

The one I have now was built around July 2011 if I am reading the serial number correctly. The SW is great as well.

The only beef I have is the AC adapter is a little noisy, but on batteries it's great. I can live with that as now that it's my new bedside radio.

I usually fall asleep to the local station playing Coast To Coast AM, and the noise is only perceptable when chasing weak stations. For that I usually run on battery power anyway, to reduce any interference from the AC line. 

 

Comments

[Ron]

Where did you get it from? I'm interested in this radio, but don't want to end up with one of the old ones.

[Matt Wilson]

Ron,

My wife got it for me at the local Radio Shack...In December they had them on sale for $69.99. She also had a coupon for an additional $25.00 off, so she got it for $44.99 before taxes!!! I can believe it's the same radio I had earlier this year, that on was a total dog..Also the one I got had never been opened up previously, something I check especially with Radio Shack stuff. This one picks up a low powered AM station that none of my other ones have been able to do, including the Sangean PR-D5. My wife used to laugh at my hobby, but she shown a new appreciation for it after all the power outages we have been experiencing lately. Just this morning a transformer blew in the neighborhood and we were without power for about 45 minutes!! Back in October when we had that freak snowstorm we were without power for about 4 days and that's all we had for information was my radios :)

[Ron]

Very nice, thanks for the info. While I probably won't be able to find it for $45, I'll check out RS on this. If there's an improved model out now, I want one of these!

[Matt Wilson]

I wanted to see how SSB would sound like on this, so I broke down and ordered the TG-37 SSB BFO Adapter from Ebay http://www.ebay.com/itm/TG37-SSB-BFO-ADAPTER-S450DLX-REDSUN-RP2100-CC-SW-KA2100-RADIO-RECEIVER-/160658380225?pt=Shortwave_Radios&hash=item2567fc55c1 Tao Qu is the seller of these and was great to do business with. I ordered one January 3 and received it today January 14. This thing is great! You connect one end to the IF out of the radio and the other end to the BFO box. tune in to a known SSB frequency and dial in until you get good voice modulation. This thing is rock solid, with none of the drifting I would notice with the built in BFO like on the Sony 7600GR, Grundig G5, and others. Plus because my S450DLX has a larger speaker, the sound quality is great! I am very happy with both the radio and the BFO adapter, and now that I have both, I feel I have a "complete" radio now:)

[Gary]

Matt,

Thanks for your mini review of the TG37 SSB BFO adapter. Based on your comments, I just ordered one to use with my spare CCRadio-SW.

I like tinkering with stuff, so having an external BFO rather than a built-in one is fine with me.

Like you, I've had trouble with the BFO drifting on my Sony 7600GR. In addition to being more stable, the sound quality of SSB on the CCR-SW should be far better than on smaller radios like the 7600GR or Grundig G3.

-Gary

[Gary]

I received the TG37 SSB BFO adapter from Tao Qu in Hong Kong (tquchina on eBay). It works very well with my CCRadio-SW for listening to SSB signals like hams and utility broadcasts (for example, aviation weather). It doesn't work very well for tuning AM mode broadcasts in SSB, as there is too much flutter and pumping in the sound. But, it does what I need it to do, which is adding SSB mode reception to my CCRadio-SW.