Grundig Satellit 650 Shortwave AM FM Radio Receiver BEAUTIFUL GERMAN ENGINEERING

Description

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This sale is for a classic collectible Grundig Satellit Professional 650 radio in anthracite grey manufactured in Germany about 3 decades ago.  The radio came to us in wonderful original condition.
Cosmetically, this Satellit 650 has a beautiful front panel.  In fact, most of the radio looks to be in above average condition.  Upon inspection, you will see a couple of minor marks on the radio cabinet, but they are easy to miss with a casual glance.
The only cosmetic exception is that the radio came to us missing the battery cover.  We were able to obtain a replacement from a parts unit, but the battery cover from that unit shows some marks.  Thus, the battery cover is the only item on this radio that shows noticeable cosmetic issues but thankfully it is not so noticeable due to installation on the rear panel of the radio.  Please view our HD pictures and you can see precise cosmetics.
Operationally the Satellit 650 was tested and worked beautifully on all the various bands.  The only small item we noticed was that the digital frequency backlight did not illuminate when plugged into AC.
This sale includes the Satellit 650 radio and the following items:
copy of the user manual
copy of the service manual
Satellit 650 step by step guide
copy of page from Gilfer Shortwave catalog 1991
advertisement copy from WRTH 1985 (World Radio & Television Handbook)
advertisement copy from WRTH 1988
advertisement copy from Passport 1988 (Passport To World Band Radio)
Grundig Satellit 650 overview
Grundig Satellit 650 review Passport 1991
Grundig Satellit Radio - Jay Allen review
Satellit 650 Whitepaper review
AC power cord
DVD tutorial (
can be played on your PC computer that has 2 files that have user tutorial information as originally provided by Grundig on VHS, but is virtually impossible to find available anywhere)
CD containing the PDF manual & other document files so that the new owner will have access to them in digital form.
Most of you have heard about the classic Grundig name and series of radios.  Grundig is a long time German company that has an extensive history in manufacturing legendary radios. There were many well established American companies that did likewise, but they all lost their impact when transitioning from tubes to transistors.  Zen*ith managed to hang on for awhile into the 70's with the Trans*Oceanic line, but even they have also disappeared in the radio manufacturing business.  However, Grundig made radios in the 50's that command collector prices these days, continued their domination of quality radios in the 60's through the 90's and kept their foot in the door of the consumer's homes for a longer period of time.
This Satellit 650 is another masterpiece of German engineering.  It is a "portable" radio as witnessed by the large and sturdy carry handle on the top, but a large portable at that.  It was manufactured from 1986 - 1991 and represented some of the best of radio design during that era.  In fact, neither the design nor the features are dated.  Current radios, like the E*ton E*1 offer features like passband tuning, scanning, and synchronous detection, but these are not necessary features required to enjoy most radio programs.  In fact, our consumer oriented society is accustomed to planned obsolescence, but what do you do with a product that is still a strong contender some 20 years later!
Question.....what is it you would like to hear on the radio...AM, FM or Shortwave?  Well, this Satellit 650 utilizes all these operating bands and does it marvelously well.  In fact it receives from 140 KHz at the bottom end of the spectrum in the longwave region and on up into the AM broadcast band, through the 160 meter ham band, into the marine band, the 80 meter ham band, the tropical bands, and then into the heart of world band listening.
The receiver's capabilities allow it to pick up all of the major ham band frequencies, and all the world band frequencies.  Of course, what radio would not be complete without the advantage of a good FM band, so Grundig includes this as well.  Regarding FM, we live in a rural area, but the FM band was alive with signals despite many of them being lower power stations operating from over 40 miles away and further.
The Satellit 650 has many features that you need for good world band tuning.  You have a choice of 3 bandwidths.  The widest bandwidth allows for maximum sound fidelity and the narrower bandwidths offer the listener the opportunity to avoid side channel interference when listening to shortwave broadcasts.  You choose the bandwidth that gives you the best reception while offering you the best fidelity.  There is an on board clock, battery level indicator, lamps for all the dials, timers for recording while absent, station memories for quick recall, a noise limiter, a large digital frequency readout and a large signal strength indicator, and jacks with selector switches to choose external antennas for improved reception.  However, don't assume you will need an external antenna.  This Grundig provides marvelous sensitivity with its long whip antenna which seems to be enormous by most worldband standards.
This radio is one of the very best sounding Grundig semiconductor radios ever manufactured.  Inside the cabinet is a 15 watt amplifier that will surprise you with its punch and its ability to recreate great sounding audio.  Of course, you will not notice the full performance of the sound on AM or shortwave.  But when we tuned the local classical FM radio station tuned in to test this radio, the orchestra sounded like it was right in the room with us.  There are bass and treble controls for listener adjustable sound.  There are jacks for outputting the audio or even inputting audio from an external source.  Why would you do that...well, the wonderful Grundig sound, of course.
One of the features on the 650 radio that we normally see only on tabletop communications receivers is that it offers an automatic or a manual RF gain control.  If the knob is set on automatic, the radio does the effort of adjusting the strength of the signal for you.  However, we have seen a strong boost in weak signals by setting the radio to manual and rotating the knob to intensify the signal strength.
This radio also offers a BFO (beat frequency oscillator) that allows the user to tune in those signals that operate on one of the sidebands.  Such signals can be from ham radio operators, marine transmissions, air or marine weather reports or even flight communications.  We regularly come across weather transmissions from overseas airports.
The other nice feature of this Satellit 650 is the use of a preselector.  Not only does the 650 have a preselector, but it is motorized and thus automatic, if the operator chooses.  In fact, this radio is a digital readout so you may ask what the purpose is for the slide rule tuner at the top.  Well, it allows the user to tune the preselector to the correct frequency.  What is the reason for the preselector?  Well, it allows the radio to negate undesired signals outside the band and strengthen the received signal without amplifying all the signals across the radio receiving range.  This greatly diminishes broadcast images found on other bands that confuse the listener while allowing for good amplification of the desired signal.  If set to automatic by pressing the innermost tuning button, a motor will actually move the preselector dial to the appropriate area where you then can manually fine tune the signal for optimum strength.  So why not make the preselector automatic all the time?  Well Grundig knew that the automatic mode does require more power to operate and so it was designed to be disabled when using batteries.
There are grip handles on the front of the 650.  Such grip handles were common on rack mounted equipment to assist a technician with pulling the radio from a rack for service.  Here on the 650, these handles not only provide another nice grab/grip surface, but also allow for protection of the front knobs and front radio surface if the 650 should be placed on its face (like when replacing the batteries).  It should also be mentioned that there is a world graph on the top of the unit giving the user an idea of local times in distant places and a frequency/meter guide so you know where to tune for most likely reception.
The Satellit 650 comes with an AC power cord so that you can use it for economical home operation.  Of course, you may use batteries for portable operation and it will require 6 D cells if you decide to use them.  We have not used this 650 much as it has been in our possession a short time, but do own the Grundig Satellit 6*00 which is very similar and the batteries last for a l...o...n...g time since this is an analog receiver and the circuitry is not thirsty for power like many earlier tube or later microprocessor units.
It is important for you to become intimately familiar with this Grundig, if you are not already.  Here are some sites on the internet to help you out.  This first site is from DXing.com and gives some of the basic specs:
http://www.dxing.com/rx/sat650.htm
(copy and paste this link into your internet browser)
If you would like to read a couple of brief reviews of this radio, you can find them here on Eham:
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/526
(copy and paste this link into your internet browser)
We love these old radios and know a few things about them.  Please feel free to email if we can help you with any questions.
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