Grundig Buzz Aldrin shortwave radio--any good?

Has anyone bought or had a chance to play with a Grundig Buzz Aldrin shortwave radio? I'd like to have a small, portable shortwave radio with good sensitivity, low frequency bleed-through, and decent sound quality through its speaker, as well as being able to listen to through ear buds. Is there anything better with comparable features and price?

Rex Cox said:

Has anyone bought or had a chance to play with a Grundig Buzz Aldrin shortwave radio? I'd like to have a small, portable shortwave radio with good sensitivity, low frequency bleed-through, and decent sound quality through its speaker, as well as being able to listen to through ear buds. Is there anything better with comparable features and price?

I have three Grundig YB400PE shortwave/am/fm radios. Got the first one when they first came out and used heck out of it for years. Then when it started getting old enough maybe it would fail some day, went googling for reviews of something as good or better. I couldn't find anything better-reviewed. Found a few about equally-reviewed. So there were a few remaining YB400's available and I got a couple of spares. Keep one in the bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. If I go work in the shop or outside will tote one with me.

Ain't sayin the old YB400 would be better than that newer Buzz Aldrin shortwave. A couple of years ago the topic came up and Jon Isaacs said some of the newer model Grundigs are even more gooder than the YB400. It is just from web-searching when I was looking for spares, I could not find a consensus that the newer models were any better and I had been happy with the YB400.

The newer models use fewer batteries and seem to work about as well from what I read. My old ones last a long time on a set of batteries, but they require 6 AA's.

If I needed another portable, any Grundig would seem a good bet from my experience.

TN has lots of mountains, foothills, ridges, etc. Shortwave and AM DX just sucks around here. Possibly it would suck even with a huge antenna.

I remember being in flatter parts of the country where DX reception routinely worked great. Just sayin, I don't get good shortwave around here, but it is probably not the radio's fault.

Rex Cox said:

Has anyone bought or had a chance to play with a Grundig Buzz Aldrin shortwave radio? I'd like to have a small, portable shortwave radio with good sensitivity, low frequency bleed-through, and decent sound quality through its speaker, as well as being able to listen to through ear buds. Is there anything better with comparable features and price?

Hi:

I did have a Buzz Aldrin there for a while, I traded it with Jeff Kaiser for the Grundig G5. The G5 is a somewhat bigger but a better all around radio than the G6. Unfortunately the G5 is no longer available and has been replaced by the G3 which should be better but gets mixed reviews.

I like radios with old fashioned tuning knobs, the YB400 is all buttons... Dual conversion is good, it prevents that low frequency cross talk.

Sound is generally a function of size, bigger radios sound better. I have a Ccrane SW that I keep by my bed in the mountains, it is a simple to operate radio that sounds good and is sensitive. It is big compared to the G6 but I like the big readable dial... The only minus is that it lacks SSB. This is made by Redsun and is the 2100.

http://universal-radio.com/catalog/portable/2678.html

This radio looks to be very similar, probably a repackaged Redsun 2100, less expensive than the CCrane SW.

http://universal-radio.com/catalog/portable/5450.html

As far as reviews go, EHam is the place I trust, these guys know their radios. It's like the Astromart of Radios. They can be tough on a radio like we can be tough on a telescope but I prefer that to a namby-pamby "I love it" from Amazon

http://www.eham.net/reviews/products/8

It is best to read the reviews rather than just rely on the ratings. I have two table tops, one is a Kenwood R-1000, one is an Icom R-75. The Kenwood is rated 4.6 out of 5, very good, the Icom is rated 4.5 very good. The Icom is a far superior radio, if there is a signal to be heard, it will pick it out of the background...

I find Passport to Worldband Radio to be very good but unfortunately the last edition was 2010 or 2009. Besides the reviews of all currently available radios and antennas, there is a lot of information, schedules of all known stations etc.

A used one would be very helpful...

Jon
Jon