 This is a massive radio. I read how heavy they were, but until I was lugging around our yard today, with 6 D cells ballasting the keel, and the giant chrome antenna reaching a few feet above my head... I really didn't "get it". The good part is that this radio sounds as good as the reports I read. It has a woofer and tweeter, and the mellow but crisp FM stations are a pleasure. The treble and bass controls are very effective. My wife has enjoyed listening to the FM on the deck... most of the smaller, and even more modern, FM portables just do not sound as good as this. The performance is outstanding! With my long wire antenna, I quickly picked up many amateurs. One was crystal clear, from Oregon! W1NGL. I also heard the Cuban numbers station for the first time, and a recording of it can be heard, here. This was on about 5.9 MHz at about 3:00 am. It is some sort of espionage communication. The clarity, sound, sensitivity of this radio is all top-notch. This radio is a real winner... and has made a Satellit fan of me. Some of the other things I like about this radio, besides being the first Satellit, are that it has ten bands, and two of the shortwave bands are on a separate turret tuner (seen to the left). This is to provide adequate bandwith for selective tuning. Then, it also has FM... up to 108mhz, as this was for the American market (the 205 was the European designation). 1964/66, UKW (FM) 87-108 MHz, LW 145-350 kHz, MW 510-1620 kHz, SW1 1,6-4,8 MHz, SW2 4.5 - 12,3 MHz, SW3 12-20 MHz, SW4 19.5-30MHz, 16m, 19m, 25m, 31m, 41m, 49m SW, runs on 4 "D" cells. |
 I needed to take quite a bit apart to clean it, replace the three (!) dial control string loops, and clean the band selector switches. Carefully cleaning all the pots and band switches on a radio like this is a minimum chore if one is going to actually use the radio. Even if the bands sound all right, I have almost always found an improvement in reception after a squirt of tuner cleaner/lubricator, and working the switches a bit while they are still wet. The two brown strips on either side of the switches are degraded foam, which the lighting panel rests on. I cut two strips of foam, and glued them in as a replacement. You can see the FM tuner at the bottom, it's broken string all coiled around. The first thing I did when I got this radio was to trace out the string paths, wherever they survived, so I could properly replace them. This was very fortunate, as in a couple of instances I would have guessed the wind went differently, and would have needed to do the job twice. |
 As I got it, this unit was filthy! It definitely rates as the most disgustingly dirty radio I have ever purchased. There were roach carcasses and feces all over... it took hours with dozens of q-tips and rubbing alcohol to carefully clean every surface in and out. And the battery box obviously had had some leaking batteries in it at some point, as you can see from the white deposits. Note the broken AM tuner string... remember, don't be quick to remove these as soon as you get a radio... they offer valuable clues, should you find it hard to find a re-stringing guide. |
 I re-string with braided cotton fly-fishing line. In this case it was slightly larger in diameter than the original, but still fit nicely in the pulleys and wheels. My method is to start at one spring, tension it slightly, then keep that tension with one hand while threading the string with the other. If I let go, it is still easy to re-tension and continue. By the time I reach back to the main pulley and spring, and slip the string into the pulley, it is an easy matter to clip it there while measuring for the second loop. Test the workings... if you need another loop around the drive pulley on the knob shaft, you can back up to that point, give it a third loop, and still have enough to finish. In the case of this radio, the FM and turret SW tuners needed the usual two turns. But this did not work with the AM tuner, which went about 4 1/2 miles in it's tour around the radio. Three turns and it is rock solid. I confess that this was the first time that I understood the real principle behind the drive pulley... it is not simply friction from tension which allows the pulley to grab the string. It seems the "V" shape of the pulley groove forces the string to always wind on itself a bit... so pulley is grabbing string, but the string is tightening on itself a bit, and grabbing itself, too... like the principle in a Chinese finger lock. |
 The main slide rule dial is very easy to read. The light switch is activated by pressing in the volume wheel up top, and then the one 7v bulb's light is spread over the entire white backdrop with a very clear slab of plastic... the whole face lights up very well. The antenna symbol switch changes the antenna input from the ferrite bar and whip antenna, to the antenna inputs in the back. There is a "tape in" female jack, which is a five pin DIN. I looked up the pins: Looking from the outside of the jack, they are numbered from left to right 1,4,2,5,3.The pin associations for this lead are: 2- common, 5- right channel, 3- left channel. To input your MP3 player, you need a DIN male to 3.5mm (1/8") male. In Europe these are common... on eBay I saw several sellers in England, but I did not want to wait a month to get one. So I went to Radio Shack. Since DIN analog audio is uncommon (RCA being the norm), I substituted a midi to midi male cable... they did not sell a single midi replacement jack in my local store. It cost $8 unfortunately.. but gave me two jacks.  I
opened one jack, and wired in a cable from an old, broken set of MP3
earbuds. It was very delicate operation to solder these very fine
leads. To protect the connection, I tied a knot in the wire, then
filled the rubber sleeve with hot glue. It is a solid, permanent unit.
Now I can listen to my MP3 player through the Satellit.Interestingly, the radio audio cuts out when I plug in the DIN plug to the back of the radio, even before plugging in the MP3 player... but I do not believe it is a switched socket. There may be a cut-out circuit which senses that there is an input, and switches over the audio to that. And the sound is excellent! My next step is to make a "Grundig" folder in my MP3 player. I will put 1950's and 60's versions of German hits, such as "Danke Schoen", and "Edelweiss". Well the latter is American... but it sounds German. Come to think of it, I suppose I know little about old German hits... but you get the idea. I enjoy hearing the music which was originally heard on this old equipment, to know what it sounded like. By the way, for those with DIN inputs on old radios, which do not have FM: Most MP3 players have an included FM radio, so this would be a great way to add an FM tuner to any of these. |
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