The lowest band is the 60 meter band and the highest band is the 13 meter band. So it covers most of the spectrum where SW broadcast stations will be. The 41 meter band starts at 6900 and goes to 7500. The 49 meter band, for example, starts at 5800 and goes all the way to 6300. But the SW bands themselves are very wide. So if you want to tune outside a designated SW band, it's a no-go - unless there is a workaround I haven't found yet. You press the SW button to cycle through the bands. I didn't try the radio with any wire clipped to the whip.
It was a night of fair to poor conditions, so I really don't know how it compares to other popular SW radios of the day - most people seem to have Grundigs and Tecsuns (which I don't have), and most of my digital portables are Sangeans which are not too sharp off the whip. Ten stations on 49 meters, 3 stations on 41 (including an Arabic chanting station on 7295, probably Algeria), and 4 stations on 25 meters (including RNZI). Because of the radio's AGC, you have to tune the loop slowly to find the peak.Ī couple nights ago on SW, I tuned across the 49, 41, and 25 meter bands, and got a reasonable number of stations just off the whip. The radio tends to work best with the loop on the right side of the radio (the side where the loopstick is located). With a loop, you can DX with it, because the radio has enough gain, and has good selectivity. Without a loop, it will perform probably as well as a clock radio. I think G2 can be used to DX with in a pinch - you just need a loop. Barefoot, the station was non-existent on the G2, with pulsing splash peaks, and there was nothing but splash on the SRF-59. Using the loop, the DX station was buried in splash on the SRF-59, where the G2 picked it up legibly with some splash peaks. 990 here is right next to a 50 KW blowtorch. I tuned in a distant station on 990 khz (using a loop) with both radios. The SRF-59 has a bit more gain, which is especially noticeable barefoot, and the sound is more pleasing. Performance wise, the two radios are roughly the same. But the SRF-59 has a good MW rep, mainly for its performance compared to its size and price - so I compared the G2 to the SRF-59, both barefoot and with a loop. Obviously, a short loopstick like that is not going to put the radio in Superadio territory. The MW loopstick is about 2 inches, the same size as the Sony SRF-59's. Not a DX radio on MW by itself, but not necessarily unusable for DXing, either. It has some minuses, but also a few good strengths. My conclusion is that it's an OK radio, might have some potential, especially with its selectivity. I don't recall hearing it on SW yet, maybe I just didn't tune in the right place, or just didn't notice it.īeing a MW DXer, and casual SW listener, I've been able to try out the G2 a few times on MW and a couple times on SW. If it's there, maybe I just haven't noticed it yet. Other parts of the MW band, I don't hear it. And the tick-tick I've only heard in places so far - mainly the lower end of the MW band, 650 khz and lower, and if there is a decent signal, it is covered. There is apparently a tick-tick every second or so that is sometimes audible on AM and SW if there are no stations present. I read that the MW is mediocre, SW is fair but AGC is too tight, and the MP3 supposedly plays but has dropouts. To start out with, the few reviews of the Grundig G2 I found were mixed to negative.
After trying out the radio for a couple days, I thought I'd post a review in case any other folks here see the radio for sale and are curious as to whether it is worth $30 or not. I needed another radio about as much as I needed another hole in my head, but being a radio fan, I decided to get one. $30 for a digital AM-FM-SW radio with a couple other functions, and good selectivity, is probably a good deal. Last time I went into a local area electronics box store (Fry's) I noticed the price of the Grundig G2 has been slashed from around $70 to $29.
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