Customer Reviews

Grundig G6 Aviator AM/FM, aircraft band and Shortwave Radio, Black

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is indeed an excellent new product. It seems very well made and should last a long time if treated with care. The radio is both extremely small (almost the same size as the Kaito KA11!) and readily transportable yet the reception is still excellent on all available bands. It is certainly not a Kaito KA1103 by any means, but for its size and weight it is quite exceptional, plus it has the aircraft band frequencies (see below for further details).

I like being able to change the news/music switch in order to slightly improve AM and SW signal audio fidelity (on my unit it is certainly NOT a deep bass boost switch however with little tonal changes being evident as the switch changes its position). Unfortunately this is also NOT a narrow/wide bandwidth filter switch which is not available on this radio at all. Using the SSB (single sideband) BFO (beat frequency oscillator) tuner is also very easy and straight forward with a key press on the front of the radio and in fine increments using the tuning dial as well. Unlike some other radios, SSB tuning is also available on the G6 on the AM band as well as on SW which is a very useful feature. The separate ability to step tune in very small increments with the jog dial setting is also excellent in my opinion once a signal of interest has been located. The unit also has an attached 20 inch telescopic antenna as well as an external antenna jack which is especially nice for receiving the weaker FM/SW/Aircraft band stations as well as an earphone jack for private listening (including FM stereo). LW and MW (AM) stations are tuned using the internal and excellent ferrite antenna coil.

I rather like the digital volume controls as well. The steps between each setting are sufficiently small that quite precise control of the volume levels can be attained, especially when using earphones which is my most common mode of operating this radio given the smallness of its speaker (but still adequate).

In addition, the Grundig manual for the G6 although too brief and lacking in some important technical details is just fine to read with no English translation problems as with the Degen (Kaito) radio manuals for the KA1102/KA1103. Degen now makes the G4, G5 and G6 for Grundig (whose designs originated from the Degen engineering brainpower from some 6 years ago now). These radios are now advertised as designed in California (by the Eton Corporation) and made in China, but to be fair Grundig has capitalized on a proven Degen/Kaito design and greatly improved on the ergonomics for using these fine radios.

The availability of the complete LW spectrum (formally from 153-279 KHz), but continuous on this radio from 150 KHz all the way to the start of the AM (MW) band at 520 KHz and of the Aircraft bands (117-137 MHz) and of the complete SW spectrum (1.711 to 29.999 MHz) on this unit is also true of the G5 as well (with the exception of the aircraft band). The Eton Corporation will soon start to advertise the availability of the complete LW band features on these new Grundig branded radios since it was originally and inadvertently overlooked by the marketers. (If you still have any doubts read the back of the radio in zoom mode on this website). The Sony ICF-SW7600GR also has the full spectrum of LW/AM(MW) and SW bands too and has advertised it all along, but that radio also lacks the aircraft band that is available on the new G6 Aviator radio. Especially for international travelers, the 10 KHz AM tuning step for N. America can also be changed to the 9 KHz step that is standard in Europe and Asia too.

One negative item is that the airband can not be automatically scanned like all of the other available bands on this radio. Another very negative item (see also below for those of you who live in heavily urban areas with lots of simultaneous interfering signals possible), is that there is no RF gain switch (DX/normal/local, etc.) on this radio at all either. Considering just how sensitive the front end of this radio is to weak signals, this is a very surprising error of omission in my humble opinion and one that should be rectified by Grundig (PUN intended!).

The G6 even has alarms and time zone capabilities and 700 memories that can be labeled along with with multiple and very useful ways I might add to tune and store information in this very versatile, dual conversion PLL (phase locked loop) synthesized, diminutive "micro-receiver style" radio. These memories are arranged for all of the 100 pages with 7 memories to a page. Each of these 100 pages can be labeled alphanumerically in groupings to boot. The presets can also be chosen on each page randomly regardless of the band. On another website there is a discussion of some occasional small microprocessor problems when loading two adjacent presets on a single page. The radio apparently can lock up, but it is easy to unlock and simply reload the page once again with no further preset storage problems.

There is even an on-screen clock as well as the day of the week and a battery level indicator, a hold switch for locking all of the buttons as well as a separate lock switch chosen through the jog dial for the tuned frequency. There is also a very nice on screen and very detailed signal strength meter and a nice orange back-light system. The radio can also charge batteries inside the radio (sounds like the KA1102/KA1103 proven technology once again- eh?) and it even comes with a one year warranty, a slip case as well as a AC/DC adapter charger. It runs on 2 AA batteries normally while in its portable state. It even has a nice carrying strap permanently attached to the radio as well which is a nice touch given its very small size. For you collectors, there is even a Buzz Aldrin special edition version of this radio advertised on Amazon, but apparently it is not yet available (as on early May 2008).

UPDATE: May 27, 2008:

I am in Alabama on travel and I too have now experienced very significant bleeding of apparently high power am stations directly on to the aircraft band at several frequencies. As a heads up, this just goes to show that to adequately test any radio it should be done at several locations. However, I have experienced none of this am frequency bleeding at my home location in the high mountains of New Mexico for example. This suggests that the dual conversion available at two IF (intermerdiate frequencies) in this radio are not adequate in some locations to adequately block unwanted noise from the aircraft bands.

June 18, 2008 UPDATE:

Yes, as I had previously indicated above, the G6 Aviator is a PLL (Phase locked loop) dual conversion receiver with a digital display and 700 presetable memories (Information recently confirmed by Walter Hess, Technical Support Manager, Etón Corporation, 1015 Corporation Way. Palo Alto, CA 94303 USA)

Finally, I look forward very much to having the fun of using this radio for the high quality sounds of music, news and just general LW/AM(MW) broadcast band, shortwave and aircraft band listening from all over the globe for a very long time.

September 8, 2008: UPDATE

For those of you who really really like this radio (and there is a lot to like), in order to compensate for its extremely good sensitivity (except perhaps in the am band), a trick that I learned about by reading other web reviews is to actually shorten the whip antenna length significantly when bleeding and other interference occurs. This allows the arriving radio signals to not overload the system and be received with very significant improvement. Ironically, usually we are always interested in lengthening the radio antenna (especially outdoors if it is not too noisy at the radio frequencies of interest). I hope that this may help you to continue to enjoy your new Grundig radio! Out in the open countryside this bleeding is NOT a problem at all, so only the big city radio listeners (or travelers to big cities) need to be beware of this potential problem for the G6.

April 11, 2009: UPDATE

One very nice feature of the 24 hour clock system is that it is fully adjustable for traveling including a GMT (Zulu or UTC) setting. With the radio off you simply press and hold the #8 key until a long list of coded city names appears. Next, you simply choose the time zone code closest to the one that you are currently within using the tuning knob and wait 8 seconds and you are all set (it is then automatically stored until you change it again). If you desire to know the Universal (UTC) time separately, you simply choose the "GMT" choice briefly to find the time in Greenwich, England and then repeat the above procedure and go right back to your current timezone location. (Unfortunately there is no provision in the G6 for entering the date or activating daylight savings time so at certain times of the year your indicated GMT time could be up to 1 hour off unless you live in Arizona, etc.) As you continue to travel this process is easily repeated as often as may be needed.

I've owned this radio since it was first introduced and I've owned maybe 30 or 40 portable shortwave radios over the past couple of decades. I find this little unit to be a great value BUT only if you're looking for the feature set offered. Obviously if you don't care about aviation traffic or SSB, you could do a lot better for the money. BUT in my experience there aren't any better value radios out there at this price point that do it all better.

The aviation band is just so-so in terms of sensitivity and overload protection from broadcast AM but I find the SSB remarkable. SSB signals are easily found with the fast dial speed and easily tuned in to "listenable" frequencies with the slow speed setting.

The shortwave broadcast band is very sensitive and fidelity with good headphones is quite good and the FM stereo audio is excellent again through earphones. The channel separation or selectivity could be better on the shortwave bands but it's not bad unless you have two very big guns right next to each other.

All in all if you're looking for nice small portable shortwave radio that can handily receive broadcast AM shortwave, SSB, AM/FM commercial broadcasts, the G6 can be a lot of fun at a very good price point

Setting up the radio is a bit frustrating. There are quite a few symbols and numbers on the screen but no where in the book does it tell you what these mean. Normally most instruction manuals show what these are at the beginning of the manual but not this one. I also have read thru the manual and still have not figured them out.
The manual says that the radio can be powered by either 2 AA batteries or rechargable ones and neither were included. But 2 AAA batteries were included. It also says earphones are not included but it comes with earbuds.
This might be a great radio if the instructions were any good. Even auto searching for radio stations is a bit confusing to me. It says there are 3 different search functions. One is stop, where it stops at each station it finds, the second one is D-5, where it stops only for 5 seconds and continues on, and the thirdly, auto tuning storage. I tried it all 3 ways and it never worked. I spent 15 mins trying to figure this out. And even though I was following the instructions, sometimes the button to select these functions worked and sometimes it didn't. Currently to find a station, I have to manually find it instead of hitting the autosearch arrow key and that's really frustrating.

I loved the feel of this radio as it feels like a fine suede. The sound is awesome, however, I had to stand in the middle of my kitchen and hold the radio. If I attempted to lay it down, the music changed to static.

I will update this review if I succeed in figuring out how to work the radio. I am really excited to try the shortwave, but as another reviewer said, the radio needs a special long wire antenna or 50 to 75-Ohm coaxial cable feed line.

The Grundig G6 has a very nice feature set and is a very convenient size. The display is very informative and the radio is fairly easy to use, especially given all that it does. However, one buys a multiband radio like this to actually listen to it. Its performance overall is not in keeping with the $100 price point. Much better performing radio's are available at or below this price point.

My sample had significant overloading on the lower shortwave bands from local AM broadcast stations. Shortwave performance was ohterwise ok, but the unit was not as sensitive as other radios in this price range. Adding even a short external wire antenna of 15 feet only made the overloading worse. A major plus was it's SSB tuning performance ... far and away the best of the radios I've compared it to. AM BCB performance was ok but not as senitive as a Kaito 1102 or Degen 1103. FM performance was quite good. However the inter-station hiss was objectionable. As mentioned elsewhere, the AIR band is full of local FM broadcast stations bleeding through making it pretty much useless at my location.

So, this unit is pocket sized, is fun to use and has a ton of features but its overall performance will make it less pleasant to use ... especially if you happen to have other radios in this general price range to compare it to.

1/19/09 Update: I swapped out my orignal G6 for another, due to low sensitivity. My replacement G6 is now roughly as sensitive (on all bands) to my 1102 and 1103. I would now give the G6 3 stars.

I decided to cut back service on my cable TV service, (the provider doesn't offer Senior Citizen Discounts so I decided to make my own). The representative stated I wouldn't be able to receive any sports stations but I figured that would be okay, heck, I could just listen to games on the radio. That's when I decided to start looking for a small portable radio. I ended up going to retailers and playing around with a few before deciding on the Grundig D6 Aviator and I couldn't be happier.

The first thing I noticed about the Grundig was the way it felt in my hand, it felt rock solid and I liked the rubberized finish, I liked how precisely it tuned in both AM and FM stations, the locking feature so you can't accidentally tune out the station you're listening to, the fact that with the AC adapter plugged in the Grundig will charge rechargeable batteries, the decent sound of the built-in speaker and I really like the fact I'm able to plug in my stereo speakers when I'm home. A nice little plus is the pouch that it can be stored in so it doesn't get beat up when traveling.

Unlike many others rating this radio I did not buy it for its SW or Aircraft band capabilities,I simply wanted a decent portable AM/FM radio so I can listen to baseball and football games, and a radio I could take camping with me, (so I can listen to baseball and football games :-)).

This has nothing to do with rating the radio but how many remember listening to radio programs and letting your imagination paint the characters and the action? Listening to a good sports announcer is much the same and more exciting than watching on TV.

I would suggest to anybody looking for a good portable radio go to your local retailers so that you can touch them, hold them, listen to them and really get a "feel" about the product. Then come back to Amazon and buy what you decided you like.

First of all I'm no expert shortwave or Hamm operator and I suspect most buyers looking at this item are the same. I own a Sony 7600GR and also a Grundig E5 but I wanted a small radio to take to the lake and carry with me. My first surprise was, this little radio brought in the same shortwave stations as the two big brothers and as clear. That in it's self blew me away.

This is a quality built little radio 5" L X 3" H with a small antenna. When I first openned the box and looked at the length of the antenna, I thought this wasn't going to be what I expected. I am in Canada so I'm not sure about all area's in the US but I was able to get Taiwan, Cuba, Sweden, and on and on so quickly I was amazed. I have read reviews on the radio and in my opinion alot of the articles are comparing this model against bigger and more expensive radio's. Also, most of the writers are proffessional radio operators that use $1000.00 + radio's and expect alot more then the casual users who have interest in just trying shortwave radio.

If you just want to see what shortwave radio is about and don't want to spend a fortune, I believe you will be overwhelmed by this radio. I don't need to go to a $400.00 plus radio, erecting a 100' antenna, I just like to surf the bands and tune in on various broadcasts. The little antenna on this radio is all you need, it works spendidly. AM and FM are also very good considering the size of the radio. It's no Boom Box but it isn't made for that purpose. It's made for enjoyment, knowledge, and just plain fun. I read one report were the writer said he will buy this model to give to friends it's so good. Hope you agree when you buy it, John

I have been using the radio for several days and here are my obsverations.

I purchased the radio for the aircraft band as I live about 10 miles from DFW airport. I have been able to listen to the aircraft as well as the control towers. Some aircraft frequencies come in great, the towers less so. All are however listenable. There is some bleed over into the aircraft band as is to be expected but not so much as to make it annoying.

You can pick up all of the major shortwave stations with no problem. Normal AM and FM reception is fine.

I find the SSB reception to be poor at best. You can select SSB mode but not USB or LSB. Tuning is done through the use of the tuning knob. If you are looking for SSB reception, I would look for a different radio, perhaps the Eton E1 or a tabletop set, both of which will cost much more.

The sound is ok for a radio with such a small speaker. Do not expect room filling sound for such a small radio. I was surprised at how small the radio really is. This would make an excellent travel radio. There are a lot of memory presets that you can use. The stations remain set even after the batteries are removed. I removed the batteries for 6 to 10 hours and the presets remained. Most of my listening has been done using an external reel type antenna.

All in all, for the money this is a nice feature rich radio. I recomment using an external reel type antenna for best performance. It makes a big difference. The external reel antenna is not included but they can be found in many locations for less than $10.00.

I ordered this radio looking for something that would have a little more sophistication than my Kaito KA11. I like this radio, but in my experience it received the same stations off the whip antenna that my KA11 (a radio that costs half as much) received with a piece of copper wire strung off its whip. With an external antenna, the G6 was overloaded, showing full signal on nearly every station and getting a lot of static, noise and bleeding of other bands.

The air band had the same AM bleed that other reviewers describe. When I did get airband, I thought that it was boring. Obviously that's not the radio's fault, but it ended up being a feature that I would never use. The radio also has SSB but I couldn't find anything over the entire band other than weird stretched am stations and static after a week's worth of trying. I may have been doing something wrong, but I read the instructions cover to cover and looked on the web, and other than scanning the air, what can you do?

I bought this radio for better SW reception and it has pretty good SW reception (gets the major broadcasts like BBC, Radio Havana Cuba, Radio Taiwan, CBC, UTC) without effort, just no better than the radio I already have.

If this is your first shortwave or want to give SW a try without hassling with external antennas, this would be a decent choice and you wouldn't be let down. However, Kaito's radios cost half as much, perform just as well, and include batteries and external antennas. They just have odd ergonomics and interfaces and hard to decipher instructions. I find those things a little charming. The only things that I prefer from this radio then my KA11 is the style and the jog wheel. FM and AM on this radio were very good, FM especially clear in Portland, OR.

I use this radio for DXing AM and SW most of the time. What is so good about this radio is that when you want to hear shortwave stations at night all you have to do is put the telescoping antenna up and you hear lots of them. The AM band is great performing even picks up just as good as my other radios. They got this radio down pat with AM and Shortwave. FM band is good performing you just have to hear a station that is strong enough to receive. Now for the disadvantages. The Long wave band is poor at 150 kHz to 300 kHz, the rest of the LW
band 300 kHz to 520 is just as good as the AM band so you will hear plenty of beacon activity
there. It is best that you use a tunable loop antenna set for that frequency range. Or must be in other parts of the world to hear these LW broadcasters. The aircraft band is silent unless transmissions are strong enough. The good thing about this radio is that the antenna jack is very sensitive so you will not need huge wire antennas unless used with a attenuator. The jack can be used with various scanner antennas for AIR and Shortwave and possibly FM. The bass and news switch does not make any difference to me not much bass in the megabass function. There is a stereo headphone jack for your private listening. It only takes 2 AA batteries while others take more.

Well this is going to be a short and sweet review on the grundig g6 aviator radio. I received this for X-mas (actually the buzz aldrin model) and couldn't be happier. I consider my self a radio noob and have only messed with cheap am-fm radios. First the build quality is excellent and the unit is very nice, with a smooth rubberized coating. The controls did take a little while to pick up, but after a while I was listening to BBC Africa and radio Iraq, French, German, Radio Cuba, ect ect. Plus many U.S. and Canadian stations I could never pick up with my other radios. I even was able to tune in my local airport information and tower chatter(very cool). It's refreshing to get a "world-wide" view of events, I didn't realize there were so many short wave stations to tune in. Now I know why they have so many save spots. I didn't try AM, but FM was way better than any other radio I personal used, reception wise and sound quality wise. The speaker sounds pretty damn good for being so small, and my shure e530 iems, sound great with no hiss. So this thing must have a pretty damn clean output as they are very sensitive to hiss. The bass boost is very nice also.

All in all a very nice radio, I like the SW reception so much I might pick up an external antenna and see what else I can find :)