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| Reviews Summary for Grundig G6 Aviator |
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Reviews: 22
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Average rating: 4.0/5
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MSRP: $$100
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Description: portable general coverage and airband
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NB1R
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Rating: 5/5
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Jul 22, 2009 10:32
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Amazing performance for a tiny package
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I have owned this little bugger since June 2009, when I bought it on vacation to replace my YB400 which apparently had a traumatic flight in American Airline's cargo hold.
Anyway, I was stunned - STUNNED I SAY - by the tiny size. Yet, the fit and finish is very good and the unit has nice heft to it.
I was skeptical as to how well it would perform on the SW bands with the short whip that other mention. However, it is every bit as good at the YB400 was. I have no problem picking up any of the large broadcasters and can even pull in Australia indoors in MA on the whip. Pretty impressive.
I agree that the little speaker isn't so hot in the fidelity department and it does distort easily if you crank up the ole volume too much. However, with ear buds its amazing. (Between you and me - sometimes on the rare occasion when the XYL is snoring, I'll pop in the earbuds and drop back asleep listening to Steve Lavallee on BZ or Noory on RKO - - - but you didn't read that here.)
I have not had any problem with FM - - - I find the audio to be quite good in stereo with the buds or mono - the tone switch on the radio is fabulous.
One thing I LOVE is the memory page system - 100 pages of 7 memories each with a four character alpha for each page. I've programmed in the main frequencies for many of the major broadcasters onto each page and titled the page for the station... for instance "CUBA 6000, 6180" etc. Makes it easy to scan for favorite stations and programs w/o having to consult a program guide.
I haven't tried the air bands out yet, but I didn't really get it for that.
I have also yet to try the SSB feature - although I intend to - I may return to update my review when I do.
One small issue - the whip antenna popped out of its mount the other night - so odd... I pressed it back in, no worries.
Overall, when you consider the price and very nifty compact size its a fabulous radio. Sure, its not going to outperform a desktop rig with a rooftop wire, but if you need something on the go, it won't do you wrong.
73 de NB1R
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KJ4MPT
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Rating: 4/5
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Jul 9, 2009 22:11
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Worth it? Yeah, it is.
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Originally purchased to tide me over until the G3 came out, I'm glad I got it. I use it primarily for shortwave. LW is deaf, but there isn't much there. I'm pleased with the MW reception. 1.7-1.999 uses the internal ferrite antenna, and consequently is deaf, so 160 meter listening is not there. Off the whip, many stations receivable throughout the rest of the 2-29.999 range. Will not switch to FM for the 10 meter FM window, but I've got a scanner for that. I would prefer the auto-search to scan continuously, instead of just the international broadcast bands. Also, the auto-search rarely works, stopping on only the strongest stations. Tuning wheel very jumpy initially, but it has settled down with use. On the fast setting, there is a tiny amount of 'play' in the wheel that will adjust the frequency by a few hz, but it takes a very steady hand. SSB is adequate. If you are in ssb mode, you can tune down into the MW BCB range, but it doesn't work very well for exalted carrier use. Using a reel-up antenna, reception is improved somewhat. Use of the Realistic Amplified Shortwave Antenna works great!
Now, the aircraft band. Yeah, there are images all over it. I've found some surprises, like the fundamental of one of the local police frequencies. The DTV switch has also helped. Direct entry of the freqencies will usually avoid images. My biggest gripe: the external antenna jack doesn't disconnect the internal ferrite bar for LW/MW/160M. Also the synthesizer picks up some noise in RF heavy locations. 700 memories is great, may never fill it. Recalling a memory is easy, but trying to recall another memory will sometimes result in the second memory being overwritten by the first, so keep a log. Overall, I'm pleased with this little radio.
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N7JBH
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Rating: 4/5
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Jul 7, 2009 19:29
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Tiny radio
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Time owned: months
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Picked up one at Radio Shaft today for $90.00, almost returned it before finally figuring out how to tune it in smaller than 1KHZ increments. Audio distorts a little when volume is turned up.. Going to use it with my MFJ 40M QRP transmitter, with portable home made wire dipole. The whole setup with batteries will fit nicely in a small Crown Royal cloth pouch.
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CATONI52
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Rating: 4/5
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May 5, 2009 13:53
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Great Little Radio
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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Further to my review, what can be seen today with many radios, is variation between radios of the same make and model. Probably due to spotty quality control, and not enough time on the assembly lie to make fine adjustments. What I did when I bought my Grundig G6, (and I've done this with other radios), is to ask the salesman to bring out three new G6's all in their boxes and put new batteries in them and let me compare. Then, I purchase the best of the three. He even will let me take them outside, going with me of course, and help me compare them. I find that no two are alike in reception. One is always not quite as good as the other two. And sometimes a lot worse. And almost always, one is better then the others.
Sales people don't mind, as long as I am going to buy one. They just want to make a sale. The next customer through through the dooor will probably not ask to compare like I do.
Using this method, I've never bought a bad radio that slipped past quality control. I've done this with my Eton E5, E100, Katio KA1102, KA11 and Grundig G6. Compared three of each, and bought the best one of each.
I like the G6 Aviator. It fits nicely in my backpack with a few spare batteries, a small fold up wire antenna and TG34 active loop and spare rechargeables with a solar bettery charger.
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N3NXD
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Rating: 2/5
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Apr 10, 2009 16:47
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Too costly, no filtering.
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought one 4-7-09. Played with it after review of instruction manual. The unit is hyper-receptive. In the home picked all electronic noise. Took unit outdoors 50 ft. from house before clear reception.
I'm old-school. Don't like tuning with buttons and straining to see display. Poor SSB, too broad. This unit would be good for occasional backpacker use.
It was returned so fast, there was a sonic boom. Got a Grundig 350DL, sweet.
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W7PSK
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Rating: 0/5
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Apr 6, 2009 08:05
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;Worthless Junk
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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SW is DEAF on the wihip. Haven't hooked up an external yet. But I hear nothing at all with the built in whip. Even on the 40 and 80m HAM BANDS locals should be heard and I hear ZILCH. AIR Band is close to useless with Birdies galore. Its overloaded by local stations.
This thing was a waste of Money
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NG9D
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Rating: 4/5
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Mar 10, 2009 20:09
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USB better than LSB
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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... as for the SSB reception, my particular unit receives USB better than LSB. For example, 20 meter ham sideband is great; 40m or 80m is frustrating. Frustrating in the sense that the USB is received noticably stronger than LSB, so much so that even fairly loud signals can't really be easily copied on LSB. Of course on CW this means I almost always listen on USB, tuning below the signal. Not even sure why I thought this was so important to report, except if you get one of these to copy SSB you might want to check that out (try copying CW and see if it is louder on USB than LSB - I put an example of this on you tube). Air traffic stations and aviation weather transmit on HF USB so it doesn't adversely affect reception of those signals... only 80 and 40m ham traffic. I hadn't mentioned 160m because the receiver really doesn't hear anything below 2.0MHz except AM BC, I think maybe that is where the circuit switches to the internal antenna and the sensitivity is attenuated so that AM BC doesn't overload it. But it does receive SW BC very well and has pleasant audio for SWL. 73 NG9D
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KB2CWN
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Rating: 4/5
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Feb 11, 2009 06:08
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Excellent for price
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought this little radio last week. I wanted a small receiver to bring to work every now and then. Although my DX 440 is an excellent receiver, its a bit heavy with the installed batteries. The receiver deilivers good reception when the bands are active. Like all SW receivers that I have owned, taking it outdoors or plugging in an external antenna improves its receive, but overall, a nice little gem.
Pro's= Compact
easy to use
good receiver
good price
Con's= SSB/CW signals somewhat distorted. I have found that leaving the volume low during SSB/CW operation improves the receive.
Air band receives splatter from (I believe) FM broadcast. It works, especially if your close to an airport where you can pickup a tower or approach. But then again, I didnt buy this radio to listen to aircraft anyway.
Other than that, for the money and size, its an excellent little sidekick, when the big stuff just isnt possible. My DX 440 runs circles around it, but I cant fit it in my pocket. So, two thumbs up for what I need it for. It serves the purpose of being portable.
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KC2TOF
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Rating: 5/5
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Jan 28, 2009 14:09
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Great radio for the price!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I bought this radio to primarily do night time DX, more on AM and less on SW. Since I work in ground to air communications at airports in the Northeast, I thought it would be nice to have a radio which tunes aviation, especially 129.000 to 137.000 MHz. NiMH batteries charged in unit with varying charge time is a great feature!
I am satisfied with what this set does on AM, primarily because of its great IF filter! I live in NYC, so 50 kw and other local stations abound, and in every case minus those with digital sidebands, I can clearly uncover the adjacent channels, examples WJR 760 next to WABC 770, also WHAM 1180 (my Rochester NY home town) next to 1190 WLIB. At 11 kHz away from the local channel, the splatter interference is all but eliminated! Excellent!
Tone is adequate on "mega-bass" setting, although I occasionally prefer the "flat" setting for audio filtering. Good sound in headphones.
Good nighttime travelling radio.
Shortwave: excellent sensitivity, got hard to catch CHU on 14.670 mid-afternoon, as well as its other 2 frequencies, 7.850 (new) and 3.330 MHz. SSB surprised me, with the small tuning steps allowing for near perfect audio clarification. There is some BCB interference on SW, but that is pardonable in the Newark, NJ, location where I tested, with the feared Meadowalnds' Kingdom of Local Station Towers next door.
Note: YB 400 PE had AM images about 20 kHz down from all strong local stations' assigned frequencies, too.
I do not listen much to FM in NYC, programming here is not to my liking.
Aviation: At Newark Liberty Int'l., there is about 40% perhaps, of the range 118-137 MHz with from slight to severe FM broadcast interference. In most cases, I lower the antenna about 2 sections, and/or move in a circle to find a spot where the FM broadcast interference diminishes. I tested the unit by comparing what it could do in-shop, against what a professional transceiver made by Technisonics Ltd. of Canada, with an outside roof mounted antenna did, as well as an ICOM IC-A6 also in-shop. For what it is, it did ok. Expect to get what you pay for in this life.
I am secondarily interested in what a signal strength meter shows, as opposed to what I hear coming out of the speaker, but any comparative indication can be made to be useful. I may bench test the unit in the future to translate what the attempt was to set up the signal strength indicator as it is, in terms of S/N.
The rest of the display and the buttons all seem to do their job as advertised, with one exception: recall of a station stored in memory 1 number up from the currently memory selected causes the current station to take over that next memory location, so 1 station in 2 locations! I just re-enter the lost station at its intended location.
At $80.00 from Radio Shack, this was a good deal. This radio has enough going for it to warrant a serious look!
What I now need is a "daytime equivalent", with utterly outstanding AM sensitivity (1 uv /m2 or better!, like the Sony ICF-2001), with reasonable fidelity and very good adjacent channel interference rejection.
Thanks,
Mike
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TERRYW
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Rating: 2/5
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Jan 8, 2009 16:41
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TINY radio has powerful SW and a few quirks
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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This time, Eton brings us a radio little bigger than an audio cassette case. Yes, it's THAT small. Does the performance match?
The tiny size has a huge appeal in itself. This portable is so small, you could lose it on the table. What's next, radio you need an electron scanning microscope to see?
The speaker sound is nothing to write home about, unless you're writing home to complain. The sound isn't exactly tinny, but it is narrow and tends to fatigue your ears after a while. That isn't good. It certainly lacks the crisp and often stunning fidelity of its big brother the G5. Adequate for its tiny size, I guess, but little more, and certainly NOT room-filling. Improved through a good pair of headphones, but still less than stunning.
The G6 only has one filter width. Looks to be about 5 kHz. That's actually very good for SW and prevents the adjacent interference and squealing Het problems which the G5 has. That's probably also why the sound on the G6 is so narrow. Fine for AM, though your FM experience will be a bit lackluster.
The FM reception is pretty good, though inferior to the G5. The MW reception is pretty good too, and better than I expected from such a tiny ferrite bar. What about the SW reception?
The SW reception is no less than stunning. The G6 is as hot as the G5 in that department, and perhaps hotter. Impressive engineering feat with such a tiny whip. And the G6 is less prone to MW and FM intrusions on SW than is the G5. The G5 suffers from a lot of them - the G6 barely any. The G6 is also better with fading distortion than the G5. Eton and company got this part of the radio pretty exactly correct.
FM intrusions are all over the Air band, however. I had to collapse the tiny whip to escape them, and even then couldn't evade all of them. That's not very good. Not at all.
The signal meter is just about useless. It reads S9 for any station you can hear. Very rare to see any poundage less than that. So that is actually useless, I guess. Somebody dropped the ball there.
And yes, this tiny little radio has SSB. It isn't selectable LSB/USB, same as the G5, but unlike the G5, it isn't fine tuned with an overly coarse analog dial, but instead digitally in 10 Hz steps. That's excellent, so why wasn't this feature included on the G5? The superior SSB tuning is featured on the inferior radio on the price and class tree? Why? What are you thinking, Eton? ARE you thinking, even? However, the filter is a bit wide for the HAM bands, and you'll still find yourself twiddling blind to find which frequency an operator is really on. And when you finally get him zero-beat (something nearly impossible to do on the G5,) the wideness of the G6's filter ensures you'll hear Donald Duck from the adjacent channels. So put the narrow filter on the radio with the crap SSB tuning? Why, Eton?
The features don't stop here. There are also 700 memories, arranged exactly like on the G5, and an autoscan including an ATS mode. The memories are, well, surprising in that there are so many on this little thing of a radio. The autoscan is pretty useless, unfortunately. It's very happy to zip past dozens of those S9 stations its reading and stop on none of them. AND, the autoscan doesn't function at all in the Air band, the one place you need it most! You can't have it all, I guess. But when could you in a radio?
The ergonomics are a little better than on the G5. The buttons are even more cramped on the G6 (but you'd rather expect that.) The tuning knob (yes there is one) is face mounted, which looked like it should be great, but its flush with the front of the radio, and trying to use your thumb where a dimple should be (but isn't) means you bump against the Jog button on every full turn. Not painful, as with the G5's tuning knob, but annoying and improperly designed. An aftermarket dimple would help. Or you could make one. The Jog button lets you change the tuning speed between fast and slow, which is another nice option missing on the G5. Do you have two development teams trying to screw each other over, Eton? They're screwing US over, so tell them to get with the plan! Or IS that the plan?
And there's an external antenna jack. That's useless too. The G6 has no attenuator (bad) and unless you have one for your external antenna, don't even think about using on the G6 as all you'll get is buzz (no pun intended, seeing as this radio is named Buzz Aldrin... More radios should have people's names, don't you think?) So, another fumbled feature here.
All in all, an impressive radio. Excellent SW reception, acceptable FM and MW performance, more bells and whistles than you would ever expect on a radio this size, and some of them actually work properly. Bring it to work for show and tell, for it truly has some Wow Factor.
Pros:
TINY size (and I mean tiny!)
Excellent SW performance
SSB with 10 Hz fine tuning
filter width good for AM
700 memories
Cons:
Mediocre speaker sound
filter width too narrow for FM, too wide for SSB
useless strength meter
useless external antenna jack
useless Air band
useless autoscan
no autoscan for Air band
no DX/Local attenuator
tiny buttons
awkward dual-function of buttons
tuning knob has no dimple and you hit another button while tuning
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