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| Reviews Summary for Grundig G3 with SSB |
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Reviews: 22
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Average rating: 3.5/5
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MSRP: $169.95
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Description: The Grundig G3 Globe Traveler is an innovative portable radio covering long wave, AM, FM, continuous shortwave plus the VHF aircraft band. It features dual conversion AM/SW circuitry for exceptional sensitivity and image rejection. It offers S.S.B. - Single sideband reception. It has an large 700 channel memory system with memory scan and auto tuning storage. Unlike other portables in it class, the Globe Traveler offers Synchronous Detection. This special feature addresses the issue of selective fading and co-channel interference on shortwave. RDS (radio data system) shows FM callsigns, artist, song title and messages when available. External antenna jack for SW, FM, VHF Air. Requires four AA cells (not supplied). 6.614 x 4.13 x 1.1 inches. Supplied with manual, protective pouch and AC adapter/charger.
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Product is in production.
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More info: http://www.etoncorp.com/product_card/?p_ProductDbId=916030
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write your own review of the Grundig G3 with SSB.
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VE7BGP
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 3, 2012 16:11
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Great Portable Rx
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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I also got my Grundig G3 on sale at The Source last April wow is that ever a great a great little Coat Pocket portable receiver! I waited for a while to review the little Radio. Mine is a later serial# 2011 version and when the propagation is good the Sync AM works great. I think these days with on goooooing poor propagation results in a lot of bad reviews for many rigs. No radio will give great results when the bands are dead from Solar Flares. With the proper U/Lsb injection frequencies and Dual bandwidth selectivity and Fine Tuning Control SSB tuning is almost as easy as a Ham Transceiver. This little radio outguns the DX-390 & 398 versions of Sangean Portables I compared then several times. The only Portable that comes close to this Grundig is the 25 year old ATS-803 I did the mod on to activate the Dual Bandwidths like the later ATS-803A has. SSB tuning is poor on the DX-390 and ATS-803 and whip antenna sensitivity is way better on the Grundig then any of the 3 of my Sangean portables. My 398 is better then most 398 or 909's for whip antenna sensitivity adequate but a little deaf when comparing to my G3. I hope others will pick up on these great little Pocket Book Receivers the later production ones are great the bugs are now ironed out. Grab one before they are gone.
73
Gerry VE7BGP
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VE3QTH
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Rating: 5/5
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Feb 3, 2012 09:01
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Great for the Sale Price!
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Well, the is as Good as it gets under $100 and is
Feature Rich: SSB, RDS, 700 Memories, FM/AM/AIR/SW, DX/LX, external Antenna port, Alarm clock, Signal Strength, wallwart, case, and so much more. Typical German Quality. I paid $49cdn. at The Source on clearance. I liked it so much I bought 5 of them, but kept just 3(two friends benefitted)
Down side:
Small buttons and hard to see. Sensitivity helped greatly by extenal antenna(just the way I like it). That's it.
I have many SW radios, but none have more features than my G3's. I thank my friend (MKX)for giving me the head's up.
I love this little radio. VE3QTH
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DXTUNER
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Rating: 3/5
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Jan 12, 2012 18:23
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I don't like it
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Almost back to back I bought a Tecsun PL-600 and this Grundig G3. My plan was to keep the better radio. This Grundig G3 is going right back to Radio Shack.
The G3 has good SW sensitivity (below 20 MHz it does) but that's where the good ends. The Tecsun PL-600 has better MW sensitivity and far superior audio all around. The G3's audio is kind of muffled. The PL-600 has rather amazing sound in all modes.
The Grundig has VHF Airband, but let me tell you its deaf there. Even with an external wire it is. I am a seasoned airband listener.
I go as high as 3 stars for this radio only because its sensitivity was good on the lower HF bands. The unclear and sometimes hissy audio repulsed me right off though. The PL-600 is a much better portable general coverage radio.
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ROBWIN12000
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Rating: 5/5
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Sep 10, 2011 16:05
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Excellent Radio
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I got one of these radios from Radio Shack . Checked it out on the AM broadcast band with some stations that are hard to get on any AM radio . What I found out is this radio has the need for a antenna tuner for the AM band . I went to Radio Shack and bought another Grundig G3 and had the same problem [exactly] . With all this said I turned on the sinc control and got a lot better results on the AM band , but not excellent . I also checked out the S.W band and the selectivity & sensitivity are excellent , this is where this receiver really shines . I got some faint stations and turned on the sinc control and the receiver really came alive , WOW . I also checked out the FM band and not bad for what it receives , selectivity & sensitivity are good . It also has RDS on FM band and you can see the call letters of the station you are listening to across the screen and the name of the tune you are listening to . The aircraft band is also nice to have and to listen to . It also has Long Wave . Now the Sinc control really works , as good as the one on the Sony ICF 7600 .
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KB9AZZ
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Rating: 4/5
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Aug 1, 2011 15:04
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This radio is what I expected
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I too could not decide if I wanted the Sony or the Grundig. I could get either at a good price $130.00 but the Grundig was sold at a local dealer and the Sony would have been mail order only for me. Unlike the previous poster I did not find my radio to have an overload or Sync problem. I found tuning HAM SSB signals touchy, the fine tune wheel helps. I have operated my radio mostly in the evening and found DX AM Shortwave listening to be just fine with or without an external antenna. I have a local noise issue with the AM Medium Wave Band that this radio is very prone to. My Sangean CC Radio is able to deal with this problem very well. Additionally I noticed some noise being generated internal to the radio when operating from battery on the AM MW Band. However I did not purchase this radio for AM MW listening. I found the memory page layout great and easy to organize. Also the cut and paste function is very usefull. The user guide could use some work. Most functions are explained well enough however I found the manual to be the bare minimum. This is my only portable shortwave radio, I have two fullsized HF transcievers and these perform much differently than this compact radio. Overall I find the G3 to be very functional and useful.
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SCANNUT99
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Rating: 0/5
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Jun 11, 2011 18:03
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Well I am now eating my words
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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I am an advid shortwave geek. I love portatops the most but a small portable is what I take when I travel. I learned from now on not to review with that classic line "first impressions" as I did with this and the Satellit 750. (I will be adding a review for that radio later)
It turned out that my radio overloaded on everything with just the whip. The sync doesn't sync, it jumbles 4 signals into mush.
OK OK. Maybe it's an early model. We all know how Eton has QC issues. So I went to three Radio Shacks and Fryes Electronics and tried 6 more radios. Each was worse with overload than the previous one and serial numbers made no difference.
Bottome line, this is a terrible radio that simply can not get anything right.
I am trying another similar radio. It has positive reviews only but I will wait for a month before I give my two cents.
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SCANNUT99
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Rating: 5/5
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May 20, 2011 20:54
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Awesome new Portable. It is THE portable to have.
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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These are first impressions. I own an E1 and it is in repair. (Still covered by Warranty) Well, I wanted a portable anyways and a decent sub (Temporarily) for the E 1. I couldn't decide between the Sony 7600 gr and the E3 but I had read so many conflicting reviews, I got both. Other than being tiny, and actually having a smaller speaker than the Sony, I truly expected what many have said about the G3. Well to my elation, this is one awesome portable. Great big sound, and fantastic sensitivity. It holds sync fine and under the exact same placement and using the same home made external antenna, there was no contest. The Sony is ok but it actually does not hold a lock nearly as well as the E3. More to come as I dig into this wonderful little wonder. The Sony is good, but the E3 is superior in every way so far. And it is selling at Frys electronics (They have a website as well as retail outlets) it cost only $99. Wow. A+++++
More soon on both of these.
One other comment. I do not get how Eton/Grundig would release a new portatop (750) that is more of a toy and can't even begin to be compared to the E1. Why they didn't just get the QC issues fixed and add dsp, is completely nuts. Hope they can fix mine. Although it has some QC issues, it is really the best Portatop ever made.
But as a portable, get the G3, you can not go wrong. (Apparently early models had sync issues. Mine had none.)
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KC8VWM
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Rating: 4/5
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Feb 14, 2011 20:09
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Worth The Price
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Time owned: 6 to 12 months
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First I would like to point out I have been SWL'ing for 35 years. I have owned many portables including high end SW portables costing well over $400 - $600. The G3 is definitely worth the price and I find you get similar performance and features often found in many competitors "yesterday" portables costing much more money.
My first impression was they correctly engineered this portable SW radio with a sufficiently long telescopic antenna. Clearly, the longer the antenna is on any portable SW radio, the better the signals are going to be and the G3 meets the mark.
Other nice functional feature similar to many higher end portables is the addition of an external antenna and audio line in/out jacks. The quality of the SSB signal is perfectly fine and stable enough for using the line out jack connected to your PC for digital mode reception.
The G3 radio case has a rubberized texture giving it a sort of ruggedized feel in your hand. Also similar to one of my high end Sony portables, the G3 also has a flip out stand mounted on the rear of the radio. This feature enables you to operate the radio sitting upright at a slight angle when sitting on the table.
It also comes with a custom padded (soft Italian leather?) carry pouch and includes an AC adapter. The radio is also capable of using the supplied AC adapter to charge NiMH batteries inside the radio if so desired. Internal battery charging is accomplished in the G3 by setting a menu setting to charge according to various time intervals. My impression was this charging arrangement is similar to setting the Yaesu FT 817 menu settings to charge its internal battery at a predetermined time interval. The charging timer ensures the internal batteries are not overcharged. I call this time interval charging feature charge and forget mode.
Unlike my higher end Sony portable, the G3 has a nice feature which leaves the frequency display light on indefinitely when using it with the external AC adapter. The Sony display light on the other hand only stays on for a number of seconds after depressing the light button and then shuts the display light off automatically.
Similar to Sony models I own, the G3 also has pages for storing "types" of stations for quick and organized retrieval. These pages are generally setup as "banks" of frequencies and each page can be organized to store 7 frequencies in each page. The G3 can store 700 frequencies which I thought was an impressive capability for a portable SW radio in this price range.
Other nice features include a built in digital S-meter, Auto Scan function for band cruising mode, auto sync mode for automatic SSB detection and tuning, or override using manual SSB tuning control, and RDS display (digital station ID sent from the station) capabilities.
However the impressive capabilities don’t stop there. The first thing you will notice when you power it on, is the quality of the audio from the speaker. If you remember the distinct deep rich audio quality of the old Grundigs, you are definitely going to like how the G3 radio sounds!
I feel this is partly due to the speaker size which is approx. 35% the size of the entire radio. The speaker seems to have been specifically engineered and ported to reproduce this certain sound quality. I also find when playing the radio at higher volume levels, and although the display light does flicker slightly, the G3 audio quality remains boomy, crisp and doesn't bog down with distortion like cheap $50 SW receivers would do. I would say the audio quality of the G3 sounds much better than my Sony SW 55 receiver in a side by side comparison..
One thing I also noted on the G3 is the quiet noise floor in this receiver. However, I found this lack of background noise does not in any way equate to poor receiver sensitivity as some may have been suggesting. Rather, I find the absence of such white noise in the receiver’s noise floor seems to demonstrate the signal to noise ratio is quite comparable to some of the higher quality amateur radio rigs I have used.
Using the built in telescopic antenna, I was able to pick up many "difficult" to hear stations on various bands. Seems the receiver sensitivity is consistent across the general coverage spectrum.
What’s a review without a few negatives, so here are a few gripes of the G3.
The weekdays are labeled on the display in terms of numbers instead of abbreviated days of the week. So basically, instead of SUN for Sunday, it is represented as #1 and Saturday is represented as the #7 instead etc. There appears to be room on the display to have added weekday abbreviations instead of numbers, but I suspect using English abbreviations might have caused confusion if this radio was intended to be marketed in non English speaking markets.
The s-meter on the display is too small. I suppose this could be because I am used to seeing a much larger S-meter display on my higher end SW portables.
To enter a frequency, (direct entry) you must enter the desired digits on the number pad and press the "AM" key. I suppose "AM" in this case also means "Enter" but the oddity is it doesn’t indicate that function on the AM button for some reason. (It's a learning curve thing.)
The tuning knob on the side seems cheap, flimsy and the knob turns like it's slightly out of alignment. There also should be a way to change the tuning resolution to "sweep" the band at a faster rate. For smoother tuning knob operation, perhaps installing a ball bearing type tuning knob like you would typically find on a Yaesu FT 817 VFO or something similar would have been ideal for tuning the G3, but considering the price of the G3 and its other capabilities, I can't really complain.
Conclusion:
If you are looking for a high end SW receiver (Sony etc.) but you don't want to pay the higher price, definitely get the G3. You won’t be disappointed.
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K4QET
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Rating: 2/5
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Jan 18, 2011 04:19
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Eh?
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Time owned: 0 to 3 months
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Bought new looking on Ebay. Excellent sound, esp for hearing problems. AM whistles/noises which change as backlight changes! Sync/ssb stopped working after few months. Excellent FM sensitivity/selectivity. Not too sensitive on AM or SW. Very complicated, difficult to use in the dark. I say a definite "Eh...". 73 Mike
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W8LV
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Rating: 5/5
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Nov 27, 2010 11:26
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GREAT RADIO!
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Time owned: more than 12 months
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Bought mine for 89 bucks. The Sync works great, and even if you just use this radio on AM (A.K.A. "Mediumwave" everywhere else but the USA and Canada) it's GREAT to "lock in" the distant AM stations.
NO! It's not a professional unit costing three large bills! But it IS the best portable set that I have ever owned, and I've owned plenty that I paid plenty more for.
It's easy to program, it sounds good, it pulls in the weak ones, it doesn't suck up batteries, and it goes wherever you go... what more could you ask for?
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