Grundig shortwave portable radio

This is a review of the Grundig S350 shortwave radio that I have owned for 3 years. I have decided to rewrite the original review.

The radio is a bit larger than the average sized shortwave radio. It runs off of 4 D size batteries which are needed to keep the digital clock running. A power adaptor is included with the radio.

I did use a larger sized shortwave radio that my parents had back in the 70's. The reason I purchased this particular radio over some of the other models with memory function buttons is because it's more of retro radio and it seemed to remind me more of the shortwave radio I used to listen to back in the 70's.

The programming that I find on the shortwave bands is not as good now as it was back then. Now there are a bit to many religious stations filling up the bandwidths of shortwave reception.

The radio is made of plastic and is very stylish in appearance. The speaker is very small, I don't know the exact dimensions but I'd say maybe 2 1/2 inches. The speaker just does not provide enough volume to use outdoors. The audio fidelity from the S350 is not that great. I have a 25 dollar Durabrand portable stereo that I purchased at Walmart that has better sound and fidelity quality than this radio.

This radio covers all the shortwave bands, there are no gaps in tuning frequencies. There is no SSB so the amateur radio bands that the ham radio operators use will sound distorted. The overall reception of the Grundig on AM, FM and the shortwave bands is very good. The radio has a nice long antenna which is needed for good shortwave reception. The radio uses analog tuner circuitry and has a lighted LCD digital frequency readout for the radio and clock functions. The radio has a wake up alarm that uses the radio function but there is no wake up buzzer. Sometimes radio stations go off the air especially in the early morning so this radio could use something other than the radio for a wake up alarm signal.

The main tuning knob in front has an independent fine-tuning control knob so it's actually two knobs in one. There are bass and treble knobs along with an RF gain and volume knob on the front panel.

The side of the radio has a stereo earphone jack, a stereo/mono switch, a low pass filter switch for shortwave and AM reception and two speaker out connectors for FM stereo reception. It looks like the two speaker out connections require an RCA type of plug, using an external speaker with two wires will not work.

The back of the radio has two different hook up points for using an external antenna for shortwave or an external cable FM antenna.

The S350 could use memory functions because it is time consuming to try and find and remember all the different shortwave stations that are around. Overall I'd say the S350 is a good choice for general shortwave listening.