Grundig Satellit 3400

There's not much to tell about that legendary radio, since everyone, who is into DXing, knows it. Just a few words:

It was built from 1978 to 1982 and marked the top and the end of the traditional Grundig Satellit line. With its full SW range from 1.6 to 30 MHz, split up into 18 bands (including the streched 49m, 41m, 31m, 25m, 19m, 16m, 13m and 11m bands), its excellent FM reception with six programmeable stations and its digital frequency counter, it was certainly one of the most elaborated portable world receivers ever built. Its fantastic NF amplifier still generates astonishment, since SW and MW sound better than most plastic FM receivers of today. Almost 9 kilogramms weight on the handle, many knobs, switches and scales are adding, too.

Page from the Grundig Revue 1981

Page from the Grundig Revue 1981

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Grundig Revue 1981 [3]

Technical data from the Grundig Revue 1981

As large and impressive, the Satellit 3400 comes along, its disadvantages shouldn't be concealed, too:

The case was made only of plastic, no longer from wood. Expecially the large front plate makes a cheap impression. The wide exponated switches are in permanent danger of being broken off during a transport. And indeed, on most second hand radios, there are one or more switches broken off. Even more problematic are the easily oxidizing switching contacts. On the drum tuner, with its exhibited gold contacts, cleaning is fairly easy, but the sealed switches cannot be cleaned. On my 3400, this leads to level problems on the bandwidth switch, and the streched shortwave bands can only be received with lots of distortion. It looks, like these problems are common on this series.

When the Satellit 3400 was presented in 1978, it was still a modern (analog) device, but only a few years later, digital receiption was found everywhere. It offered much more convenience, absolute frequency stabilization and needed much less space. Only the "solid feeling" of the analoge technique wasn't there. And especially here, the Satellit 3400 with its 9 kg weight and its drum tuner was unbeaten.

The Metatechnical Cabinet

Grundig Satellit 3400