A wonderful portable shortwave at a reasonable price

As a Canadian living near New York, I had two reasons to consider buying a battery operated shortwave radio. First, I wanted to be able to listen to news from my former home and second, I wanted to have a reliable battery operated radio in case of emergencies.

I wasn't looking to spend a fortune, but I also knew that unless you invested in a reasonably competent unit, you were likely to be disappointed in shortwave. After investigating a relatively large number of units, I settled for the Grundig YB 400PE based on its overall reputation for quality and value in the shortwaving community.

The unit itself is very nicely designed and very portable. It is slightly larger than a large paperback, and about twice as heavy. In keeping with its portable nature, the unit comes with a vinyl case, an external travel antenna (a spool with about 23 feet of wire that neatly winds up in a convenient disk), an AC adapter and a basic pair of "bud" style earphones.

For a mid-level shortwave radio this unit is very well equipped. Tuning with the unit is entirely digital - which makes it much more precise and hassle free (though you may miss having a dial if you are a traditionalist). You can either type in a frequency straight into the keypad - or you can seek up or down within any given band. The unit provides virtually continuous coverage all the way from Long Wave (144 khz) through Mid Wave (AM), and Shortwave to FM (108 MHz). It is also nice that when you type in the frequency you are looking for, the unit automatically flips to the correct band (ie, 93.9 will automatically take you to FM while 9590 will automatically take you to shortwave).

Rounding out the features the 400PE has a 24 hour clock which covers two time zones and includes a very nice alarm and snooze feature (making it a fully functional alarm clock). The radio lets you store up to 40 station presets across all bands. You can then immediately access these presets by typing in their number and hitting one of the "Memo" keys. Finally the unit has a basic Single Sideband feature which allows you to monitor maritime, ham radio and weather frequencies. This is a fairly rare feature in this price range.

But enough about features. The real question is; how well does it perform. I am happy to say that I have been extremely pleased with the performance of this little unit. Needless to say, the standard AM and FM reception of the unit is terrific. Grundig is known for the fidelity of their units and this one is no exception. The built in speaker gives a very warm and full sound.

But when you switch to shortwave, that's when the unit really shows it's muscle. From the Eastern US with the built-in whip antenna the unit can easily pick up the more muscular stations (ie, Radio Canada International, BBC's Worldservice for the Americas or Radio Netherlands). As with the AM or FM stations - I find that the onboard speaker delivers a very pleasant tone when bringing in these broadcasts (the BBC can be a bit fuzzy at times).

However, I wanted to push things just a little bit further. To that end, I have a 25 foot "longwire" antenna hooked up into the unit's external antenna jack. I built the antenna myself using Radio Shack's $10 "Shortwave Radio Kit". With this little antenna attached, I not only get crystal clear reception of the previously mentioned broadcasts, but I can routinely pick up broadcasts from Africa and/or the Middle East. (Note for the beginner: many of these broadcasts are in English).

Personally, when going after faint stations, I prefer to listen to headphones. Frankly, the included ear-bud headphones are basically useless in this unit. With these headphones I find there is so much static at low volumes that I soon get a headache. For whatever reason I found that any "ear bud" style headphones gave a similar result - probably because of circuit noise from the radio itself. However, once I upgraded to full sized headphones I was in heaven. The buss was gone entirely - and the sound quality was loud and clear.

Overall, I am very happy with this unit. I keep it plugged in by my bed and listen to World News for an hour or so before I go to sleep. When I travel, I pop in 6 AA batteries, bring along the travel antenna and I am ready to go. Though this unit cannot compete with the heavy-weight tabletop units used by DXers, it is an extremely capable portable that opens the door for those looking to explore World Band radio.