Grundig Satellit 205 (Transistor 5000) 1964 - 1966
With the Satellit 205 (Transistor 5000) Grundig introduced a new generation of particularily shortwave-friendly portables.
The radio has a total of 13 bands; From the large vertical tuning scale (right front side) you can tune four Shortwave bands - as well as MW ,LW , and FM.
The whole spectre of bands are put into one big, well arranged scale... On the smallest horizontal scale (upper/left corner) you can tune six separate shortwave bands ,arranged in easy-to-tune bandspreads.
The Grundig Satellit 205 in fact has two separate shortwave tuners built-in; The first with full coverage shortwave reception from 1,6MHz to 30MHz ,and the second specialized tuner has so called "bandspreads" for the six most popular shortwave broadcast bands.
The main scale quickly finds or pinpoints a station ,while the six-band shortwave bandspread more comfortably selects your desired stations.
The fact that you can tune the same shortwave station in both receivers (or tuning-scales) ,and then decide which one to use ,is a benefit when sudden interferences ,atmospheric changes, or fading occurs.
The shortwave bands in the main tuning scale has a total linear distance of only 60 cm (or equiv. to 23,5"). By "Linear distance" ,the total distance that the the tuning-pin travels (or "traverses") in a dial scale , is described.
For the six most popular broadcast bands ,the "linear distance" is just over 3 cm (or equiv. to 1,3") in the main tuning scale (SW 1 - 4).
By arranging these shortwave bands as bandspreads (in the horizontal tuning scale) , the 6 bands has a much greater "linear distance" of 70 cm (equiv. to 27,5"). Each separate band has a linear distance of 11,5 cm (equiv. to 4,5").
This is a 20-fold improvement in tuning- selectivity compared to the bands found in the main (vertical) tuning scale !
Shortwave bands (all with no gaps) are tuned from the main tuning scale - along with FM- , MW- and LW-bands (above/ right is a more detailed view).
The shortwave bands also has a fine-tuning control that comfortably tunes 400KHz up- or down from any frequency tuned. (circuitry for the fine-tuning control is pictured above/right)
Shortwave bandspreads are arranged in the Turret- or Drum-Tuner. The mechanism not only has six bandspread scales ,tuning mechanisms, dialing pins and stringings; they are receivers in their own right ,with the circuitries of their own...
The Turret Tuners were tested and tuned in separate test bench facilities ,and then added to the chassis/receiver assembly on the main production assembly line.
To select any desired bandspread ,you turn the turret by using the band-selector situated on the outher left side of the receiver.
The turret bandspreads (16,19,25,31,41 and 49 meters) has a dedicated tuning control/wheel at the top. (Left picture above).
The main tuning scales uses the bottom ,large tuning wheel.
This layout quickly lets you switch between stations tuned in the main tuning- scale and stations tuned in the shortwave bandspread scale, simply by pressing a dedicated band-selector button (seen on the picture above/right). This feature was called "Diversity Drive".
The FM-scale has its own separate stringing and dialing pin arrangements (This feature was called "Duplex Drive").
The scale-arrangements makes for three "presets" to be selected by pressing the desired band selector.
The 3-station "preset" setup can be set up as follows;
1. 1 x SW station (turret tuner) + 1 x SW station (main tuner) + 1 x FM station (main tuner)
2. 1 x SW station (turret tuner) + 1 x LW station (main tuner) + 1 x FM station (main tuner)
3. 1 x SW station (turret tuner) + 1 x MW station(main tuner) + 1 x FM station (main tuner)
The internal SSB-adaptor was an optional accessory (add-on) with the Grundig Satellit 205 ,and had to be physically built into the set (it was not an external adapter/box like in later models).
The SSB- unit was operated from the back of the set.
The side-model called Grundig Satellit 205A (A for "Amateur") had the SSB-unit built into the set by default (i.e. the unit/adaptor factory assembled and adjusted).
The Satellit 205A had the six most popular Amateur Broadcast Shortwave Bands built into the Bandspreads (in the Turret Tuner) , instead of the regular shortwave broadcast bands found in the Satellit 205.
The information above is based on "Grundig Technische Informationen" (June 1965, Pages 896 - 898). The original article was written by W. Kaiser.
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