First impressions - Grundig YB-550
The Grundig YB-550 is indeed the Eton 550. It is made in China. The
YB-550 is about 2/3 the size of the YB500. The YB-550 has 200 station
memories and uses 3 AA batteries. I have not tried the memories, I
usually do not use them. The goto memory function works very well. I
tried all the frequencies listed in Monitoring Times for 8 pm central
time that broadcast to North America and I had no trouble picking them
up from the Dallas,Texas area on the wip antenna. As you would expect,
the radio feels pretty cheaply made. The radio also comes with a fine
tuning knob that allows tuning in 1 khz increments. I did not find
this feature of great use. It covers all the major sw bands. The sound
is very good on AM/FM/SW. It has a jack for an external antenna. It
also comes with an S meter. I am not sure how accurate it is. Most of
the signals appeared to be either 1 or 2 or 5 in strength. The radio
also has a sleep timer and an alarm which I have not tried. It has
switches for local/dx , lock/unlock and music/news. I will try it side
by side with some of my other radios and try to report a comparison
later.
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