Review - Grundig M400 Mini Shortwave Reciever

This is my new SW receiver, for taking to and from work. It "replaced" the RadioShack World Receiver (Review Here).

Well, it's not a mini. It's a micro. Smaller than a little notepad you write a grocery list on. The dial wheel must be less than 1/2" across. Which leads to a strong and a weak point.

The receiver itself, is very sensitive. With an alligator clip, and 10ft of wire, I get lots of stations in, about 80% of the English (Now) stations reported here: http://www.short-wave.info/index.php

It's got a receiver from 5.5MHz (It varies, +/- 50hkz) bottom, and 18.3Khz (Again, +/-50Hz) top on the SW bands. It gets 506 to 1730 on the BC AM band, with your standard US FM BC band.

Now, onto the tuning wheel. This thing is tiny. I mean, really tiny. You can tune the entire band with about 3 thumb strokes (It's small enough for single handed operation). But, the down side? You can tune past stations unless you go really slow. Good point? It's easy to do with one hand.

A nice rig? Nice for taking to work, and browsing the SW bands. It's actually really nice to AM DX with too. AM doesn't use external antenna, but all other bands do (AM has an internal bar antenna). Either way, it works very well on BC AM DX'ing.

Now, onto the "Features": It has a lock switch, to keep you from turning on/off the radio. It doesn't prevent anything else. It has a carry pouch. Not very useful, since you have to whip out the antenna to get anything. It has a headphone jack, but no antenna jack.

Would I buy again? For my use (Two/From work, and listening the SW on the couch in my living room), yes! For a serious SW radio? Nope. For a nice, stick it in a go-bag? Yep, as I've had the same AAA batts in there for about a month now. Easy to charge (Yes, you can charge alkalines) from a small solar panel.