Grundig G6 Aviator AM/FM, aircraft band and Shortwave Radio, Black

Well this is going to be a short and sweet review on the grundig g6 aviator radio. I received this for X-mas (actually the buzz aldrin model) and couldn't be happier. I consider my self a radio noob and have only messed with cheap am-fm radios. First the build quality is excellent and the unit is very nice, with a smooth rubberized coating. The controls did take a little while to pick up, but after a while I was listening to BBC Africa and radio Iraq, French, German, Radio Cuba, ect ect. Plus many U.S. and Canadian stations I could never pick up with my other radios. I even was able to tune in my local airport information and tower chatter(very cool). It's refreshing to get a "world-wide" view of events, I didn't realize there were so many short wave stations to tune in. Now I know why they have so many save spots. I didn't try AM, but FM was way better than any other radio I personal used, reception wise and sound quality wise. The speaker sounds pretty damn good for being so small, and my shure e530 iems, sound great with no hiss. So this thing must have a pretty damn clean output as they are very sensitive to hiss. The bass boost is very nice also.

All in all a very nice radio, I like the SW reception so much I might pick up an external antenna and see what else I can find :)

Feels solid, nice rubberized finish. First time I switched it on (at night) I was trolling through the HF bands I picked up a numbers station (I think the one called E10?), using the built-in antenna. Extremely portable (i.e. tiny) but good sound. SSB works fine as well. With a 10ft piece of wire attached to the antenna I can hear Mumbai air traffic control on HF (I'm in the Middle East).

As others mentioned, the VHF air band can get a bit noisy (no squelch) but it works - even if this radio only had HF, I'd still have bought it for the size, quality and sensitivity. To me, the VHF air band frequencies are just a bonus. I wouldn't expect a little HF receiver like this to give the same performance as a VHF scanner.

All in all a great little package. I was recently stuck on a small island in the Andaman Sea, trying to find out information about Bangkok airport being closed down - wished I had a radio like this in my bags...

I have been using the radio for several days and here are my obsverations.

I purchased the radio for the aircraft band as I live about 10 miles from DFW airport. I have been able to listen to the aircraft as well as the control towers. Some aircraft frequencies come in great, the towers less so. All are however listenable. There is some bleed over into the aircraft band as is to be expected but not so much as to make it annoying.

You can pick up all of the major shortwave stations with no problem. Normal AM and FM reception is fine.

I find the SSB reception to be poor at best. You can select SSB mode but not USB or LSB. Tuning is done through the use of the tuning knob. If you are looking for SSB reception, I would look for a different radio, perhaps the Eton E1 or a tabletop set, both of which will cost much more.

The sound is ok for a radio with such a small speaker. Do not expect room filling sound for such a small radio. I was surprised at how small the radio really is. This would make an excellent travel radio. There are a lot of memory presets that you can use. The stations remain set even after the batteries are removed. I removed the batteries for 6 to 10 hours and the presets remained. Most of my listening has been done using an external reel type antenna.

All in all, for the money this is a nice feature rich radio. I recomment using an external reel type antenna for best performance. It makes a big difference. The external reel antenna is not included but they can be found in many locations for less than $10.00.

I've owned this radio since it was first introduced and I've owned maybe 30 or 40 portable shortwave radios over the past couple of decades. I find this little unit to be a great value BUT only if you're looking for the feature set offered. Obviously if you don't care about aviation traffic or SSB, you could do a lot better for the money. BUT in my experience there aren't any better value radios out there at this price point that do it all better.

The aviation band is just so-so in terms of sensitivity and overload protection from broadcast AM but I find the SSB remarkable. SSB signals are easily found with the fast dial speed and easily tuned in to "listenable" frequencies with the slow speed setting.

The shortwave broadcast band is very sensitive and fidelity with good headphones is quite good and the FM stereo audio is excellent again through earphones. The channel separation or selectivity could be better on the shortwave bands but it's not bad unless you have two very big guns right next to each other.

All in all if you're looking for nice small portable shortwave radio that can handily receive broadcast AM shortwave, SSB, AM/FM commercial broadcasts, the G6 can be a lot of fun at a very good price point

The Grundig G6 has a very nice feature set and is a very convenient size. The display is very informative and the radio is fairly easy to use, especially given all that it does. However, one buys a multiband radio like this to actually listen to it. Its performance overall is not in keeping with the $100 price point. Much better performing radio's are available at or below this price point.

My sample had significant overloading on the lower shortwave bands from local AM broadcast stations. Shortwave performance was ohterwise ok, but the unit was not as sensitive as other radios in this price range. Adding even a short external wire antenna of 15 feet only made the overloading worse. A major plus was it's SSB tuning performance ... far and away the best of the radios I've compared it to. AM BCB performance was ok but not as senitive as a Kaito 1102 or Degen 1103. FM performance was quite good. However the inter-station hiss was objectionable. As mentioned elsewhere, the AIR band is full of local FM broadcast stations bleeding through making it pretty much useless at my location.

So, this unit is pocket sized, is fun to use and has a ton of features but its overall performance will make it less pleasant to use ... especially if you happen to have other radios in this general price range to compare it to.