Radio Boy
1/ Sound quality. No other radio this size sounds this good. Ok, it’s no Satellit 650, but on most radios this size, it doesn’t matter if the bass guitarist has taken the day off, or if the drummer had forgotten to bring the bass drum. Well, you’d notice their absence with this radio.
2/ Sound quantity. Most radios this sort of size can produce about 400 to 700 milliWatts. If you are willing to pay the battery bills, the boost option on the YB500 gives you 1 Watt, and when externally powered at 9V (as with the supplied AC adaptor) 2 Watts are available, and the distortion sets in at a surprisingly high level.
3/ ROM table theme collectors. If you want to collect all 3 ROM table equipped Grundig radios, you need this to accompany your Satellit 500 & 700.
4/ Substitute Satellit 900. The Satellit 900 sadly never reached production, but shares the styling and some features (RDS, boost,) of the Yacht Boy 500. What a trilogy they would have made, the Yacht Boy 360, the Yacht Boy 500, and the Satellit 900. And what a shame the one that fell was the most desirable of the 3!
5/ Build quality and reliability. Compared with other radios this size, build and reliability are first class. The only weak spot is the tilt stand at the rear can be broken easily, but it’s ok if you are careful with it. So be careful!
6/ The world’s smallest RDS capable portable with direct frequency entry tuning. Only the Sangean ATS-305 (and badged variants such as the Roberts R9921) is smaller, but it doesn’t have direct keying-in, LW, SSB and a few other facilities the YB500 offers, and it’s not much smaller anyway!
7/ Ah yes, the facilities! RDS, 90 frequency ROM table, 40 name-tagged user-programmable memories, the amazing output power, line-out, Stereo headphones, cassette recorder remote control, SSB (Which does an excellent job of resolving SSB transmissions), scan, 2 clocks, 2 timers, the list goes on. It’s no Satellit, but if you don’t want to risk taking that out and about with you, this makes an excellent substitute.
8/ It’s a designer radio!
The Yacht Boy 2000/G2000A
“Porsche” is widely tagged as the first designer SW radio, but the YB500
beat it by about 4 years. It was the winner of 4 design awards, the "Industrie
Forum Design Hannover 1994", "Special Design award Chicago", "International
Design Yearbook 1994" and the "Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen" (The
"Porsche" won this last one too!) The YB500's appearance is unique, and
raises eyebrows wherever you use it. The styling was done by Dutch company,
NPK, visit their website here, and visit
the YB500 page here.
9/ It was the last Grundig Radio made at the factory in Portugal (now producing car audio and hi-fi equipment). The factory made some of the great Grundig radios from the 1960’s through to the 1990’s including the Yacht Boy 210, the vast majority of the radios in the 1970’s, and all the Satellit’s from the 300/600 era of 1983 until the 700. The YB500 was the last in the line. Sad, but a worthy reminder of the golden age of Grundig radios.
10/ It’s a great radio! Some other radios may excel in reception compared to the YB500, but as an all-rounder, and a travel companion, it’s hard to beat. 1998’s Passport to world band radio rated it 5th out of 20 in it’s size category, with 3 stars.