Radio Boy

Cosmopolit review

The Cosmopolit is an analogue tuned 3 waveband radio, with a built in cassette recorder and clock timer. Launched onto the market in 1991, I have to admit I don't now for sure when it was discontinued, but around 1996 seems likely. Let's be honest here, there is nothing totally innovative about the Cosmopolit! 3 band analogue radios are antique technology, a personal stereo size cassette recorder, while rare, is not new, and even the talking clock isn't new, Sharp made a cigarette packet sized talking clock at least 10 years before this unit was launched. No, where this scores is in bringing it all together in one compact unit. But, how successfully?

Reception.

On FM, reception is better than expected, with good sensitivity, excellent stereo through headphones, and even pretty good handling of weak adjacent stations. Where I live, there are 2 stations on 103 & 103.1 Mhz, both weak, and while top notch performers like the Satellits can split them, lesser radios often can't. This one did it with reasonable ease, impressive!

On AM, again, sensitivity is good, but being single conversion, images crop up, and blocking of unwanted signals could be better. Our cordless phone appears twice on the 49m band, even though I haven't found it on a well sorted dual conversion set, thus I can't even tell you what frequency it's on! That said, stations I've been looking for have all been easy to find, the tuning knob is pleasantly whiplash free and accurate, while being tight enough to stay on frequency. SW coverage has been well chosen, focusing on the popular metre bands with a bit of leeway on each side, and conveniently split to separate bands on the compact dial, making the dial accurate for it's size and easy to use. The tuning light is too sensitive, staying on almost permanently across the 49m band at night, but you don't really need it anyway.

Overall, a good compact analogue performer.

Audio.

A Grundig strength in most of their radios, and taking the size into account, this radio doesn’t disappoint. The speaker is about two inches in diameter, and fed by a 400mW amplifier, and while the speaker is possibly the shallowest I've ever seen, it doesn't sound bad. The tone control is a treble cut switch, usually a major disappointment. I've never subscribed to the theory that cutting treble compensates for a lack of bass, the theory being the apparent thinking behind most of these switches. Here, however, it does a useful job. On headphones, the switch is ideal in it's normal setting, but using the small internal speaker, the treble cut seems perfectly matched to the speaker's frequency response curve, and while bass doesn't miraculously appear, the sound is well balanced and pleasant given the compromises imposed by the size of the unit.

Plugging headphones into the socket reveals excellent sound from the radio, and decent sound from the cassette player too. Basically, you have a large personal stereo here, but with a speaker option, and other facilities too, which we will come to.

Ergonomics.

The LCD display is small, but there isn't a lot of info on it, so the main characters are relatively easy to read at all angles, and even the smaller function flags for sleep, radio, tape, and alarm by radio, tape or buzzer are easy to read. There is no illumination, and this I believe, is the reason for the talking clock! Seems a bit overkill? Well, the display is very small, there being little room on the unit, and bulbs burn out, so I suspect the designers thought it an elegant solution to the problem. And a practical one. This is the sort of unit to be used in hotel rooms and the like. You are in the dark, in the middle of the night, want to know the time? You've got to find the room light, in an unfamiliar room. Maybe you have to find your spectacles too. Instead, you fumble for the button on the Cosmopolit. A voice tells you the time! Simple. And just one example of the lateral thinking that has gone into this device. They wanted it to be small, but needed to include a cassette recorder and a tuning dial. Solution? put the dial in the cassette door. An inner/outer cable drive transfers motion from the tuner to the dial, and does an excellent job, smoothly and accurately, with the door open ot shut. This adds another problem: the dial is in the way of the view of the cassette tape spool window, making assessment of how much tape is left to go hard to resolve. Solution? Possibly the worlds smallest tape counter. Now, how to open the cassette door. Solution? Use the recess for the tape counter to make a grip point for the door. It's solutions like these that make this unit more than a sum of its parts.

The time displays permanently, except when you are setting or checking the switch-on time. Alarm flags display when the alarm is set, and for which option, radio, tape or buzzer. The battery low indicator is the record warning light, but is not adequately described in the handbook. 3 AA batteries run the radio, and 1 CR2016 cell runs the clock. The radio or tape will not work unless the clock battery is fitted, as the processor controls much of the switching of the unit, even when manual selection of functions has been used.

No rear tilt-stand is fitted. The aerial is held by a friction joint, not the detent type, so it stays put in the best position it can be placed in. It isn’t possible to swivel the whip relative to the radio however. Like many modern small portables, it is fitted with a carry strap. This can be easily removed if desired, by undoing the lower left corner screw (viewed from the rear) as this screw is the strap mount, refit the screw after detaching the strap.

Facilities.

Firstly, the radio is pretty basic, being analogue it lacks memories, auto tuning, keying in and such facilities as bandwidth selection or even a local/DX switch. It does make it relatively simple to use however! Being analogue, there are no MW steps fixed at 9kHz, making it usable on MW in America. Unusually for a Grundig, LW is missing! The cassette recorder is quite well equipped though, with full rewind & fast forward (though lacking the auto stop that exists on record/playback) and an electronic pause control that stops the motor like a remote control microphone would (Though there is no remote socket!) as there is no room for a proper pause mechanism that retracts the pinch roller. A built in microphone exists, as does a socket for an external microphone.

One of the strong points of this unit is the timer, which can control the radio and cassette unit, allowing the usual radio alarm, plus tape alarm (you could wake to a reminder you'd recorded on tape previously, if needed) but also allows you to record programmes in your absence, like a VCR. Just set the timer, select radio station, activate the timer function, and press record! The unit will switch on at the allotted time and record your programme! Ideal for catching those shows you might otherwise miss, and in a small, easily portable package. Previously, I'd had to use my C4200 with the Satellit 700 to record shows, and then only in mono on FM. Hardly a package you could take on holiday easily. The Cosmopolit records FM in stereo if desired, and while not Hi-Fi, it's pretty good, and ideal for later listenings to BBC Radio comedy shows on the car tape player. Never again need I miss "I'm sorry, I haven't a clue" or Steve Punt & Hugh Dennis's two excellent offerings, "The Now Show" or "It's been a bad week"! You can also make microphone recordings using the timer, ideal to find out what people are saying about you behind your back!!!

Timer facilities are versatile enough, a 60 minute sleep timer is joined by the single, fixed 60 minute switch-on timer, but you can also set it to play a tape, and at tape end, the remaining duration of the 60 minute sleep time can be used for the radio. Timer setting is slightly fiddly, with no direct entry facility. Instead, it involves scrolling through the hours and minutes The timer cannot be used to change stations while you are listening to one station, in order to avoid missing a favourite programme on another, as there are no presets. However, you do have the choice of radio or buzzer, the latter fades in from silence to full volume, waking you gently.

Sum-up.

Difficult to come by now, as they don't often appear even on Ebay, this is nevertheless an excellent choice for someone wanting a good all-rounder in a single unit to accompany them on holidays or business trips. Reception is good, audio is OK from the speaker, and excellent on headphones, and to cap it all, you have a choice, radio or tape, even radio enthusiasts can't find anything worth listening to sometimes.