Radio Boy
Radio Boy
Short Wave Magazine, April
1994, announcing the new Ocean Boy 340. The carrying strap shown not only
didn't come with the radio, but there is no provision for fitting one.
The Ocean Boy 330/340 is a PLL synthesizer, 4 band portable radio, launched onto the market in 1992 (OB330) & 1994 (OB340). The 340 replaced the 330, which was effectively the same radio in a different style case. It has since been replaced by the 350, again, a restyle, although now it includes a buzzer for the alarm function.
Reception.
On FM, reception is surprisingly good for such a budget radio, similar in performance to the Satellit 300, and better than the Yacht Boy 500.
On AM, again, more sensitive than the Yacht Boy 500. Lacking dual conversion, images do crop up, but not to any greater extent than comparable radios.
Overall, a much better
performer in this category than the price, (about £40, for comparison,
roughly a quarter of the typical selling price of the Yacht Boy 500, and
about a third of the Yacht Boy 400) would have you believe. A Local/DX
switch is included, though the step between the settings is too coarse,
and hence the Local setting is of little use. More about this later.
Audio.
Grundig radios usually excel here, and this radio doesn’t disappoint on AM. The speaker is about three and a quarter inches diameter, and is fed by a 400mW amplifier which is good for the price class, though not in the same league as the dearer YB500. Plugging headphones into the stereo-wired-for-mono headphone socket reveals less than Hi-Fi performance, but this is hardly surprising at this price level.
The earlier comment about
AM is made because FM performance is a little disappointing, in the case
of my OB340, the radio tending to overload on strong stations, causing
distortion, the 330 on the other hand is fine, so this may be a problem
with my 340 alone. The Local/DX switch often reduces the signal too much,
rendering the station too weak to use. In my case, the 330 is worse in
this respect than the 340, reducing the signal to almost zero, even on
strong stations. Retracting the aerial can help.
Ergonomics.
The LCD display is good, with large, clear main characters and excellent contrast. Some of the smaller function flags have text too small to read, but familiarity means you know what they mean anyway. Illumination, activated by a push button on the front, stays on only while held, but is excellent, the display being easy to read when lit by this lamp only. The lighting cannot be run continually while externally powered.
The time displays when
the radio is switched off, but has to be called up when in use, as the
same part of the display is used for frequency display. An alarm flag displays
when that function is set. No battery low indicator exists. 4 AA batteries
run the radio, and 2 AAA batteries maintain the memories and other settings.
The radio must be externally powered and switched on when changing the
memory batteries, as they are behind the main batteries, which must be
removed to gain access to the memory batteries. Failure to do this means
that the memories and clock settings will be lost, as no internal temporary
backup is provided. This is not explained in the instruction book.
On the 340, the front panel controls are attractively styled, the buttons have a nice, tactile click, and crisp action. The 330 is a little less appealing to my eyes, and the click a little less pronounced. The volume and tone controls are located on the left side, with the sockets. The thumbwheel volume control is easy to use, and still crackle free, even on the older 330, so no skimping on budget models, it seems. The tone switch is of little use. Sockets are limited to headphones and 6V DC-in. Strangely, the DC-in polarity is the reverse of the Yacht Boy 500 and Satellit 500/700.
On the right side are the Local/DX switch, and the mechanical 4 waveband slider switch, which on the 340 is stiff, and hence hard to slide to the position required.
A rear stand is fitted, but is so small the radio is nearly on it’s back anyway. When using the stand, the telescopic (whip) aerial cannot be vertical, because the knuckle is too low down relative to the top of the radio, so the top gets in the way. Fortunately, 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 a heavy aerial anyway.
Facilities.
For the price, the memory facility is quite good, 5 programmable slots for each of the 4 wavebands. Last station memory exists, but once you use a pre-set, you cannot recall the last manually tuned station, as no button exists to call it. You have to retune, if you can remember what it was! Tuning options are merely up/down keys which also activate auto-search on all wavebands if held for about half a second. Getting from one end of the SW band to the other is a bit tedious. You have to hold an up or down key while it moves quickly through the band. An alternative is to programme a different SW metre-band frequency in each of the 5 memories, allowing quick access to each band. SW coverage is 5.9 to 15.5 MHz, so much of SW is missing, but the most useful sections are present. SW tuning steps are 5kHz, which is understandable for a budget broadcast-only receiver. MW steps are fixed at 9kHz, making it unusable on MW in America.
Timer facilities are good for the price, a fixed 60 minute sleep timer is joined by a single, fixed 120 minute switch-on timer, Timer setting is a little fiddly, with no direct entry facility. Instead, it involves scrolling through the hours and minutes using the up/down keys. Given the price, this is forgivable. The timer can be used to change stations while you are listening to one station, so you don’t miss a favourite programme. Both stations have to be on the same waveband, however.
A function lock switch
is fitted on the underside, to stop accidental mistuning, and to lock the
set off while in transit, this latter point being more important on the
330, with it's prutruding electronic on button.
Sum-up.
At about £40, equivalent to about $60 US, this is excellent value for a travel companion or a decent receiver for those on a low budget. Reception is outstanding at this level, and all the basic facilities needed are present. The icing on the cake is that it looks dearer than it is, with a smart, tasteful front, even on the 330, but more so on the 340 with it's slightly crescent shaped speaker grille. FM performance disappoints a little, but may have been a problem on my 340.
Footnote:
As stated obove, this radio was only available outside America. However, in 1996, Radio Shack launched a version of the 340 in America, called the Radio Shack DX395. Visually almost identical, apart from the name and the colour of the press-buttons, this radio featured proper American AM coverage and 10kHz stepping, excluded LW and used the free position to accommodate a second short wave spread. Thus, instead of SW coverage of 5.9 to 15.5 MHz in one block, the Radio Shack version covered 3.2-7.3 MHz on one SW position, & 9.5-21.75 MHz on the second position. This allowed 10 SW presets, 5 for each position. This radio was about 25% dearer than the Grundig version was in the UK. The Radio Shack version has also been discontinued.
Grundig Radio Boy