Radio
Boy
Satellit 300 - 1983 - 1985
Click on picture
to see left side view of Satellit 300.
I bought this set
secondhand for £39 in 1997. It is in pretty good shape for its age,
though the power supply board needed a little work. I first saw one of
these years ago when it was being used to assess signal levels on an inductive
loop MW transmission survey of a hospital building, (Inductive loop is
used to give controlled local radio coverage of a building or campus, thus
avoiding radio authority and copyright expense when you don't need to cover
an indiscriminate area.), its tuning meter being very sensitive and accurate.
I liked the look of the set, and although it doesn't compare with modern
large portables in terms of facilities, it is still a good radio, and an
interesting collectors piece.
The one I have is
actually marked "300A" on the type plate on the bottom, (the "A" looks
like it has been added to the mould for the case later, being slightly
too bold and a little out of alignment) denoting its superior filters (2
x ceramic 4-pass filters) compared to the standard 300. It also has all
4 wavebands fed by the external aerial socket, which the standard 300 doesn't.
Again, the MW & LW markings by the socket look slightly different,
having been added later.
You may be looking
at the picture and thinking "that doesn't look quite as I remember". If
so, you have probably seen one with the badges in a different place. They
did move around a bit. on some they were in the top-left corner of the
speaker grille, on others, on the switch panel below the speaker grille.
There were even a few silver ones in the early days! Or maybe you have
seen a Satellit 400. This vastly superior set, with SSB and a host of other
facilities replaced the 300, but, apart from some movement of the buttons
on the keypad, shared it's styling, in much the same way as the Satellit's
500 & 700 share each others styling.
Specification:
Styling:
Black plastic case is
very strong, feels like the sort of plastic used for modern TV cases. The
front is laid-out in 4 main areas, the speaker grille, the display panel,
with the LCD and tuning/battery meter behind glass, the keypad, and the
sliders for volume, bass & treble. The sliders have been made very
much a feature of the styling, large, and white with red markings to contrast
as much as possible with the case.
Country of manufacture: Portugal.
Size: 180 mm high x 304
mm wide x 70 mm deep.
Weight (excluding batteries):
2.1 kg.
Power supply:
Internal; 6 x C cells,
9V, (radio) 3 x AA cells, 4.5V (clock & memories).
External; 110-127/220-240V
AC, 50-60 Hz.
Battery meter:
Yes, measures
battery voltage even when radio powered by mains supply, a very thorough
approach by the designers.
Tuning method: Digital
PLL synthesizer
Tuning options:
Manual tuning
Direct frequency keying
Auto-search, (not SW)
Presets
Metre-band stepping on
SW.
Wavebands:
FM: 87.5-108 mHz, tuning
steps 25kHz (manual tuning) 50 kHz (Auto-search).
LW 150-353 kHz, tuning steps
1kHz (manual tuning) 9kHz (auto-search), mode: AM
MW 513-1611 kHz, tuning
steps 1kHz (manual tuning) 9kHz (auto-search), mode: AM
SW1 3900-10499 kHz, tuning
steps 1kHz (manual tuning only), mode: AM
SW2 10500-22000 kHz,
tuning steps 1kHz (manual tuning only), mode: AM
Memories:
35, 4 on MW, 4 on LW,
9 on FM, 9 on SW1 & 9 on SW2, plus last station memory on each band.
Tuning meter: Yes
Local/DX switch: No
Aerials: Ferrite rod for
LW & MW, Telescopic for FM & SW
Dial illumination: Yes:
Battery power; press
& hold to illuminate LCD display & Battery/Tuning meter, (shared
button also displays battery condition)
Mains: permanent while
powered, inc. Battery/Tuning meter while set switched on, or on by timer,
LCD display only when set switched off, or to Auto. setting but timer not
in active time span.
Mono selector: N/A, no stereo
facility.
Sockets:
Inputs;
Line-in, (DIN socket
shared with line-out).
Aerial.
Telefunken type 2-pole
AC in.
Outputs;
Line-out, (DIN
socket shared with line-in).
3.5mm Headphone (stereo
socket wired for mono).
Output power: 2W RMS (battery)
3W RMS (mains)
Speaker: 4 inch dia.
Tone control: Bass, Treble.
Clock/Timer: Yes.
1 x 24 hour clock, shares
LCD display with frequency, (use "time" switch to display when switched
on, permanently displayed when switched off).
1 x event timer, switching
on for fixed 1 hour period.
Read
my review of this radio