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Grundig Satellit 900 and Eton E1

Thomas Baier visited the Grundig headquarters in spring of 2000, and the picture below (reproduced with his permission) was taken there, of a prototype, one of ten complete, and 5 uncased, that were built.

This set has not been completely labelled, but similarities to the Yacht Boy 360 & 500 are clear. Note the top left control is labelled "Boost", a facility the YB500 has, using bridged amplifiers to increase output.

Some of the designers:
Styling: at the very least, inspired by NPK, Holland. See NPK styling page
PC control software (The 900 was to have a PC control socket under the battery door): Jürgen Dickmannshenke.
RF design: Herr. Gerhard Weber, Grundig.
Internal software: Herr. Jorg Bauer, Franken RDS-team.

If you want to see more photo's of the original Satellit 900, visit Thomas's site here.

Compare the above photo with The new Eton E1, photo below courtesy of Paul & Cheryl Drake, webmasters of the GrundigSW website:
This photo is intended to show the styling similarities between the Eton E1 and the YB500, which it does admirably. But a quick comparison between the 2 photo's shows that the new Eton E1 is almost identical in appearance to the Satellit 900.

Incidentally, below is a picture I created from the Satellit 900 photo a few years back, showing what I thought the 900's replacement would have looked like if they had both been produced. Not too dissimilar from the Eton E1, don't you think?

In September 1995, Grundig unveiled 3 unfinished but near fully functional prototypes of the Satellit 900 to the public at the IFA show in Berlin. However, depending on what story you believe, either components vital to the radio were discontinued, Grundig were unable to fund the development, or Philips decided to sell their shares in Grundig, leaving them with financial problems. Whatever, the 900 was shelved, then dropped altogether. Of the 10 cased prototypes made, Eton, then Lextronix received one, which doubtless is the one featured in the adverts that appeared in the 1996 issue of Passport to World Band Radio.

9 years and 11 months after that IFA appearance, in August 2005, the first 500 of the new Eton E1 started being sold to customers (Mostly from Sharper Image, it appears) in the US. The appearance is little changed, only the badging, the color, and a new, unusual rubberised coating seem different from the original design. Indeed, as the photo below (courtesy of Jay Allen, RadioIntel contributor) shows, some case parts at the very least, seem to have just been made from the original Grundig moulds, or new moulds made from the prototype Lextronix received in 1996:

The Light and Snooze/Sleep bars on the new E1 still have Grundig part numbers stamped in them, 15057-042 for the Light bar, and 15057-044 for the Snooze/Sleep bar. (As a comparison, the part numbers for the equivalent parts on a YB500 are 15056-043 & 15056-042 respectively). As anyone who has ever ordered parts for, examined a schematic/service manual of, or examined unique parts of their Grundig's will know, the format of these numbers is pure Grundig! In addition, next to the "Factory Programming Connector" under the flap below the speaker grille, are the numbers "2", "3" and "4", the latter in a raised area. These are just the same as the numbers below the memofile flap on the Satellit 700. On the original Satellit 900, this was to be the location of the memofiles! They haven't removed the numbers even though the area has been used for something completely different.

Beyond the case, however, much has changed, though I suspect (and hope) some has been carried over. The most striking thing to change is the addition of the facility to receive XM satellite radio, by connecting the optional antenna/processor to a new socket on the right hand side of the radio. XM satellite radio is only available in the US mainland, so of no interest to me in the UK. Those who have it seem pleased with the facility, though much concern has been expressed about power consumption on battery life. XM reception draws approximately 400mA, which is likely to empty the D-cells that power it very quickly. Best to use it on the supplied AC adaptor. XM delivers information on the large display about the station, and the current selection being broadcast, such as song title and artist.

Given that the display and it's drivers can handle this kind of information, it's somewhat disappointing to find that RDS has been dropped from FM, when the original Grundig design already had it. I appreciate that the US do not place such importance on RDS, but as the radio is to be marketed in Europe (UK: www.etoncorp.co.uk/e1.html & www.nevadaradio.co.uk Germany: www.raz-faz.com & www.thiecom.de/shop1) it is a shame they have removed it. Personally speaking, RDS is a very useful inclusion, in summer I regularly sit in the garden with the Satellit 700 and it's telescopic antenna pulls in stations during hot weather from places as far away as Spain, Italy, and, in August 2005, RTCI in Tunisia! Without the RDS facility, and Herman Wijnants PI code database, available at the FM & TV DX Plaza, having no knowledge of Tunisian language, I'd never have identified it!

Also missing from the original design is the Boost facility, as used on the YB500, allowing for low output and low battery consumption, or higher, bass-boosted output if you're willing to pay the battery bill, or are using AC power. It's not all bad news however, the radio has many useful and well designed features, such as a Squelch control, a passband tuner, and Synchronous detection (which works well and locks securely, according to my sources) with LSB, USB or DSB. Curiously, there is no ferrite rod for LW/MW, it uses the whip!

Reports from early users, all of whom I know and trust the opinions of, suggest that this radio is really a very good performer, on SW, and MW, despite the lack of the ferrite rod. FM also seems to work well, and apart from a couple of "Dead on Arrival" one of which was due to a loose circuit board connector plug, quality control seems more tight this time. Personally, due to the lack of RDS, the cost, which I cannot really comfortably run to at present, and the fact that XM is not available here (not that I'd probably use it anyway, why subscribe to a radio service when you haven't the time to listen to all the free ones?), I will not be taking the plunge for the forseeable future. There was talk that European market models would have DAB instead of XM, but even that wouldn't convert me, I can buy a DAB radio for less than £50, but still haven't. What does that tell you about my desire for digital radio? To me, this radio would be little more than an expensive reproduction of a model that was never even made. Maybe one day! However, don't let me put you off. As has been said by others, and I couldn't agree more: "This is the most significant new radio since the Satellit 700 in 1992!" There haven't been many great new radios since the mid '90's for sure, but this is one, so far as can be seen. Let's just hope long term reliability proves to be up to par too.

Additional information:

Here's an interesting quote from the RadioIntel site, Nov 2006: "Eton E1: Tecsun supplies all the parts for Eton E1 which are sent to India for assembly. OWL was told Tecsun did not make the E1 because Eton could not guarantee of a large production run and that Tecsun had only supplied 10,000 sets of parts for production so far. Nov 25".

GRB, August 2005.

A socket under the front clip on cover allows for "Firmware" updates, which have been updated during the production run. Initial models were version 1.4. As of early 2007, it is on version 2.6 which has also been installed in models returned for the Drake recall for "trace" problems. To check your firmware number, with the radio on, go to the menu screen, press "1" then the power button. The radio will turn off and show the clock, but will also show "E1 xx" where xx is the firmware number. If you have version 1.4, the original version, you may have problems with the Auto Clock Set function when switching between Daylight Saving/Standard time.

GRB, March 2007.

Links:
Jay Allen's review of the E1 on the RadioIntel site.

HongKongRadioer's examination of the E1 (In Chinese, but lots of interesting photo's).

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