Pengantar : Indonesian DX Club menerima hadiah dari Suara Jerman DW Sebagai the Best Club 1999 berupa radio digital Grundig Yacht Boy 400. Untuk pengelolaan Dirgantara dan aktivitas IDXC, radio tersebut akan dilelang dengan harga pembukaan pertama Rp 600.000,00 (enam ratus ribu rupiah). Penawaran dapat diajukan ke redaksi Dirgantara. Penawar dengan harga tertinggi akan menjadi pemenangnya. Pelelangan akan ditutup pada Dirgantara edisi November-Desember 2000.

Choosing A Receiver

Berikut profil radio tersebut diketengahkan berdasarkan buku Receiver List edisi 18, 1981-2000, Radio Netherlands :

Tahun peluncuran : 1994 (NA-Centric PE version 4th, Q1998)
Power : 9 volt DC (3AA), Size : 180x120x37, Berat : 600 gram
Harga : US$200, CAN$200, AUS$400, Value rating : ***** (excellent)

The Yacht Boy 400 was launched at the end of 1993 in North America. In fact at GBP105 across Europe, the Yacht Boy 400 turns out to be a great value package. Our example is clearly made for Grundig in the People's Republic of China. Grundig has designed the unit and supervised the quality control. The Yacht Boy 400 looks like many travel portables. At 180 by 120 by 37 millimeters, the set is about the size of a paperback book, it works off 6 penlight batteries and weighs 708 grams with batteries.

Despite a rather clumsy instruction booklet literally translated from German, if you practice a little, the Yacht Boy 400 is extremely easy to use. You simply tap in the desired frequency and press a button. Two buttons allow you to shuttle up and down the dial on shortwave, you can flip between 5 kHz and 1 kHz steps. The radio offers two bandwidths, and both filters have a good shape factor for a portable radio. The speaker is closely matched to the cabinet, so the receiver sounds much richer and fuller than competing sets from Japan.

The receiver turns out to be sensitive, without serious problems of over loading here in Europe. You can store up to 40 stations in the memory and using a separate set of up-down buttons. You can flip through the active memory channels easily. Like most radios, the set will scan through the dial stopping at stronger and listenable signals.

Clearly, some compromises have had to be made to keep the price down. You can receive signal sideband using the receiver, but clarification of either the upper or the lower sideband is by means of a thumbwheel rather than pushing a button. The receiver has also no synchronous detection, but the sharp bandwidth filters in Grundig, which come out at 5.5 and 3 kHz at -6dB, are a strong plus point.

FM coverage is between 87.5 and 108 MHz, with stereo is possible if you connect the pair of earphones. The sensitivity on FM is about right in the Europe... may be a little not too sensitive for cities in North America where the FM dial is crowded. You can connect an external antenna for areas where shortwave signals are relatively weak. The receiver is supplied with a washing line aerial, though you don't really need it in Europe.

The dial light can be illuminated for bed-side listening, the set has two clocks for keeping track of both local and UTC times, and a recessed lock switch to prevent accidental battery drain when the receiver is put in a suitcase. We got just over 20 hours of listening from a fresh set of alkaline batteries, listening for periods of an hour a day. That's not bad, but running the set off the mains is a lot cheaper. A mains power supply is not included as part of the package though.

In short, Grundig has made a superb portable. They would do well to re-write an instruction manual and also supply the more up-to-date schedule information... the one packed with our receiver was clearly compiled nearly four years ago. Overall, this set is a good value, and it sounds very good. The Grundig Yacht Boy 400 won the 19994 World Radio TV Handbook Industry Award for Best Shortwave Portable.

In North America, Lextronix released the titanium coloured finish YB 400PE (Professional Edition) in the fourth quarter of 1998. Electrically, there is no difference between the YB 400 and YB 400PE. A Grundig-brand AC adapter is included, as are stereo ear plugs, wind-up antenna, a re-written owners manual and vinyl carry case. The out-of-date schedule information has been dropped in the lieu of sources of information on the broadcasters and schedules. Grundig contact information is in the "Further Information" section at the end part of this document. Reviewers : Jonathan Marks, Diana Janssen, and Willem Bos.