£15 FM/SW/MW/LW compact radio at LIDL

[Ian Malcolm]

With the increasing DAB market, it is getting much harder to find
domestic all band radios. I've just bought a nice one from 'Lidl' that
is suitable for NOT missing shipping/inshore forecasts on local radio or
Radio 4 198KHz Long Wave for only £15.

As always with Lidl offers, you need to get in quick or its gone and
wont be back for some time if ever.

Details:
SilverCrest "Multi-Band Radio SWEP 500 A1"
FM/SW/MW/LW digitally tuned (PLL) + 400 memories (manual band switch)
Time/Date, World time + 2 independent alarms + stopwatch/countdown
Power: 4 x AA battery (not included) or supplied AC adaptor - see below
Dimensions: 17.7 x 11 x 4 (cm), approx 0.5 Kg with batteries installed
Storage bag + earbuds


Notes:
The alarms DO NOT recall a particular memory station. If set for
Radio mode, they just turn it back on on the last used settings.

With the stopwatch/countdown you probably dont need to carry a kitchen
timer or similar and *MAY* be able to do without a ships clock if you
are not doing astronavigation.

The AC adaptor is nominally 9V AC output @ 400mA ( rather more voltage
off load - as usual) but I opened the radio up to check and found the
power in jack goes straight into a bridge rectifier. I have just
measured 15V DC on the resevoir capacitor after the bridge rectifier.

It therfore should work OK on ship's 12V with a simple 500ma fused power
lead and tolerate the usual charging voltages. Because it is intended
for AC in, the DC polarity will not be important. Maplin Electronics
should be able to sort you out with a suitable power plug or maybe even
a complete lead. I'll follow up after I have it running on 12V.

The user manual is here:

<http://www.kompernass.com/pages/index.php?page=1,3,1,2&product=1200
&brand=silvercrest&lang=en>

or google:
site:kompernass.com SWEP 500 A1

-- Ian Malcolm. London, ENGLAND. (NEWSGROUP REPLY PREFERRED)
ianm[at]the[dash]malcolms[dot]freeserve[dot]co[dot]uk [at]=@, [dash]=- &
[dot]=. *Warning* HTML & >32K emails --> NUL

[Ian Malcolm]

Ian Malcolm <See.My.Sig...@totally.invalid> wrote in
news:XnsA05065597...@88.198.244.100:

> With the increasing DAB market, it is getting much harder to find
> domestic all band radios. I've just bought a nice one from 'Lidl' that
> is suitable for NOT missing shipping/inshore forecasts on local radio
or
> Radio 4 198KHz Long Wave for only £15.
>
> As always with Lidl offers, you need to get in quick or its gone and
> wont be back for some time if ever.
>
> Details:
> SilverCrest "Multi-Band Radio SWEP 500 A1"

...

Followup: I can confirm sucessful operation on ship's 12V supply.

[tomos.s...@gmail.com]

I have the radio, but I'm struggling with storing stations as in the manuals.
Can anyone explain it better and what are 'Page' & 'Mem' massages?

Yours hopefully Tom

[Ian Malcolm]

tomos.s...@gmail.com wrote in
news:5157f2c2-7f62-4ada...@googlegroups.com:

I dont have the radio handy (its down the boat) but on the display
'Page' is the bank of buttons to save to and 'Mem' the the actual button
you have selected by pressing a station button ([M 0/5] ... [M 4/9]).

The procedure on page 27 of the manual works, but could have benefitted
from a picture of the display.

IIRC you can ignore the Page if you have already selected it before
trying to save the station.

Remember to press the station button twice for the second station on the
button.

Try pressing (within 10 seconds): [Mem] [M 0/5] [Mem]
and it should have saved the current frequency to that button in the
current bank.

Keep low numbered banks for your favourite and most important stations as
when you do an auto search ({Mem] [Memory Scan]_hold_1s) it overwrites
stations from the current bank upwards so stored stations in lower banks
are safe.

Ignore the instruction on page 28 of the manual to use [Snooze] to exit
Memory Scan. That's too awkward and its much easier to simply press
[Fine] twice.