The S350DL may look like a digital radio, but it’s actually analog inside and tuning is prone to drift.

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ed, who noted my comments about the Grundig S350DL’s tuning drift yesterday, and shared the following fix found on Jeff McMahon’s Herculodge blog.

Ed writes:

The Grundig S350DL’s mechanical tuning drift problem is reportedly easily correctable with a screwdriver:

(Source: The Herculodge)

[…]The drift on AM was terrible! After 10 minutes, it is jumping all over the place – if you touch the radio, the sound mutes and the display goes nuts. I pack it up to take it back but then I decide to google the problem and find this:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Grundig-S350/message/4644

I do exactly what he says – I pull off the cover after unscrewing all of the screws (including the 2 in the battery compartment).

Only the speaker is attached to the front. I remove the three screws from the display and then tighten the two screws on the tuning wheels. They were barely loose – almost not noticeable – so I was not too optimistic. I carefully got it all back together (the plastic pieces that hold the fabric handle on only go back on one certain way and were sort of a pain!). I cross my fingers, plug it in, and wow – a brand new radio. The tuning is perfect. Zero drift on FM and AM. AM sounds excellent.[…]

I have an earlier Grundig S350 that I bought at a hamfest years ago which had an easily-fixed power problem. For $20 it makes a nice bathroom radio and it sounds great, especially on FM.

BTW, I found schematics for it on radiomuseum.org, which is a great resource for radio schematics.

Thanks for the tip, Ed! I think I’ll crack open my S350DL later today and give this a try!