One of the Rarest of Radios

Most of the time, very little happens on e-Bay. Auctions come and go and half-decent radios do not turn up that often. I think the last time I bought a radio off e-Bay was last year – a Lowe HF225. It’s still here, despite my generally high ‘turnover’ of HF radios.

Imagine my surprise then when I recently saw a Philips D 2999 World Band/ FM Radio for sale. There was no annoying auction, and the price seemed fair, even with the hefty UK  customs duty on top.

The radio reminded me of my younger self: when I was a student at Marburg I acquired two old-style world receivers, both of them classics. One was the Grundig Satellit ‘Europa’, and the other one, well, that was the Philips D 2999. I dearly loved both of them and always had them on at night in my student bolthole.

As far as I can recall, this ‘desktop-transceiver-style’, heavy (3.9kg), radio was the only Philips foray into the world of dedicated world portables of this size. Correct me if I am wrong.

Well, I did buy the one off e-Bay, from Holland. It is in good condition and came with the box. A beautiful piece of equipment, as, I hope the pictures on this page show. The design is of its time, but I love the row of meter-band keys on top, and the fact that you can have the smaller loudspeaker on at the front, and then switch on a much larger speaker on top.

It has meaningful tone controls too, and the world map on top – an actual identifier for Philips (and Grundig) radios of the period. The aerial is recessed into the receiver horizontally.  As I tune the Short Wave bands, the LEDs underneath the band-selectors move along – very neat.

I am planning to write a short article about this amazing-looking piece of kit in the September issue of RadioUser. In the meantime, if you do have one of those, please get in touch, so we might exchange hints and tips for good reception […].

(TBC)

GW 010722