Sunday, October 09, 2011

My Early Airband Radio......

I'm feeling in a nostalgic mood today and managed to find a picture of my first 'proper' airband radio, a Sharp airband radio. I did have one of those very cheap multiband radios before it, but I consider this to be my first 'real' airband radio.
 
Others that I've owned in the past include the Signal R537S which had just two crystal controlled fixed channels available as well as being able to tune the VHF airband via the tuning dial, aah those were the days! This was followed by a WIN108 - my first digital display airband radio, anyone remember these?

I was very excited by the red LED light in the top left corner of the Sharp radio as the intensity of the LED gave some indication of signal strength! I remember the tuning dial was quite 'stretched out' with numerous frequency markings so you had a good idea of where to place the tuning dial to listen to certain frequencies, but of course, like many of these radios, you could be monitoring several frequencies either side of the one you wanted to listen too!

2 comments:

Dave UK. said...

Do you know what the formula was for determining the crystal frequencies for the R537S?. I recently acquired one with no information. It seems to be a fundamental plus 10.7 Khz but I'm really in the dark about what the fundamental should be..

Craig said...

I am recently back in the game and got my Win108 out of storage. Had it for nearly 25 years. That makes me feel very old.

This is a good device, the main draw back is that sound is tinny and mono sound only.

20 odd years on, what would I want to look at. I have read a blog further down this page and see names like the Bearcat and Yupiteru. Any other suggestions?

What is good/great/adequate these days?