Signal Communication R-537S Airband

Here [video below] is the Signal Communication Corp. R-537S radio picking up an airband transmission [Birmingham airport]. This radio is now for sale on eBay. And this video was uploaded here due to eBay listings having problems with video uploads. It's a really good little radio for its age. A bit of a classic these days among the airband crowd. Picks up well. Frequency Range: 118-136 MHz. This one comes with 2 antenna's, earpiece, manual and box. Box is battered. And the battery cover is a replacement, just a piece of metal with some tape on it. But overall the condition of the radio is fairly good. Not too bad at all. These don't come up for sale all that often now in working condition, so I doubt this radio will be available for long.

If you're interested in Signal radios, take a look at the R-537S' digital big brother, the R-550. Great radio, very sensitive. I will probably be listing that on eBay soon too. So keep a look out if your in the market for one. Quite rare to find one these days.

Signal Communication Corp. R-550 Radio

Straight out the 80's. Quite a rare Airband receiver. Frequency range is 108 - 142 MHz. Even rarer to find one with the original leather case. Out of all the Signal R-550's I've seen for sale, and there hasn't been that many, none of them have come with the case. So its great to have one that does. In saying that, the Signal R-550's I've seen come up for sale have been in absolutely excellent condition. Similar to my one. But they had the original box and manual. And with the original box, I'd probably rather have theirs than mine. But still, my one isn't a bad a trade-off coming with the case and all.

The R550 [108MHz - 142MHz] is very sensitive and picks up really well. Case not shown here. I'll picture the case in another post soon. This was just a quickie.

So, how well does it work?

Oh, it works really well. Because its only made for airband it seems so finely tuned for that frequency range. I think even the original aerial is specifically tuned for the airband range. It works great. I was testing it out, picking up Birmingham airport. And it picked it up clearer than both the Quansheng UV K5 (8) and the Icom IC R6 [will write a post on this excellent little radio soon]. Given the fact that the Signal Communication Corp. R-550 is from the 80's, I'd say that's pretty impressive. This little radio is like an airbanders dream, and I'm sure when I put my one up for sale, it won't be up for sale for very long.

Batteries

It takes 3 AAA batteries. There is a little connection on the side that looks like it could be an AC power supply adapter port. But I have no idea on what type of voltage / milliamps (mA) specifics it could be compatible with. So I won't risk plugging in an adapter, as I wouldn't want to risk damaging the radio. It's a shame the manual is so hard to find. I would love to have a read through it. But its not absolutely essential as I quickly figured out how to use this receiver, and that's the thing that counts. 

And 3 AAA's is quite easy to live with. Might write a post about another Signal radio soon, the R-537. I own that one, too. Not as rare as this one, but still quite a hard radio to find in working condition these days.

They both look quite basic, but they are high quality for their ages. The volume and squelch knobs are made of metal and feel professional and tight to turn. Nice radios. #Japan

I'm selling it

I've got too many radios so this one is now for sale. If you are interested post a comment. I will add a full post on its description etc, with pictures and a video of the radio working. I only sell / post within the UK. Price is £150. I will accept a bank transfer for payment and will post the radio by Royal Mail Special Delivery [included in the price].

Quansheng UV 5R Plus Walkie Talkie

To me, the UV 5R Plus is a scanner, that's what I use it for. But yes, it is really a walkie talkie, a transceiver. I recently bought one. I took a while because I was waiting for the price drop on Aliexpress. That's the only thing I dislike about Aliexpress. Their price fluctuations. It's up and down like crazy. So up and down its ridiculous. Anyway, the price finally went down again and I bought a Quansheng UV 5R Plus for really cheap. Great. It arrived in good time and is perfect, brand new, working well. And it is confirmed from my other post [newer radios come with a better aerial] that even this older model 5R Plus does come with a newer antenna.

The nice blue screen of the UV 5R Plus

Really, I bought this 5R Plus because I wanted to try some other programming software. In some previous posts I talked about how the Quansheng UV K5 (8), once modified with egzumer, can not pick up any frequencies down at 27MHz. So I wanted to use the 5R Plus as a test radio to install either some older versions of egzumer, or try out some other program software like UVMOD and others.

Well, after looking through a fair few of the software's available, it's clear to me that egzumer is the easiest to install, and one of the best all rounders. While UVMOD does look good, It seems a bit confusing as to whether it actually fully replaces the stock software already on the radio, or just replaces parts of it. You can choose different features to install individually, so I think it doesn't replace everything [correct me if I'm wrong]. But I'm looking for something that completely replaces the stock software, so it looks like egzumer fits the bill.

So I think I'm just going to install that again. And in terms of testing the older versions, I don't think they will be any better in the lower frequencies than the newer versions, so I might just install the latest version of egzumer and leave it at that. I don't really want to experiment too much with different programs / firmware and end up bricking the radio.

I know there are a few people looking for the manual for the 5R Plus, so I might upload it. In the form of taking a picture of each page written in English lol. Maybe some people might find it useful. I wouldn't expect much though. I think its only a few pages of basic information.

Realistic Pro-50 Scanner Transmission

Here is a quick video of the old school Realistic Pro-50 Scanner picking up an emergency services transmission in Birmingham UK. All things considered, the Pro 50 is not a bad old receiver. It's old tech and only has 20 channels, but still receives all the transmissions that my other scanners pick up. And thanks to the screen being a bit like a watch or calculator, it's much less demanding on power, so the batteries seem to last quite some time. Takes 6 AA batteries or can be run on a 9V DC mains adapter.