- Target: Latin American
- Lang: Spanish
- TX: Okeechobee, FL 🇺🇸
- RX: Asunción, Paraguay
- Radio: AirSpy HF+ Discovery
- Antenna: MLA-30+
- Software: SDR# v.1922 (beta)
- D/T: 19 APR 2026 - 0050 UTC
Only the air traffic controller's voice can be heard. I edited the video to remove the long periods of silence.
Comments from u/KG7M about ARINC Voice Service:
*New York Radio covers International Air Routes to the Caribbean area, including the islands and central and northern South America. They track the flights via radar and assign altitude, speed, and provide weather forecasts. As the flight nears the destination country's airport they are given a VHF frequency for hand-off.*
About the transmitter: Cubic CTX-5000 (5 kW)
- Target: Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Florida Waters
- Lang: English
- TX: Barnegat, NJ
- RX: Asunción, Paraguay
- Radio: AirSpy HF+ Discovery
- Antenna: MLA-30+
- Software: SDR# v.1922 (beta)
- D/T: 18 APR 2026 - 2327 UTC
The broadcast is of a Brasileirão B (Brazilian Serie B Championship) football (soccer) match played today.
- Target: Brazil
- Lang: Portuguese
- TX: Belo Horizonte, Mato Grosso 🇧🇷
- RX: Asunción, Paraguay
- Radio: AirSpy HF+ Discovery
- Antenna: MLA-30+
- Software: SDR# v.1922 (beta)
- D/T: 18 APR 2026 - 2123 UTC
- Target: South East Asia
- Lang: Japanese
- TX: Yamata, Koga City, Ibaraki Prefecture 🇯🇵
- RX: Asunción, Paraguay
- Radio: AirSpy HF+ Discovery
- Antenna: MLA-30+
- Software: SDR# v.1922 (beta)
- D/T: 18 APR 2026 - 2100 UTC
- Target: Central and South America
- Lang: Spanish
- TX: Vandiver, Alabama
- RX: Asunción, Paraguay
- Radio: AirSpy HF+ Discovery
- Antenna: MLA-30+
- Software: SDR# v.1922 (beta)
- D/T: 18 APR 2026 - 2314 UTC
This post is related to this one
To be honest, it just needed a thorough cleaning. Then I just resoldered a few components that had “cold” solder joints. I was so focused on this project that I forgot to take more photos, which is why I made this video instead of posting a photo gallery first.
After that, I didn’t find anything that was broken or needed to be replaced. It’s clear that someone replaced some capacitors at some point in this radio’s history.
Before testing to see if it worked properly, I decided to clean it thoroughly first and then troubleshoot it if there were any issues.
It was a little past noon here in Paraguay, so I couldn't really test shortwave properly. My first test was with some of the medium-wave stations that are plentiful here in Paraguay.
It worked well on the first try, and I only used the built-in telescopic antenna.
Late at night, I started experimenting with shortwave. It took me a while to get used to the separate MHz and kHz dials, but after a while I got the hang of it.
That’s when I realized that the whole SW section is a little out of calibration. Mark u/KG7M gave me the manuals for a similar model (Drake SSR-1 and Century 21), and one of them contains the calibration instructions. I’ll read through that manual carefully before I touch the radio.
Apart from the calibration issue, I was able to pick up several stations (mostly Chinese ones) because they come in stronger here, and then I found a Radio Marti station at 11860 kHz.
By the way, it picks up a lot of interference. I think my long cable antenna is a bit too long for this radio—it’s 22 meters long (72 feet), and according to the manual for this model, it specifies an antenna of just 10 meters (32 feet).
But I also know that these devices are very sensitive. When they were made, they probably never imagined that we’d be surrounded by all kinds of junk that causes interference. The engineer probably never imagined that his equipment would still be in use 48 years later—and that it would end up as far away as Paraguay.
Anyway, I'm glad it's working well. Next up is the Kenwood R-1000, and I think that one will give me more trouble.
The video includes:
- Various images showing how it looked after cleaning.
- First test: AM 1080 kHz
- Image of the 1080 kHz dial setting
- SW test: 11860 kHz
- Image of the dial setting that should be 11860 kHz (out of calibration)