SONY Air-8

Status
Not open for further replies.

KD9KSO

Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2011
Messages
115
Location
Midwest
Back in '92 or '93, somewhere in that time frame I received a SONY Air-8 as a Christmas gift. This was shortly after getting my Private Certificate. I thought this radio was the coolest thing outside of an ICOM A-21.

Somewhere around the late '90's it stopped receiving. After opening it up I found that the BNC antenna jack was bad. I bought another from RS and then the radio sat in pieces until today.

I stopped working on it because there was also a cap that was loose in the case and at first I couldn't figure out where that went. (It was on the ground side of the BNC jack for noise suppresion.) The other reason it sat was because the bottom half of the BNC jack was fatter than the original and the circuit board was slightly in the way. The connector mount also had the flat of the connector rotated in the wrong orientation.

I fixed that with my Dremel and opened it up just a bit so the BNC jack would sit higher in the mount to avoid the circuit board. I soldered the cap to the ground tab on the jack and soldered the other end to the chassis.

It's working like new again, and looks pretty good for a 30 year old radio. I used to drag this brick of a radio everywhere. It was in my flight bag, went to Lambert airport in TWA's heyday when they used to do simultaneous approaches all the time, every day. I used to take it flying to monitor local airspace if I wasn't tuned to them on the aircraft radio.

This old set certainly brings back a lot of memories. I'm glad I fixed it. It's a keeper.
 

KD9KSO

Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2011
Messages
115
Location
Midwest
It is a good set. They pop up on e-Bay from time to time, usually at hugely inflated prices considering its limitations.

SonyAir8003_zpsf3ce4b61.jpg


SonyAir8002_zps5cacf42e.jpg


You can see the original bezel around the antenna jack is missing due to the larger RS part number that was substituted.
 

wise871

Member
Database Admin
Joined
Jun 23, 2006
Messages
3,746
Location
N.W. Florida
I just managed to score me a mint condition Sony Air-8 on eBay today for a fair price. I had one when they first came out.
da4yruzu.jpg
 
Last edited:

JustLou

Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2011
Messages
625
Location
NY/NJ
I had one of these a long time ago but sold it since it really was nothing special performance wise and had limited use. I felt a little nostalgia and decided to bid on one on eBay that was in nice shape. The auction ended yesterday at $276. Some people are insane.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top