Here’s an interesting little video clip: an instructional video that came with the Grundig Satellit 500 shortwave receiver.

This radio was produced in the late 1980s and was a very popular piece of equipment with shortwave radio hobbyists. Grundig’s US distributor produced this video to help the user get started quickly, as the radio had quite a large set of features.

Grundig is a German company whose products shipped worldwide, so when you bought one of these radios you got a couple pounds’ worth of manuals, all in different languages. This video sums up most of the features nicely, and saved the user from scanning the manuals to do something simple such as, say, turning the unit on.

I ran across this video in a box of old VHS tapes, so I figured I’d get it up on YouTube and link to it from my radio collection page, with the hope that some radio hobbyists will find this interesting. I have to say that I find the video very quaint, especially the comments about “staying up-to-date by tuning into shortwave radio.” So much has changed in 20 years.

It’s a curiosity, but I know some of you are into that. Enjoy!