The Blaupunkt Supernova is a portable multiband radio, with it's dimensions of 33,5 x 21,4 x 10,4 cm and it's weight of 4,5 kg without batteries, it's clearly more bulky then the contemporary bocket-book sized travel radios. It has an internal mains power supply running from 110 or 220V and a battery compartment to house 6 UM-1 / mono cells. Next to the carrying handle on the top of the set, You find two pull out telescopic antennas.

In the lower rigth corner of the front panel, You find the mains (I0) switch; in a row above this the band push buttons, in my set they are still fully functional despite of the age of the set. The button "MB" (maritime band) activates the 1,6-4,6 maritime or "trawler" band, here You will find the tropical band shortwave stations of the 90 - 60 m bands and some amateur radio traffic, too.
The button "T" selects the turret tuner. The number visible in the tiny window will indicate which of the shortwave segments is active, the turret is operated with the band selector knob on the right side of the cabinet. Like in many similar sets from the seventies, You find a broad clearly visible dial pointer - You might find it a bit difficult to determine the exact frequency. A decimal logging scale is missing, but there is the possibility to mark the locations of Your favourite stations by the means of little sliding plastic arrows.
The frequency dials will take most of the space on the front panel, on top the dials of the six shortwave ranges (usually covering more then one shortwave broadcasting band, so finding a frequency within one band will be a challenge), below the dials for the FM bands (frequencies and channel numbers indicated), the maritime, medium- and longwave bands. In the middle, a simple signal strength indicator allows You to estimate the signal strength.
Below the frequency dials, You find the separate bass and treble tone controls and the tuning knobs for the shortwave and LW/MW/FM - bands.
At the left of the frequency dials, You find the speaker grill and the Volume control below. When the set is operated on batteries, the dial lights will illuminate and the signal indicator will show You the battery voltage, when the button is pressed down. Next to this on the right, You find the switch to activate normal FM reception and three tiny potentiometers for FM presets U2 - U4, a coarse dial will tell You the frequency of the chosen FM channel.

Operating the Blaupunkt Supernova is straightforward: Switch on with the IO in the right lower corner and press the waveband button. The button "K" will activate the turret tuner, turn the coil turret to waveband "1" and tune the set. Somewhere in the left half of the 49m-band - segment, You might recognize the German spoken news from "Deutsche Welle" from Cologne - now it's up to You... When You have identified the station, You can improve the reception by using the "K-Lupe", the "Shortwave magnifying glass" is the fine tuning aid.

The plus, that the Supernova is tuneable to all shortwave frequencies, is it's major drawback at the same time: there is no sufficient bandspread dial covering only one single shortwave broadcast band, so finding a station on a known frequency will be quite "challenging". I prefer the arrangement found on the Grundig Satellit models, You can switch between general coverage and broadcast band bandspread in the shortwave segments.
The selectivity of the set is not really convincing, there is no choice of multiple IF bandwidths, no BFO for CW or SSW reception.

In summary, the Blaupunkt Supernova is more a collector's item then a reasonable DXing machine, but it's fun using it for listening to the major internal broadcasters or some mediumwave channels due to it's pleasant audio. If You're interested in chasing faint shortwave signals from around the world, You would rather look around for a set with digital frequency display, a decent choice of IF filters und SSB capabilities.