Show us your portable AC/DC transistor radios!
 

This early 70's Panasonic RF-1600 has IMPRESSIVE sound! The bass and trebble response is damn-near HI-FI like. The set is AM/FM/SW/AIR/VHF running on 4 D-cells or 120v AC. It has a really cool lighted tuner drum that turns when you select the band. That way, you only see the scale for the band you choose. This radio is HEAVY... even without the batteries!

Only two drawbacks with this set... the antenna is broken (but still picks up well), and there is a dent on the front.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...9&d=1425940532

This Sears multiband set runs on 6 C-cells or AC. Plays great! I used to carry this on the ship with me before we got satellite TV. This radio traveled all the way to east Africa providing us tunes and news.

I think I have seen the same set before with the Soundesign badge on it.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...0&d=1425940582

This mid to late 60's RCA is about half the size of the two previous sets. Model RHE10E. This set is only DC, running off three C-cells. It's AM/SW. It has a few minor scratches, but otherwise in fair shape. I think there may have been a lable on the top left by the antenna because there is some glue there. Plays great!

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1425940651

Charlie if you have that Soundesign and want to sell it please let me know. It was the very first all-band radio I ever had, picked out of the garbage and rode it home on the front handlebars of my Free Spirit chopper bike from the West Side of Buffalo back when I was about 11. Spent a whole summer listening to different things on that radio :)

Tim,

No, I never actually had the Soundesign model. I saw it in a thrift store a few years back and noticed it was the same exact radio as this Sears radio. I don't remember why I passed it up. I guess I had more sense then than I do now!
:nutz:

I've got a matched pair of GE P4930A's, rock solid units, with TV band :)

Soundesign/Sears
 

Tim,

If this Sears set looks like the Soundesign you had back then, you are welcomed to it if you would like it. I really think the only difference between the two is the name label. If you want it, I'll send it to ya when I get home... that would be around June 17th.

I rarely use the radio anymore now that we have satellite TV and tunes on the ship. It plays very well on all bands.

Yours for the having if you want it.

:)

Definitely! :yippy:

Show Us Your Portable Multiband Radios
 

I enjoy the zenith transoceanics as much as I do their televisions. The great thing about zenith is that their TVs and radios show the same care and pride in craftsmanship and performance. Here is a Royal 1000-1, 1958. This radio was made from 1957-1962. You could also get a royal 1000-D which is the same radio with LW band, available in 1959 (I think?).

Royal 3000-1
 

Zenith made the royal 3000 from 1963-1969 (It was last sold in 1970 however). The 3000 included the FM band. Many collectors dont like this model as much as zenith "bulged" the rear door because of the added FM sub chassis. Its more or less a face change of the original 1000. This is my favorite TO model. This one was one of the last, built in June of 1969. Zenith date stamped the cabinets on these. Its easily seen if the chassis is removed.

Royal D7000Y
 

The royal D7000Y is the newer generation of the 7000 series, from 1973-1978. The D7000Y has padded vinal sides and a tuneable weatherband. Also to note, the D7000Y has black in place of brushed aluminum on the front fold down door. The 7000 was indroduced as competition from panasonic (RF5000) and the Grundig Transistor 5000 were superior to the zenith royal 3000. The 3000 is still the same basic electronic design as the 1957 R1000. So zenith really never "upgraded" untill the 7000 series. the R7000 was introduced in 1970 to compete with foreign makes. Zenith wins in my opinion.

Zenith Inter Oceanic Royal 94
 

Zenith made a lower end all wave receiver from 1966-1972. The royal 94 "interoceanic". This is another true zenith design, with a solid point to point chassis and plug in transistor design. Its in a molded plastic cabinet with a chromed metal grille/frame. This one is from 66.

Zenith royal 790
 

Here is a small portable, royal 790. This radio has the "wavemagnet" in the carry handel. This is the "super navigator". in the NAV mode, the signal is greatly reduced so you can pin point station direction. Like any portable AM radio, If the ferrite rod is perpendicular to a station, the station will null, thus indicating its direction. However, the stations could be 180 degrees from where you think it is comming from. Its main reason was for those on boats to help find direction twards a city.

Zenith Royal C52Y
 

This is a royal C52Y, which includes AM FM and PBS (150-174mhz) This receiver is from 1972, however its made in Japan, so its really not a true zenith IMO.

Norelco multiband with cassette
 

Norelco (philps) also made a few multiband portables in the 1960s-70s. This one is from around 1968 and has a cassette recorder built in which is a nice feature. Independing FM AM/SW tuning dials. Philips/norelco tape recorders of this age have a horrible reputation for the drive belts turning into tar and basically fall on the chassis. Removal of these greasy drive belts makes a huge mess and is a tedious project to fix as all pullys idlers must be removed and completely cleaned of this greasy drive belt residue. After all that is over with the radio sounds great and records anything you want over the radio.

One of the finest multband receivers made is the Grundig transistor 6001, known as the satellit 210. This receiver is from 1968 and has great features and supurb sound to any other portable, even to this day its one of the best sounding portable multibands. Just a great radio. As great as they are, I'll still take a zenith TO anyday.

This radio is from around 1970. Grundig transistor 865. Another good quality grundig. Being a cheaper portable, it was made in portugal.

A westinghouse 9 transistor AM SW receiver. Looks nice but horrible sensitivity. Just the nature of the design. I went through it and got it as good as it can get, just a basic low end AM SW portable. This is from 1960.

Beautiful collection of multi-band radios! I have the T/O 7000 and I also have a similar Grundig radio but mine is called an Ocean Boy and has a vertical row of pushbuttons for changing bands. It looks about the same size as your Grundig and you're right about the sound quality. I really like the Zenith, but honestly I thing the Grundig sounds better.

Excellent!!
 

Thanks, Doug, for sharing all those nice photos and comments with us! It's a very impressive collection!

Doug,

Those are some slick lookin radios! We are going to start calling you "Mr. Zenith"! ;)

Thanks for the compliments. I love transoceanics, and you can get them relatively cheap on ebay now. Ive wanted a TO for ever, and never found one before ebay. I always took ads out of the old NG magazines. Went to many garage sales as a kid and never any luck. At that Time finding a TO was more important than a TV. Still never found one around here to this day!
When the ebay demand of the R7000 goes way way down, Id love to have one of those. Those darn things go for $500 which is crazy.
The only other models Id like to get are the 2000 AM FM portable and a 1000-D.

I like the nickname charlie! We can probably all agree that zenith was the best. Too bad they are gone:(

That's a groovy lookin Airline! In fact, it looks like the same model Doug has... or at least damn close to it.

Sony AM/FMs
 

I have several vintage transistor sets here, but the best ones, IMO, are two Sony AM/FM radios. One is a rather large 18-transistor AM/FM/FM stereo portable (model MR-9700W), the other a smaller AM/FM 3-volt portable (model TFM-7720W). The AM/FM/FM stereo radio sounds like a console, and has incredible bass for a portable :thmbsp: mainly because of its large solid wood cabinet (the sound quality is great, second only to my 1963 Zenith K-731 seven-tube AM/FM receiver).

The smaller three-volt portable works well, but has an intermittent somewhere as the sound will cut in and out at random. I can bring it back simply by tapping the volume control, so I suspect either the control itself is defective or noisy or else there is a bad connection on the PC board it is soldered to. I hope the problem is just a noisy control, though, as I don't look forward to tearing the set apart to resolder bad connections around it. That is, I can do it if need be, but I'd rather not if I can possibly avoid it.

I also have a late-1960s vintage Aiwa AM-FM portable that works very well; the only problem is, I can't find it--yet, anyhow. Probably stored away in a box somewhere around here. Liking radio as much as I do, and since the set works, I wouldn't dream of putting it (or any of my vintage radios) out with the trash.

The power supply for the TFM-7720W receiver seems sorta' odd (to me, anyhow). The set will work on AC or two 1.5-volt size D flashlight cells; the latter is why I say this set's power source is unusual. Most larger portables use at least four C or D cells (my late-'60s Aiwa portable, mentioned above, uses four C's for 6 volts; the MR-9700W stereo receiver uses four D-size flashlight cells, also for a total of six volts). How did Sony manage to design the TFM-7720 to operate on just three volts? The set has a tuning indicator (most likely a small, perhaps grain-of-wheat bulb behind a small rectangular red lens on the tuning dial--I doubt very much it's an LED, given the radio's vintage) which I'm sure eats up power like crazy when it is on (this would explain why this radio has been designed to use D-size batteries, as these are capable of higher current output than C or penlight cells).

BTW, at my former home, some 20 years ago, I had a small Japanese-made portable (AM, FM, and two shortwave bands) that looked an awful lot like one of Zenith's Interoceanic models. I was reminded of this when I saw a pic of a later-vintage Zenith Interoceanic in one of Doug's posts, earlier in this thread.

Also, Heathkit offered an AM/FM/SW set in the early '80s, IIRC, which looked like a knockoff of one of Zenith's later solid-state TO sets. The Heathkit set, I swear, was a dead ringer for the Zenith, as the Heathkit had the same rotating drum dial, front-panel layout, etc. as Zenith's solid-state TO. I think Heath may have offered their version of this set after Zenith bought out Schlumberger in the early '80s or thereabouts.

My latest ebay score: Zenith Royal 1000-1
 

Doug, I like Zenith radios and TVs too (have for years), as I've mentioned before in this forum. I just received via UPS this morning a Zenith Royal 1000-1, which I scored on ebay a couple weeks ago (the seller said he didn't ship the radio immediately after the end of the auction because he was busy around his home; I still gave him positive feedback [the benefit of the doubt, and considering that he explained the reason for the delay] and a B+ rating in the "Comments" section of the feedback form). The radio works very well, picking up stations many of my other sets won't touch (such as CFRB 1010 in Toronto, WBEN 930 in Buffalo, New York, et al.); however, when it arrived I noticed 1) the battery case was missing, and 2) the bandswitch knob was very loose on its shaft; so loose, in fact, that it fell off twice before I went in and tightened the setscrew on it. The third thing, which I don't consider a problem as it can be readily corrected (I'll work on it tonight), is that the radio's case was extremely dirty and the dial drum was very dusty. The chassis was and still is filthy. This radio must have been sitting in its former owner's garage, basement, attic, etc., unused, for years if not decades. The AC adapter socket was also loose. I taped it in against the inside of the cabinet for the time being, but I really should find the proper fastener for it.

The radio had a very low opening bid on it when I came across it on ebay, but another potential buyer outbid me by $1 at first. :( However, I placed another bid, only to be outbid again and again and again . . . a total of five times. My sixth bid was the high one (unchallenged, as it turns out--in fact, I think I must have been bidding against myself seeing as how I kept getting outbid five times in a row, and within a minute or so of placing each bid), and I won the auction a day and a half or so later. I sent the seller an email earlier this afternoon explaining the missing battery box, loose bandswitch knob and loose AC adapter socket; I don't know how much good that will do, but I'm giving it a shot on the chance that the seller might find the missing battery case, or possibly tell me where I can find a replacement. (There is a three-prong male plug on the radio's chassis which I think the cable from the battery box plugged into, but no matching case.)

I did not include a picture of my new (to me) Royal 1000-1 in this post, as the picture Doug posted of a 1000-1 earlier is the exact model I have. My set sounds great, and as I stated earlier it pulls in AM stations here which many of my other Zeniths (including my R-70) won't touch.

BTW, I decided to fire up my Zenith H511 the other evening, just to see if it still works. It does, in spades. I plugged it into a ground-fault-interrupter outlet in my apartment just in case there was a problem, but I need not have worried or even been concerned, as the radio powered up and played flawlessly as soon as the tubes warmed up. I left it on, tuned to a big-band/standards station in Toronto (CHWO 740), much of the rest of the evening. The set sounds wonderful, even with the speaker cone rather torn up--I can't even notice anything that would even suggest a torn cone, such as garbled or distorted sound.

The TO Royal 1000-1 brings to five the number of Zenith radios in my collection. Except for the H511 and the TO, the other three Zeniths are somewhat less than antique (although my K-731, manufactured in 1963, is getting close at 42 years).

I have a 1956 Telefunken Bajazzo that's in the process of being repaired that I picked up curbside a month or so ago. Tubes, huge batteries and a plug...what's not to love?

I have a radio with the same exact design except it is branded with both SounDesign and "Readers Digest".

-Dan.

Here's my daily-use radio... Zenith Royal 2000. I read somewhere that this was Zenith's first AM-FM transistor set. Weighs a ton, has color TV type rabbit ears antenna for FM, and has a metal chassis with transistor sockets. Uses 8 D batteries, and no AC provisions. This radio is the only one I have that will receive AM up here in the canyon. We can't get ANY FM or TV, and most AM radios will only pick up one or two fuzzy stations. This one pulls in Bakersfield, CA, and a few Los Angeles stations fairly well.

Charles

Cool Zenith 2000!
 

Would not mind having one of those, but I am over my self imposed limit fo 5 portable radios. Got six sets and I am moving. The "wife factor" is kicking in. Dont really want to part with any of them :tears: The GE's and both Zeniths are all working sets. As is the Montgomery Ward..Too well I might add. :music: Eric

Sears Wayfarer
 

It is a shame that most of the pictures on this thread do not show up ... It would have been nice to have seen all of your radios!

When a little kid, Santa brought me a Sears Wayfarer for Christmas (1972). It has serviced me well through the years, as I went DXing and recorded my finds on tape. And, it worked wonderful as an amplifier (with RCA input) for testing various equipment through the years. It still is in my arsenal, and works well to this day.

While hamfesting one day, I found another rather cheap, and will hold on to that one for parts, if mine ever needs them.

Saw one go on eBay the other day ... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=5876622352

Got some photos back!
 

Tom, I've been given an opportunity to go back into some archives and dig out old photos one by one from some of the previous posts that were lost last year. There are still a few missing, but most of them are now in place. You can now go back and have a look... they're really cool looking radios! I also did the same in the Pocket Transistor thread and a few of the others.

Charlie, thanks for restoring the pics! They are a sure pleasure to view! :thmbsp:

Toshiba RT-7066
 

I don't know much about this set, except that it comes from the London area in the UK. It's a really good set, has all four European bands, LW/MW/SW/FM, and it works good.

Has dual cassette deck with dubbing, 5 bang EQ, 5 position memory, and scans for active stations.

Naturally, FM and MW (AM) are programmed for European frequencies 9KHz increments for AM, .05MHz increments for FM/SW (which is better than the .2MHz increments for FCC-spec FM radios!) I'm not at all surprised by the very fine tuning of FM, because in Europe, about 80-90% of broadcast radio is FM. I have been in some large metropolitain areas on the Contenent, and up in Scandanavia, where I could only pick up ONE AM station (and even then only at night!) but I could pick up eaisly 20 FM stations over the 88-108MHz FM band.

I really like the autoscan feature, because it's perfect for SW DXing, on a regular basis I pick up SW broadcasts from Mexico and Cuba, and probably even farther south, and occationally from contental Europe. Just a few minutes ago I got a Call in show from Bremen where the topic was how the East still lagged behind the West all these years after the fall of the iron curtain.

Eaisly, it's the best portable radio I've ever used since my old Mallory. It was an AM/FM/Cass. unit that has given me the most "professional" ability to record on tapes of any cassette player I've ever used. My Dad got it in 1970, gave it to me assuming it was junk in 1995, and it worked great until 2001, when it blew an outpit transistor (although that could have been due to my careless use of an ohmmeter to test my solder-job when the speaker wires crumbled. Even the tape deck still worked great after 31 years! I still have the manual. Anyone else have a Mallory like this? It had the knob tape control instead of buttons?

Interesting... I've never seen a boom-box styled radio with shortwave!

I seem to remember a few Aiwa and Panasonic boom boxes with at least one SW band, though they are rare. Most garden-variety boom boxes/ghetto blasters were AM/FM/cassette only, though some of them were huge--they must have weighed 20 pounds (less batteries) if they weighed an ounce. It always amazed me how anyone could carry one of those on their shoulder while walking down a city street for any length of time. :scratch2: I bet a lot of kids all but cheered (and got rid of their large systems) when Sony came out with their Walkman headphone stereos.

Those older Zeniths are indeed sensitive, which is why the company used the phrase "Long Distance" on their older tube radios until, IIRC, the '70s or so. I have a Zenith Royal 1000-1 TransOceanic that also has a metal chassis, socketed transistors, sounds great (like all Zeniths) and which picks up AM/SW stations like a magnet. The dial cord broke a few months ago, though, so I'll have to go in and restring it one of these days. My other Zeniths do a great job of pulling in distant stations; even my small R-70 portable (1980 vintage) gets stations 80-90 miles away on AM (in the daytime) regularly, and the dial just lights up with stations at night on every one of my sets. Now, if only the noise level in my apartment weren't so high, I'd have a few AM music stations to listen to. The one station I can hear halfway decently is about 80 miles from here (no AM music stations in Cleveland anymore), but the noise is often so high it comes close to drowning it out.

Man, you must be in a canyon if you cannot receive FM or TV where you are. I don't know a heck of a lot about the Royal 2000, but it must have a very sensitive AM section if you get stations from Bakersfield and Los Angeles.

I don't know just where in the Los Angeles area you are, but it obviously must not be in the immediate metropolitan area or even in a suburb if you are blocked from receiving any FM or TV at all. I know this happens in places like West Virginia and up in the mountains in other parts of the country, but even most of those areas get at least one FM station. Even if you were able to pull in one NPR station it would be better than nothing.

What on earth do you guys do for TV reception in that canyon? If antennas don't work, the only other thing I can think of is that you have cable or satellite. If you have either you can get 24-hour music with their digital music channels; even if you cannot get any FM in your area you can still hook up the audio from your cable box or satellite receiver (or the audio output of your computer's sound card) to your stereo system and still get all the music you could ever want. I did that here a long time ago and have never regretted it. Internet radio and digital cable music channels offer much more variety than regular FM radio does today, or probably ever did. No reception problems or commercials either. I still listen to one oldies station and a classic rock station on FM occasionally, but these days most of my music comes from digital cable and Internet radio, not to mention my own music collection stored on my computer. I have never enjoyed listening to radio or music more; I often wonder why I didn't discover Internet radio sooner than I did.

Doug,

I have two Zenith radios (R-70 and H480W), made in 1980, that were also manufactured offshore, in Korea and Taiwan respectively, so these technically are not "Zenith" sets. Neither radio has plug-in transistors or metal chassis (in both the entire receiver is on one large PC board), which is a dead giveaway that the receivers were manufactured when Zenith's audio division was starting to change--I regret to say for the worse. By the '80s the company's televisions had had circuit boards for about three years, more or less; a small Zenith b&w solid-state portable I bought in 1978 had everything except the tuners, speaker and control cluster on one large PCB. My point is that Zenith was already using circuit modules in TVs by the late '70s; their audio line went fully to PCBs from about 1980 going forward.

The company's radios (including your C52Y and my two solid-state receivers) made from 1980 on were branded "Zenith" probably because they were built to the specifications of the Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago on Korean or Japanese assembly lines. In the early 1980s I owned a four-mode Zenith integrated stereo system which had been manufactured in Korea to the ZRC's specifications, as a notice on the back panel stated. The unit had a Zenith nameplate just to the left of the metal tuning knob, on the front panel, but no Zenith "crest" emblem (the company probably did away with the latter some time around 1980).

Sony TFM-1000W
 

Just got this one from Universal Radio. It's a far cry from being *mint*, but is in good, serviceable shape. Four band: AM-FM-SW1-SW2, 14 transistor, backlit dial with tuning meter, 4"x6" alnico speaker. Has a antenna input on the rear and jacks for DC in, Record Out, Aux In, Multiplex Out and Earphone. The case is ivory plastic with a heavy chrome front bezel and chrome bands on the rear panel. More than anything, I was surprised at the clean, strong audio. Not sure of the manufacturing date, but I'm thinking mid 60's. Note the dial is marked in kilo and mega cycles, not hertz and the FM band is slightly extended to 86.5 MC.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...1&d=1256143458

That Sony is freakin sweet! I dig how the knobs look like something off a TV set. That was back when you didn't find Sony's at places like WalMart, KMart, or Woolco. :smoke:

Your Sony was probably manufactured some time before 1967, which was when radio manufacturers started putting MHz and kHz on the tuning dials rather than mc and kc.

As to the low end of the FM tuning range beginning at 86.5 MHz rather than 88.0, I would guess this radio was originally made for the Japanese market. Note as well that, with the extended range, if you have a channel 6 television station in your area you might be able to hear the sound carrier on this receiver as channel 6 is 82-88 MHz; as a matter of fact, the sound carrier for TV channel 6 is exactly 86.50 MHz. You may also be able to hear aircraft radio above 108 MHz, as most of these radios (even modern ones) will tune slightly above and below the actual FM broadcast band.

The input jacks on the back of the Sony would suggest to me that it could be used as an FM tuner in a modest hi-fi system; the MPX jack allows the use of a multiplex adapter with the receiver for stereo FM reception. The tape output will allow recording independent of the receiver's volume control, and so forth.

All in all, I think you have a very sophisticated piece of equipment there, not worthy of being referred to simply as a radio. Sony obviously built this receiver to exacting standards, and to last; it wouldn't surprise me if it sold for well over $100 USD when it was new. Clean up the front panel (it should shine up nicely unless there are deep scratches on it) and you will have an excellent multiband receiver. :yes: