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Old 05-24-2006, 03:22 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
Posts: 4,035
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kaye-Halbert TV
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
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.
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Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002

Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten.
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