[Jeffhs]

I have a Sony TFM-7720W AM-FM transistor portable radio which still works well for its age (I'm not sure when it was made, but I'd guess somewhere in the late 1960s or early '70s). I don't use it much these days, but the last time I had it on it worked every bit as well as it probably did when it was new. This radio was built much better, IMHO, than most new AM-FM sets coming from Japan (and elsewhere in the Orient) today. One feature this radio has which most, if not all, of today's gutless-wonder portables don't is a tuning dial which stretches the entire width of the set's cabinet, and which shows the entire AM and FM broadcast bands, again unlike today's sets on which the tuning dial is so small (with the tuning scale not much larger than a fly speck) it is not funny (!).

These older AM/FM portables are far better performers from a sensitivity standpoint than today's poor excuses, IMHO, for AM/FM radios which don't work well if you are any real distance from the transmitters. Case in point: I live in a very small town thirty miles from downtown Cleveland, and perhaps ten or 15 miles further distant from the radio stations serving the city. I would not expect any of these small portables to receive anything much other than the 50 kW stations in Cleveland, and perhaps a small (1kW day/500 watts nights) AM station in the next town east of the city.

FM performance may be even worse. I would not expect any of these portables to receive anything much in my area except a 6kW (ERP, effective radiated power) FM station on 93.7 MHz, and the major FM stations in Cleveland. These portables are meant for use in the metro area, i. e. the primary service area of FM stations, and will operate poorly, if at all, in areas such as where I live. The sound quality is poor, but then again, these are cheap gutless-wonder portables not meant for high fidelity. I have an Aiwa bookshelf stereo system that runs rings around any of my portables as far as sound quality is concerned (200 watts total power, 50 wpc) but I expect it to outperform the portables, which it does, in spades. Its FM tuner is not the best and is not meant for use in areas such as where I live, but then again that is how these stereo systems are built these days, like it or not. I owned a Zenith 4-mode stereo system when I lived at my former residence, a Cleveland suburb; the FM tuner in that system ran rings around the tuner in my Aiwa bookshelf system.

Oh, well.