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  #1  
Old 06-15-2008, 09:32 PM
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National Panasonic RF-5000

One of these in pretty much pristine cosmetic shape showed up on my doorstep, courtesy of the E place. It is a HUGE AM/FM SW set from 1968-69, competing w/Sony's CRF-230 or CRF-150s. Looks like its never had batteries in it, the dial light works, but it really needs to go see Dr Dewick & get all the buttons & knobs de-gunkified. It works, but the volume is VERY touchy, as is the bass/treble controls, & the bandswitches. I needed this like I needed another Whole in my Whead, but when has "Need" ever had anything to do w/it ? It could also benefit from an hour or so w/a bottle of Windex, some Q-tips & about half a roll of paper towels, along w/some self-applied Elbow Grease...It's missing the front cover & the owner's manual, but otherwise is OK. Antennas aren't bent. Overall, I'm right pleased...Right pleased indeed.-Unca Sandy
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Old 06-15-2008, 10:26 PM
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Lucky dog.
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Old 06-16-2008, 05:22 AM
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Yeah, Tom, what's the old sayin' about a blind hog 'n' acorns ? (grin) I HAVE been extraordinarily lucky about amassing a collection of Boatanchors...This one kinda qualifies, even if it isn't Tooobs...i'll NEVER have an SX-1980, a G-33K, or a Mac 1.2 KW system, but in my little world, I have their equivalents...
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Old 06-18-2008, 02:03 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy G View Post
One of these in pretty much pristine cosmetic shape showed up on my doorstep, courtesy of the E place. It is a HUGE AM/FM SW set from 1968-69, competing w/Sony's CRF-230 or CRF-150s. Looks like its never had batteries in it, the dial light works, but it really needs to go see Dr Dewick & get all the buttons & knobs de-gunkified. It works, but the volume is VERY touchy, as is the bass/treble controls, & the bandswitches. I needed this like I needed another Whole in my Whead, but when has "Need" ever had anything to do w/it ? It could also benefit from an hour or so w/a bottle of Windex, some Q-tips & about half a roll of paper towels, along w/some self-applied Elbow Grease...It's missing the front cover & the owner's manual, but otherwise is OK. Antennas aren't bent. Overall, I'm right pleased...Right pleased indeed.-Unca Sandy
It shouldn't be too much of a job to clean the controls yourself. Get a can of DeOxit at Radio Shack and spray the stuff into the control housings (there is almost always a hole or slot near the terminals just for this purpose). I do this routinely with every old radio I own; the controls have been whisper-quiet as a result. Shouldn't take more than a few minutes to clean all the pots and bandswitch in your radio, unless the chassis is difficult to remove from the cabinet (as is the case with my Zenith Royal 1000). In this case, I would definitely send the set to Terry DeWick. I don't know much about him other than what I've read here in AK's forums, but from that I get the feeling that he really knows his stuff when it comes to repair work. It's not limited to radio or TV, either. I understand he also does repairs on motorcycle transmissions, engines and other mechanical devices.

From reading your posts, it seems to me that Terry DeWick is not that far from you; I think he might be in Tennessee somewhere near Rogersville, so perhaps you are better off sending your radio to him for the service/repairs you mention. I'll look at his website after I finish this and make a note of exactly where he is located, just in case I have to send one of my old Zenith radios to him some day. I generally like to fix things myself if I can, but we all get stuck once in a while and need help from someone who knows more about what we try to repair.

BTW, your post reminded me that I'd better clean up the band selector on my Zenith C845. The switch works, but it is very intermittent on FM and FM-AFC so I think a good cleaning of it and the volume and tone controls is in order. One of these days...

Those huge Panasonics (yours is a National Panasonic, which is quite rare these days, even on eBay) were popular perhaps 40 years ago or more and were built very solidly, unlike the cheap plastic headphone stereos and half-boomboxes without cassette or CD players (I call them "half" boomboxes because they do not have these players--they are far too small for anything like that; I've seem these little things at Big Lots selling for $3.99 or even less) found in discount stores these days.

I'd hang on to that Panasonic radio, as they don't make them like that anymore (what I always say about antique/vintage Zenith TV and radio/stereo, but some of those older multi-band portables are built just as solidly; I have a Zenith R-70 AM/FM portable, 11 transistors, 1980 vintage, that is built on a PC board but is built like a tank, and works just as well). National Panasonic is even more of a rarity than plain Panasonic; I don't know just how many National Pana's were made, or where the "National" came from. I am an amateur radio operator and am familiar with the old National Radio Corporation, which made ham radio equipment (my dad had a World War II surplus National RAO-7 receiver for years), but how or when the National brand ever became associated with Panasonic is beyond me.
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Old 06-18-2008, 02:16 PM
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Oh, Yeah, Jeff, this thaing is a TANK... A fella could get a pretty good workout doin' RF-5000 "curls" as this bad boy is about 20+ lbs... Terry is 75 miles away on the far side of Knoxville...It is a nice Sat afternoon ride down there & back..My wife likes to go to The Fresh Market there, all sorts of REALLY nice restaurants & shops...That's the neat thing about here, it's "rural", but in an hour & a half, I have almost everything a major metropolitan area would have. Plus, part of the deal about taking stuff to Terry is that you get to VISIT w/Terry, which is a BIG treat in & of itself...I dunno how many times I've gone in there, only gonna stay 5 minutes, & finally leave 2 hrs later...(grin) I think the "National Panasonic" brand must have been something Matsushita put on their hi-end SW stuff, I've NEVER seen it on their "lesser" products. It may have had something to do w/home-market stuff, too...Don't think it had anything to do w/the Malden, Mass "National" in any way...
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Old 06-18-2008, 02:17 PM
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Jeff, here's how "National" became part of Panasonic's brand name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_(brand)

National is a brand used by Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. to sell home appliances, personal appliances, and industrial appliances and was the first name used by Konosuke Matsushita's electric firm to sell his battery-powered bicycle lamps, hoping that they would be a product used by all of Japan, hence the name "National". It was arguably the first well-known brand of Japanese electronics.

National was formerly the premier brand on most Matsushita products, including audio and video and was often combined as "National Panasonic" after the worldwide success of the Panasonic name.

After 1980 in Europe, and after (1989 in Australia & New Zealand, Matsushita ceased the usage of "National", and sold audiovisual products exclusively under the Panasonic and Technics nameplates. Perhaps due to trademark issues, Matsushita never officially used the National name in the United States, except for early imported products, but rice cookers bearing the National name, imported from Japan, can be found at many ethnic Asian markets in the United States.

National is well-known throughout Asia as a reputable manufacturer of domestic appliances, such as rice cookers and electric fans. In 2004, the "National" brand was gradually phased out in Asia, the last market it was used in, with most products being rebadged under the "Panasonic" brand due to trademark restrictions with other companies worldwide containing "National" in their name and Matsushita's desire to unify their businesses under the Panasonic name for greater recognition.

Due to its historical significance and recognition in Matsushita's native Japan, non-audiovisual Matsushita products (mostly home appliances or White goods) are still branded "National" as of 2008. On January 10, 2008 Matsushita announced that it intends to change the company name to Panasonic Corporation, effective October 1, 2008. Non-audiovisual products currently branded "National" in Japan will be marketed under the Panasonic brand.

Neither National Semiconductor nor National Car Rental are related to Matsushita or the "National" brand.

National bicycles were imported into the United States under the Panasonic label. The brand was known for producing high quality cycles at a relatively low price, as the result of a very high degree of factory automation and a resultingly low labor force with attendant savings in salaries and benefits. One of their models featured the unusual Shimano front freewheel system.


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Old 06-18-2008, 02:40 PM
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That is one heck of a radio! I love that old stuff. I've bid on similar radios on ebxx a few times and lost every auction because I'm such a cheapskate.

I recall that, back in the mid-60's, I was surprised at the 'National Panasonic' brand being sold in Japan. I was in the Navy and had never been overseas. And the stuff for sale over there was dirt cheap! Sure opened up my eyes (and wallet)!

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Old 06-18-2008, 03:41 PM
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I love that radio, i bought one from a Nashville Radio Club member about 9 months ago, mine had the same problems. The problem was the band selector switches are supposed to have a rubber bumper which dampens them when they pop back up after you select another band or the off switch. well after 30+ years they squish, degrade or fall out. then the switch travels too far upward and no longer make contact to allow the next band to work. if you are having trouble on say, sw4 gently barely press the button of sw5 or sw6 and see if that band comes back to life it could be all the way up to the fm button. I used small pieces of surgical rubber tubing to replace the bumpers.
Is that a RF-5000 or 5000a with the BFO and fine tuning? Logan
PS here's a few pics on mine, It has the door and charts, but the FM antennas are broken
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File Type: jpg MVC-002F.JPG (64.6 KB, 30 views)

Last edited by mr_fixer; 06-18-2008 at 03:52 PM. Reason: added pics of mine
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Old 06-18-2008, 03:50 PM
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5000A. I REALLY got a honey...Just wish it had the front cover & owner's manual, but otherwise the cosmetic condition is almost pluperfect...Sometimes, the Gods DO smile on you...(grin)
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Old 06-18-2008, 03:53 PM
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I added some pics of mine on my previous post. it is a 5000 , i would like to have the BFO option, Logan
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Old 06-20-2008, 10:44 AM
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It's a beauty..built like a tank. I want one!!!
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Old 06-20-2008, 11:59 AM
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I had an "Aircastle" eight-band portable radio about 20-25 years ago, which had basically the same features and frequency coverage as the National Panasonic RF-5000 under discussion here. (It weighed--well, not a ton, but with batteries it weighed perhaps five pounds or so.) My set was a trash-day find; I wish I would have held on to it. Oh well, my Zenith Royal 1000 has almost everything (except FM and the tuning/battery meter) the Aircastle portable had, so I guess it all worked out for the best. Two advantages the TO portable has over the Aircastle set is that the former is hand-wired on a metal chassis with socketed transistors (typical 1940s-'60s Zenith), whereas the latter was built almost entirely on a large PC board. The Aircastle portable also had red indicators on the slide-rule dial for each of its eight bands, activated by a spring-loaded switch to conserve battery power. I don't think my set had longwave, though, although it did have two public service bands (30-50 and 152-174 MHz). The bandswitch on my Aircastle portable was an eight-position rotary switch, but then again I think this radio was meant to sell for much less than, say, a Panasonic or certainly any of the Zenith Royal series (1000 to 7000Y) receivers, so sets with names such as Aircastle (not to be confused with the Air Castle sets of the 1930s) would probably be much lower-end than similar portables from major manufacturers--with a price tag to match. I don't think the original owner of my Aircastle portable paid more than $20-$30 for that set when it was new.

BTW, I like how MrFixer connected the two broken FM antennas together on his RF-5000. If he ever wants to replace both antennas, I'm sure new ones can be found, but I'm not sure where anymore. Radio Shack used to have these, but since they are almost entirely into computers and wide-screen high-definition televisions these days, I don't think they have much in the way of replacement parts. If RS doesn't have these antennas, I'd look for a junked portable similar to the RF-5000 and use the antennas from that set. This way he would also have a source for parts, should something break or become defective in his operating set. These radios being as old as they are (the National Panasonic set under discussion here is from 1968 or so, as Sandy mentioned), it could be quite difficult to find parts for them these days, so having a spare non-operational set around just for parts is a good way to keep these great old sets going.
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Old 06-20-2008, 01:09 PM
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BTW, I like how MrFixer connected the two broken FM antennas together on his RF-5000. If he ever wants to replace both antennas, I'm sure new ones can be found, but I'm not sure where anymore. Radio Shack used to have these, but since they are almost entirely into computers and wide-screen high-definition televisions these days, I don't think they have much in the way of replacement parts. If RS doesn't have these antennas, I'd look for a junked portable similar to the RF-5000 and use the antennas from that set. This way he would also have a source for parts, should something break or become defective in his operating set. These radios being as old as they are (the National Panasonic set under discussion here is from 1968 or so, as Sandy mentioned), it could be quite difficult to find parts for them these days, so having a spare non-operational set around just for parts is a good way to keep these great old sets going.
Actually that large loop is the factory shortwave antenna, it works really well. The rf-5000 with the loop is as sensitive as a Zenith transoceanic with the waverod fully extended, but takes up less room in your house. One of my FM antennas is missing the other has 2 sections broken off,
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Old 06-24-2008, 05:38 PM
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Old 06-24-2008, 05:56 PM
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MCM Electronics used to have a selection of replacement antennas. You may want to check with them.
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