Show us your vintage pocket transistor radios! - Page 2 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Charlie · #1 04-28-2004, 02:35 PM

Truetone model DC3906C. This 9v AM radio plays really good. I've got the box it came in, and the original reciept.

Charlie · #2 04-28-2004, 02:38 PM

Here is the Western Auto sales ticket... dated Sept 4, 1963. This radio sold for $2.99 back then!

soundmotor · #3 09-04-2005, 10:58 AM

I have a Global exactly like the one shown below (I took got this image from another site). When I got it it did not work. Upon opening it up I saw that one of the small glass diodes had broken so I disassembled the radio enough to get the PCB up and soldered in a new 1N4148 diode. A real job as they are built in a 1-way fashion. I don't believe the manufacturers ever expected them to be serviced. The unit works superbly now.

radiolee · #4 04-28-2004, 04:49 PM

Here's one of the faves from my collection. One of the first I found at a garage sale. Two transistor radios were called "Boy's Radios"
and were labelled as such on the back. This subjected them to lower tariffs as they were classified as toys rather than radios.

Next time you watch the movie "Hud", look closely in Lon's shirt pocket and you will see this radio.

BTW, the Hoffman solar was the first practical use of solar cells, made possible by the invention in 1954 of solar cells and the fact that transistor radios did not require the wattage of tube portables.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationwo...,2139125.story

The Hoffmans are some of the most desirable to collectors and fetch 100 - 200 in good condition.

Lee

radiolee · #5 04-28-2004, 04:51 PM

Better late than never

Charlie · #6 04-28-2004, 05:35 PM

That was an interesting article. I am somewhat surprised that battery/solar powered consumer items are not offered more often. I am sure that solar panels have come a long way since the 50's, and that they would be able to power some of the small electonics we use today. The only thing I see them on in the consumer market it calculators. If they could power a small radio such as the Hoffman, why not make them on today's products?

My neighbor's Hoffman has very few hours on it. She told me they used it now and then while working outside years ago, but in the past several years, it is only used during power outages. I've noticed that she is very firm about holding on to it. She feels that it's the best little radio she has ever owned (and during her 93-year lifetime... that's a lot of radios!). She just won't part with it!

That boy's radio looks great! Very attractive looking! I assume that only having 2 transistors limits its range?

radiolee · #7 04-28-2004, 05:47 PM

Yeah, doesn't pull in a a lot of stations, but plays just as loud as more complex radios.

Keep working on that Hoffman. Let her know that you're someone who really appreciates the history of it!

noveltyradio.co · #8 02-09-2008, 09:22 PM

My avatar is actually an AM radio! I am into novelty radios and have over 1500 sets so far! I have over 520 transistor radios too, these things are just great!

***Kamakiri*** · #9 04-28-2004, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Charlie
This is a 1967 Westinghouse H-902P6-GPA. Man! That's a lot of model number for something so small! This little set is like new, and the only wear is the slot where you put a penny to open the back... and it's really minor wear. This radio wasn't used much either. It's AM and 9V.

Looks quite familiar, I've had this one for many years

superdeez · #10 05-25-2006, 01:52 AM

This little radio was the very first purchase my Dad ever made using money he had earned doing an egg delivery route in about 1965 or so. Originally, it was an AM-FM unit, and it ran on 6V (4 AAs in a plastic battery holder), however my Dad shelved it sometime in the early 80s, and it sat in his closet, rotting, until about 1996, when it caught my eye.

I don't remember what I said or what happened, but soon thereafter he was excitedly telling me the story of his old radio and leading me out to the workbench all while I prayed he had removed the batteries. He hadn't. I'm sure any experienced audiophile can imagine what 15 year old Duracells looked like. My dad used a knife to free the batteries, and the electrodes in the battery holder were so rotted, they came right out with them! However, I couldn't help but notice the contacts for the battery holder are identical to a 9V socket. So I hooked one up...and it worked! But AM only. The radio is on when you switch it to FM, but you can't get any reception. Once or twice, I've put headphones on and turned the volume all the way up and I've BARELY heard the strongest local signals. Either the antenna's lost its ground or a transistor is blown. After all the board did spend a decade in battery acid.

The radio has served me well, and it used to compliment my old beat up Walkman with broken AM tuning circutry rather well. I used it to go to sleep when I was in Europe and could actually pull in an AM station. (Heh, the first broadcast I ever heard in Europe was on this radio, about a "common event" where a street gang had got hold of some nuculear waste and was trying to sell it on the black market. Made me wonder about what I was getting into! EDIT: Going to Europe, that is.)

I fired the radio for the first time in several years tonight, and I'm pleased to say it still works! It seems tired though, maybe it's the introduction of 9V into a 6V party, or maybe it's just age, or maybe it's that about half of the contacts are swimming in corrosion; I had to turn the volume almost to max to hear it pick up a strong local station weakly. Yeah, I could fix it up, but I really don't have the time, and I'd rather leave well enough alone, because it has a lot more sententimental value than usefulness.

Plus, I never have heard of anyone else with a Koyo.

superdeez · #11 05-25-2006, 02:12 AM

Here's another neat radio--a bike light!

No idea when it was made (I figure late 60s?), but it's a bike light, "siren", horn, and AM radio. My grandpa found it on an abandoned bike in one of his rental homes.

The bike was junk but this little guy worked great. I snapped it onto the handlebar of my bike, and used it for entertainment/light, and even for the horn if a person was on the sidewalk. If it rained, I kept a ziplock bag and I'd put it over it with a rubber band to keep it dry. If I had to lock the bike outside (which I avoided) I'd unsnap this light and take it with me.

Fired it up for the first time in a couple years, amazingly the batteries I left in it (oops) still had good juice. The radio still works--somewhat, the volume control is iffy and it falls in and out of place, causing sound to cut in and out. I stopped using it because I got a driver's license and stopped riding my bike, and because the light developed a short through the speaker and cuts in and out after the bulb warms up. I don't remember which happened first. I might try to put it to some type of use this hurricane season.

Charlie · #12 08-07-2006, 10:18 PM

Recently, AK member OMI sent me a little box of goodies. In the box was four radios... three pocket and and little travel radio.

The first one is a Hitachi WH-761 7-transistor AM/SW 9V radio. A book I have lists the radio as being from 1962. I put a battery in, but only got static.

Charlie · #13 08-07-2006, 10:22 PM

Next is a Juliette AK-6. It's AM and 9 volts. Still has the original box, instructions, earphone, and plastic carrying case. Fresh battery and plays fine!

Jeffhs · #14 08-09-2006, 03:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by superdeez

Here's another neat radio--a bike light!

No idea when it was made (I figure late 60s?), but it's a bike light, "siren", horn, and AM radio. My grandpa found it on an abandoned bike in one of his rental homes.

The bike was junk but this little guy worked great. I snapped it onto the handlebar of my bike, and used it for entertainment/light, and even for the horn if a person was on the sidewalk. If it rained, I kept a ziplock bag and I'd put it over it with a rubber band to keep it dry. If I had to lock the bike outside (which I avoided) I'd unsnap this light and take it with me.

Fired it up for the first time in a couple years, amazingly the batteries I left in it (oops) still had good juice. The radio still works--somewhat, the volume control is iffy and it falls in and out of place, causing sound to cut in and out. I stopped using it because I got a driver's license and stopped riding my bike, and because the light developed a short through the speaker and cuts in and out after the bulb warms up. I don't remember which happened first. I might try to put it to some type of use this hurricane season.

These little radios were very popular during the '60s and '70s. Radio Shack carried one for years that had a radio, light (I think) and an electronic horn activated by a little push button on the front panel. They may still carry an updated version today.

It's interesting to me that your radio's headlight somehow short-circuited through the radio speaker. I can think of only a couple of ways this can happen (perhaps others here can shed more light [pardon the pun] on it)--one of the lead wires from the lamp socket to the battery could be shorting against the metal frame of the speaker, or the loudspeaker itself could have some oddball short through the voice coil, causing the speaker to short to the frame. Since the sound intermittently cuts in and out when the bulb gets hot, it could even be some odd short in the lamp circuit itself that intermittently shorts out the speaker by way of shorting out the voice coil.

I wouldn't use the radio too long in this condition, as the short will cause the entire unit to draw much more current than normal; a new battery may not last more than an hour or so, if that long. I once had a multiband portable radio that drew so much current it kept blowing the fuse in an external power supply I was using to test it; I never used it with batteries, and it's probably just as well, as the thing probably had a shorted or leaky transistor creating a huge power-hogging short. The set sounded good at first, but the tone worsened as the radio drew more and more current from the supply until the fuse blew.

I would try a shot of Deoxit or standard contact cleaner in the volume control pot as a first step towards curing your radio's intermittent volume problem. A radio which has been sitting, unused, on an abandoned bike for who knows how long may be full of dust and dirt, both on the outside of the casing, inside the box, and on the PC board containing the radio (I would be amazed if I found a radio like this, even of 1960s vintage, with a metal chassis; these things were made to sell cheaply, so the radio is almost certainly all on a PCB). The volume pot may be and probably is extremely dirty, which would cause scratchy and/or intermittent audio.

superdeez · #15 08-25-2006, 06:44 AM

Concerning my bike light radio, the volume pot is bad and always has been, so sometimes I have to tap it to make the sound work.

As for what happens with the light, after running for 30-45 seconds, the light begins to flicker on and off, and when I've held the speaker up to my ear I can hear very brief clicks, or pops as the light turns on and off. That's where I got the speaker part from.

I couldn't find anything obvious when I took it apart.