Does any one owns tube portable radios that have F.M.?

[Telecolor 3007]

Me curios: does any one around here owns tube portable radios that have F.M.?

[Dubis7]

Are we talking battery portables, or anything not console? I have a Zenith 7H918 tabletop that's FM only.

[Electronic M]

Did anyone even make one?... every tube Battery portable I've seen was either AM or AM/SW... granted someone could have taken a tube aftermarket car FM to AM converter and kludged it into an AM portable or IF the 1L6 could oscillate high enough could potentially hacked out one of the SW coils from a Zenith transoceanic (or a clone) and made one band opperate as an FM slope detector.

I wonder if any of the electronics mags had plans for such a set or modification?

[jr_tech]

There were some crude pocket FM radio kits that used one tube... doubt if they worked very well.

https://www.antiqueradios.com/forums...p?f=4&t=261017

Two tube pocket set here:

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/hastings_fm_jr.html

I have never seen one.
jr

[Telecolor 3007]

"Grundig". 'Concert Boy' 57-59. At least 57 was made for U.S.A. too.
I've see there are more brands: https://www.antiqueradios.com/forums...p?f=1&t=197438

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-XKKX_I4o8

[Telecolor 3007]

Originally Posted by Dubis7

Are we talking battery portables, or anything not console? I have a Zenith 7H918 tabletop that's FM only.

Portable batteries.

[maxm]

I have a Grundig UKW-Boy that was made for the US market and has the full FM band. Runs on AC or batteries. Similar to this one:

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_ukw_boy_2.html

[Telecolor 3007]

Oh, nice.
But how is the reciving and the sound?

[Electronic M]

Normally I don't collect european made radios, but a tube portable with FM I might have to track down.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Normally I don't collect european made radios, but a tube portable with FM I might have to track down.

Ditto, but i’m wondering why, since a VHF capable low power tube was available, why didn’t Zenith or Motorola or perhaps Philco build such a radio?

jr

[KentTeffeteller]

Because they did not. FM then in the USA wasn't yet mainstream enough. And many areas had few or no FM stations for many miles outside of big Northern USA cities. The first USA made portable radio was the 1962 Zenith Royal 2000 Trans-Symphony, which was transistor. In 1962, in Eastern Tennessee, there was fewer than 10 FM stations from Bristol, TN to Chattanooga, TN on the entire USA FM band. Very few cars had FM sets either.

[Telecolor 3007]

I wanted to say the same thing, but you sayed before me.
So any one that wanted an F.M. portable radio in the '50's had to get an import one. But I wonder, how hard where to find the import ones.
I do have an 1957 U.S.A. catalogue from a Chicago departament store, but I don't know where I put it, so I can't take a look now.

[Telecolor 3007]

Originally Posted by maxm

I have a Grundig UKW-Boy that was made for the US market and has the full FM band. Runs on AC or batteries. Similar to this one:

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/grundig_ukw_boy_2.html

And how well works on the radio?

[Robert Grant]

Years ago, I pulled an Akkord radio from the trash, but I couldn't get it to operate.

It's no accident that the first portable radios with FM were from Germany.

In the aftermath of WW2, Germany was left with few mediumwave frequencies. Their solution to the problem was FM.
What was supposed to be a curse on Germany turned out to be a blessing. Germany had the lead in FM technology.

[Telecolor 3007]

Yeah, that why F.M. (U.K.W.) took of in Germany. Pitty they didn't used 88-108 M.Hz. (M.c) from the very start
What did you with that radio?