Zenith Royal 2000

[Electronic M]

I have one with almost no audio... one day I gotta make it work.

[Jeffhs]

I have a T/O 3000 (AM, FM, SW) and, as Sandy said, it is an excellent performer. I never had a Royal 2000, though, but from what I just read they are every bit as high-performance as any of the T/Os, tube or SS. My T/O 3000 will get FM stations from 80-100 miles away, using just the whip antenna stored in the handle. (I live in a small town about 45-50 miles from most Cleveland FM stations; the TO 3000 gets every one of them, to say nothing of other stations in northeastern Ohio and even northwestern Pennsylvania.)

The standard AM broadcast band on my T/O 3000, however, is dead silent, and has been from the day I got the set (I won it in an eBay auction a few years ago). I've been told the problem might be an open AM oscillator coil, but since I use the radio mostly on FM, I haven't done anything with the AM section yet. The shortwave bands all work very well, so the open coil must be one that is used only on the standard AM broadcast band.

BTW, Zenith was planning to make and eventually market a multiband portable radio to follow the Royal 7000. However, the set, which was to be known as the "Royal 8000", never made it even to the prototype stage before the company went out of business in the late 1990s. I read an article somewhere, I don't remember where, that said the Royal 8000 was to include stereo FM in addition to AM and SW, and a digital frequency readout.

[Robert Grant]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

I have one with almost no audio... one day I gotta make it work.

My Royal 2000 had almost no audio when I bought it at a garage sale for 50c (!).

It had three in line caps branded Nashville that seemed to be made of a ceramic that appeared to be porous, and I think that caused them to dry up.