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  #1  
Old 01-17-2006, 06:41 PM
Nolan Woodbury's Avatar
Nolan Woodbury Nolan Woodbury is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Central Arizona
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Here's my newest set

....and a long awaited one as well.

I lost one of these Zenith MJ 1035s to shipping last year, and looked long and hard to find another. My patience was rewarded! I lucked out on eBay with this set, as the bidding ended at a really strange time; like 3:00 am on a Sunday morning. Shipping took forever, but the seller did a great job of packing.

The radio itself is a gem; not only is it cosmetically 98% but it functions beyond my expectations. The tone and clarity on FM is remarkable, and, thanks to the built in Wavemagnet AM is loud and pop/static free. With 10 tubes reception is really impressive; one can really hunt down some long distance signals during the evening, and they separate nicely. A great tuner!

Most impressive, other than the big Zenith's condition and performance, is the goodies I got with it. 1) A Users Guide (perfect shape) 2) a Zenith handbook on frequency modulation and....3) the original bill of sale/payment book with the owners name and address! The radio was sold new in Buffalo, NY in July of 1956, at a cost of $243.00. This seems to go against others that have posted info on this set, saying it was released in the early 60s and coinciding with the FCC's ruling/regulations on FM. True stereo seperation!

All said, I'm thrilled. I've only fired it up three or four times, and although I need to re-cap and perhaps change the rectifier (the back it kind of a mother to remove) it'll wait until I get the time. The only thing I'm really missing to have a stand out MJ 1035 is the Zenith-supplied radio stand. Wonder how long I'll have to look to find one of those? Still, it looks pretty good where it’s sitting now: right in the middle of my living room!
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  #2  
Old 01-17-2006, 06:56 PM
Jack Lord's Avatar
Jack Lord Jack Lord is offline
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Sweet! Good score.
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  #3  
Old 01-17-2006, 08:36 PM
Tom Bavis's Avatar
Tom Bavis Tom Bavis is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Macedon NY
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Congratulations - a friend of mine has one and says it's the most sensitive set he owns... I'll find one of these yet...

The first stereo broadcast was in 1961 - the stereo broadcast standard hadn't been decided in 1956 - so I think it's '66 or the receipt is for a different Zenith... The Sams folder is dated '63, 1035A is '65 (unfortunately, I don't have any that recent or I'd offer a copy...)
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Old 01-17-2006, 11:32 PM
Nolan Woodbury's Avatar
Nolan Woodbury Nolan Woodbury is offline
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All the payment book says is "Zenith radio"...if it had MJ 1035 typed in with the rest of the info, THEN we'd have a problem Tom! I searched the Users Guide for a date, but all that I saw was a code on the bottom of the back cover: 202-2186.

Just for the sake of argument, what Zenith radio cost $243.00 is 1956? I realize they had expensive console TV's, but radios? I'm reasonably sure the 8-tube H-845s were being made, but they didn't cost that much. The K731s and G/C 730s were much more popular. I'm not saying that something is when it wasn't, just trying to solve the mystery. The seller claims all items (radio and paperwork) were bunched together and sold at an estate sale...the estate of the person on the receipt. She also reported no other radios, TV or audio equipment of any kind were offered. I’m leaving on a business trip to NYC tomorrow and won’t be back until Monday, but after, I’ll scan the paperwork so everyone can have a look.

This MJ received much loving care through the years. That's what really matters!
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Old 02-07-2006, 12:12 PM
Jeffhs's Avatar
Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
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Hi Nolan:

I sent you a PM a few minutes ago.
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Old 02-08-2006, 07:50 AM
Randy Bassham's Avatar
Randy Bassham Randy Bassham is offline
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I've got an ad that shows the H845 sold for $129.00 in 1963
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  #7  
Old 02-08-2006, 01:26 PM
Jeffhs's Avatar
Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Randy Bassham
I've got an ad that shows the H845 sold for $129.00 in 1963

Randy, that doesn't surprise me. I have a Zenith C845L in a huge table-model cabinet that sounds great, gets all sorts of stations, especially at night--and probably cost close to your $129 figure when it was new. You get what you pay for. In the '20s through the '80s, when you bought Zenith, especially, by the '60s, a well-built and great-sounding radio such as a C- or H-845, your money bought a very high-quality piece of entertainment equipment, so I am not the least bit surprised the H-845 (and likely the C-845 and C-845L as well) went for well over $100 in the early '60s. This was not small potatoes for most people in those days. Most folks made do with smaller and lesser-known brands of radios then, not to mention black-and-white TV (color television was far too expensive for most families to afford in the '50s through the seventies). If a family even had $129 that was just sitting around doing nothing in 1963 (which was not likely then and even less likely today), if they were smart it likely went for much more important things than a fancy radio.
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Old 02-08-2006, 02:21 PM
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mhardy6647 mhardy6647 is offline
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I have one of those in pretty good condition that I picked up from the swap pile at town dump (with satellite speaker) -- I guess that was a pretty good find, then?

The only thing I don't like about it is that it's a series string set, IIRC.
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Old 02-17-2006, 08:46 PM
Dan Starnes's Avatar
Dan Starnes Dan Starnes is offline
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Location: Fowler IL
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Very impressive,, nice score!
Dan
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  #10  
Old 02-18-2006, 01:04 AM
Jeffhs's Avatar
Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
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Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mhardy6647
I have one of those in pretty good condition that I picked up from the swap pile at town dump (with satellite speaker) -- I guess that was a pretty good find, then?

The only thing I don't like about it is that it's a series string set, IIRC.
The MJ1035 was and still is a very good radio (so I've been reading here; I've never owned one, so can't and probably should not make any definite statements about it), an excellent example of early stereo FM. However, I was wondering. What is it about series-string (AC/DC) radios you don't like? Every one of my tube-type Zeniths are this type; they all work very well. No problems with shock hazards or anything of that nature. (Not to say I haven't been shocked in 41 years of experimenting with this stuff; I have, and not just once.)

You may not like the idea that the set has a hot chassis. If this bothers you, I would suggest using an isolation transformer between the radio and the AC outlet into which it is plugged. This will isolate the radio from the line and eliminate the shock hazard. Another way to be sure the chassis is "cold" when plugged in is to be sure the AC plug is inserted in the wall socket so the chassis is grounded. This, however, is a hit-or-miss sort of thing, with an exactly 50-percent chance of getting it right...or wrong--unless you use a test jig such as a common light bulb in a socket, with one terminal of the socket connected to the radio chassis, and the other connected to the ground screw on the outlet box cover plate. If the lamp lights when you plug in and turn on the radio, the chassis is hot. Simply reverse the plug in the socket; the bulb should go out, indicating the chassis is now safely grounded through the power line. I'd use an isolation transformer to be 100-percent safe, though.

Something else just occurred to me. Series-string radios and televisions go completely dead when one tube in the string burns out; this means every tube in the set must be tested for filament continuity until the defective one is found. In common All-American five table radios this isn't such a big deal, but trying to find the bad tube in a 20+-tube TV set could be frustrating. Could this also be why you don't care for series-string radios? Moreover, if the tube filaments turn out to be good, your radio or TV likely has more serious problems, such as (for example) open filament dropping resistors, which are more often than not located under the chassis in a darned nearly inaccessible spot. (Murphy's Law.) I once had a 1949 table-model radio I had purchased from a thrift store. When I got it home, I plugged it in and threw the switch, but it was dead. The tube filaments were good. The problem turned out to be an open fusible resistor under the chassis. Not such a big job, but it was more complicated than just replacing a burned-out tube. Is this yet another reason you don't care for AC/DC radios?
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