What's your most used 'portable'?
 

What's your most used portable transistor radio?

Mine's a Realistic Portavision-5.

Gets used about 3 hours a day, and it still has the original batteried from when I got it last year and put them in.


Not great sound, but it's enjoyable. Very sensitive.

My most used portable is not vintage. It is a Kaito 1102 shortwave portable. It does everything and fits in a coat pocket. It's just a great little set.

I have been getting lots of use out of my Sony TR-8050 Super Sensitivity portable. I can listen any time to KNX-AM in Los Angeles from my home in Northern California. Check out the precision tuning dial. Loud, crystal clear audio. Fun little radio.


One in attached photo looks exactly like mine.

Tivoli PAL which sounds really good, and a Sony wrist-radio from WalMart that has mostly awful sound, and Mega-bass which is totally unusable at any listening level because it boosts the bass by about 10,000 db. The Sony wrist-strap is great, and NPR is barely listenable with a fresh battery, so it does get used for outdoor walking.

For me it's a mid-sixties Sony multi-band that gets around five hours of play each and every day.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...1&d=1256143458

Celt, thats a nice sony you've got there. My Sony CF-550A (first Boombox ?) gets 4 to 6 hours of use a dayfor the past four years. Tokyo Sony products seem to run forever.

Well, as I have 2 Eton S350DLs, one in the office and one next to the bed, the answer is easy, an Eton S350DL. Only other protable is the combo MP3 player/fm radio I use for old time radio program listening but, only very occaisionally do I listen to the fm though it does pull in the local FM pretty well.

My most used radio is a wooden DIY boombox based on a 70s Delco AM/FM cassette car stereo, i listen to it about 3 hours a day while mucking out my horses stalls, sound real good and also has the convenience of mechanical preset pushbuttons which are rarely found on regular radios.

A Magnavox 8 transistor radio, can't remember the model number, AM only and a Realistic Patrolman SW-60 multiband portable. I also use my Sanyo RP-8700 multiband portable radio and a Philco 53-656 portable as well here in the computer room.

The portable that I use the most is a Juliette AM/VHF, model APB-11H, paid 75 cents for it from a thrift store 10+ years ago. Decent sensitivity and a good tone from the speaker (3-inch I think).

Nordmende Globetrotter 7/601. That's a Globetraveller II to you, but I bought it on EPay Germany. Fortunately had a cheap way of shipping. Excellent radio once I got it working properly. Had to take out the "car radio" sockets in the base which looked as though the radio had stood in an inch of muddy water for a while! Now it goes all day every day in my garage. Good sensitivity on the 11 SW bands too, with an RF stage in the turret tuner. I've knocked the dents out of the speaker grille and repainted it since the pic was taken.

My 1963 Zenith Trans-Oceanic Royal 3000 SW portable. Love it's sound quality and DX capability. A nice US built boatanchor portable. Hand wired and transistors in sockets. A marvel of USA build quality. .

A dinky little pocket-sized (for a kinda large pocket) set branded "International," with BC, FM, LW, and about 5 spread SW bands, telescoping antenna, works on 2 AA cells. I bought it at a church bazaar over ten years ago for two bucks: looked unused. Works fine for what it is. It pops into the suitcase for travelling and it's handy for when I'm on the go doing yardwork or something.

Since my earlier post, I retired the very old Sony and replaced it with this (curb-find and repaired by me) Sony ICF 38.
It offers excellent battery life and fidelity thru it's 3.75" speaker.

http://videokarma.org/attachment.php...6&d=1322101956

A Philips/Magnavox "Boom Box" AM/FM/Cassette/CD player. Nightstand radio, I listen to "Coast to Coast AM" on it. It stays "On" virtually all the time.

I used to listen to "Coast to Coast AM" but gave up out of sheer frustration.
There are three stations that I can pick up that carries it, but all three fade in and out.
I spend more time trying to find a station that's still audible when one fades, but usually when one fades out, they all do. :gigglemad

Comes on here from an FM station in Knoxville. Fading not a problem...

Dang! Coast to Coast AM on FM! Who'd a thunk it!?!

A well used Eaton E5... decent SW performance, very good AM and the best FM performance that I have ever observed in a hand-held portable (and I have tried a bunch), decent sound for a 3" speaker and great stereo when used with decent headphones.
Radio intel review here:
http://www.radiointel.com/review-etone5.htm

jr

Four years later I'm still using that 75-cent Juliette :)

I have a number in rotation, of course :D, but two that have been getting heavy use lately are a Radio Shack 20-125 (not worth a darn on SW, but decent reception and audio on AM/FM, and the option of a very LOUD wake-up buzzer, good for those mornings when I need some extra help getting out of bed), and an old Realistic Patrolman 6.

G'day all, I have an 'old' GE Superadio MK.2 on my bedside table and it is a top AM/FM portable radio with great RF performance and very nice audio quality too. Regards, Felix (vk4fuq) aka catman.

Were any of those made for the export market, or do you use yours with a transformer?
Are your AM stations 9 KHZ apart, or 10 KHZ.
You need a manual tuned for that. :yes:

G'day mate, I believe that model were sold all over the world. Mine uses either 6 'D' Cell batteries or straight into a 240 volt mains socket.

We use nine kilohertz channel spacing in Australia but as the tuning is manual so channel spacing is not an issue if I understand your question. Regards, Felix (vk4fuq) aka catman.

That's exactly what I meant, regarding channel spacing. All the models made for the U.S. or Canadian market were straight 120v, 60 htz models.
I have a real early model that doesn't have external antenna terminals. :sigh:

G'day mate, regarding external antenna jacks, well a simple ferrite rod 'coupler' works very well and actually provides some additional selectivity. Regards, Felix (vk4fuq) aka catman.

I have one of those Select-A-Tenna gadgets, I picked up at a thrift for a buck. It works great with a radio that doesn't have an RF stage. AFAIK, it's a $65 USD joke.
It's even made in Wisconsin! :thumbsdn:

This little Panasonic isn't the best radio I have but it's convenient to grab so it's what I've been using lately:
http://i184.photobucket.com/albums/x...ovember230.jpg
I have a Nordemende Transita that I really like but I busted the antenna completely off of it, really messed it up. I need to just rig something up and stop worrying about how it looks.

Cool looking Panasonic! Search tune? Free turning dial with no stop?

jr

Exactly-I like gimmicks! Keywound motor for the search.

My Sony ICF-7600DS gets the majority of use...works well on SSB & the longwave band is fun in the winter:)

My little Panasonic 8. It used to be one of those Emerson Explorers till I dropped it and it got damaged beyond repair. (Actually I can't even remember exactly what happened to it other than it got busted somehow and now it's long gone, boy is my memory fading with age!) Just fixed me up a very compact RCA *tube* portable that was in mint condition, with a big pile of rechargeable 9-volt batteries as a B battery substitute, so I've been giving that some air time too. I should hunt me up another Emerson 'space race' transistor, I do miss mine.

I keep the Kaito 1102 in my desk drawer at work so now my everyday portable is a new Sangean 909. I was fortunate to get one of the last of the new production sets left over from Universal Radio. I also have the Sangean 909X. Both are great sets.

Sony cfs d7

In the kitchen, it's a Zenith Royal 880. Hand-wired chassis and excellent reception, audio quality and battery life. We used it for many hours a day several days last year when the power went out, and it still has the same batteries today!

In the living room, it's a Heathkit GR-24 bought on eBay. Needed liquid flux and some gingerly motion to all the solder joints while molten, but it is sensitive, selective and has "lotsa watts" of room-filling volume.

@Einar72...
Can you pull in the "really oldies" low power station KBRD, 680 from Olympia with those cool sets?
jr

http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h2...ps82fdfaa4.jpg

this is the one i use at work for 8 hours a day, sounds good. saved it from the trash!

My Crane CCRadioEP has supplanted the Tivoli PAL for most-used status due to ballgames; it simply hears more distant stations than the Tivoli. I really love the EP; yeah, I wish selectivity were better but the Music/Voice bandwidth selector in conjunction with the twin-coil antenna control usually does the trick.

Also, FWIW, the EP's fairly annoying whine with the plasma TV on usually has me switching off the boob-tube...the PAL's scream of abject terror from the same source demands something be off.

Emerson 888 Vanguard, identical to this one. It sits on my Majestic TV in the living room, and I bring it with me into the bathroom every morning while I S-S-S :para:

Haha :D

If a car stereo hooked up on my bench counts as a portable, that would be my 1983 Ford AM-FM 8-track stereo, model E3AF-19A168-AB.