zenith transoceanic royal 1000 - transistors, circa 1960
 

Found this guy at a garage sale this morning. It was very dirty, sitting on a table with total junk. Asked the owner and he said $5.

When I got it home I opened it up and the inside was near perfect. Zenith made a great protective case for this puppy.

I am listening to the Cubs game on AM right now. Installed the 9 "D" batteries. Lucky for me the battery case was empty and not full of 40 year old batteries.

I just cleaned it with a brush, damp cloth and some canned air. There is some rust and pitting, but it is very nice.

See the before and after photos.

Cheers, Snade

I have a Royal 1000 also, an eBay score about five years ago. It works well and looks/sounds great; the only thing wrong with it is the dial cord is broken, so I have to open the back cover and turn the tuning pulley manually to change stations. (I have the service manual with the dial stringing instructions, but I'm not looking forward to actually going ahead and doing it -- it looks like a big job.) Mine was originally without the battery box, so I had to look around online to find a used one, but eventually I did and now the set is complete -- well, almost. The external SW Wavemagnet antenna was missing when I got the radio, so I'll have to look around for a replacement -- hopefully I'll find one eventually on eBay. (The radio has the original Waverod antenna for shortwave and the original AM broadcast antenna, so I'm in no hurry to find the external Wavemagnet.) The set came with the original Zenith AC wall wart power adapter (metal case) as well, but the AC adapter jack was flopping around loose inside the cabinet; I temporarily taped it in. One of these days I'll find the correct small nut to fasten it properly to the cabinet.

I am amazed at the sound quality these portables have, though I probably shouldn't be, as all the early Zeniths were built for high-fidelity sound and excellent RF sensitivity, with an RF stage ahead of the antenna, push-pull audio output, and all on a metal chassis inside a metal case. (I have several other Zenith radios, including a model R-70 11-transistor AM-FM portable from 1980, that sound every bit as good as my T/O.) They don't make them like that anymore. Some day I'd like to get the Royal 3000, which had FM in addition to AM and SW. Oh well, one of these days . . .

Jeffhs,

The Royal 3000 is a really nice radio. You'll love it. The Royal 1000 is nice save for lack of FM. One thing to be careful of both models, don't pick up the set by the handle. They are a known weakness in both models and corrected with the Royal 7000 line. The Royal 1000 was $260 new back then. Nice set you own.

Definitely agree on taking good care of that handle. I've heard that an intact handle alone is worth more than a T/O with everything intact but the handle. I own one with a broken handle. An uncle gave his Royal 1000 (after he bought himself a 7000) to my older brother. He went to college, and a drinking buddy in his dorm room used the radio as a makeshift seat. The dial cord got broken too. He abandoned the radio in the basement and I restrung the cord later.

Nice thing about these, with with their push-pull output circuits and point-contact transistors, is that a set of alkalines will seem to last forever in one of these radios.

Sad things are that the very same transistors have a "whisker syndrome" that cause them to fail in about 60 years - right about now. I also have found that my Royal 1000 is far more susceptible to RF overload on shortwave than my tube T/O.

Nice find, Snade!

I just put a bid on a Zenith Royal 7000 (on eBay) this afternoon (yesterday, if anyone reads this after midnight April 30). Always wanted a TransOceanic with FM. The only difference I can see between the 3000 and the 7000 series is that the latter has its innards on PC boards, whereas the 3000, and its variants going back to the Royal 1000, used a metal chassis and sockets for the transistors.

I notice the 7000 has some refinements as well that the earlier sets did not have, such as tuning meters, BFO, variable RF gain control, etc. (Should I win this one, the BFO function will come in handy for listening to stations such as W1AW for code practice, so as not to get rusty with the code.)

The 7000 I'm bidding on still has one day and 20-some hours left on the auction as I write this, and in fact someone did outbid me after the very first bid I placed on it; I learned of this by way of a popup on the website the second I hit the "enter" key on my keyboard after placing that bid. Needless to say, I immediately placed a slightly higher bid, which to date hasn't been met or exceeded. I'll keep you posted.

I don't know how rare the Royal 7000 is compared to the earlier, metal-chassis T/O's, but I doubt it is worth more than $100 on the used market. The older sets would probably be worthy of higher bids, but since the 7000 (and its offshore-made cousin, the 7000-Y) has PC boards and is less sturdy than the older T/Os, I believe one would be paying far too much if he/she bid more than the $100 figure I mentioned (and which is my exact bid on the 7000 I am after).

Are you referring to the Royal 7000, or the R-7000? The Royal 7000 series, as I understand it, was the last series of Trans-Oceanic (and possibly the last production radio ever) to be factory-built in a metal chassis using point-to-point wiring, as seen here. Zenith thought that buyers would choose hand-made quality over the cheaper printed circuit board construction of the radios starting to stream in from overseas; sadly, they were wrong. :sigh: The R-7000 series which followed switched to PC board construction and, after a number of radios were built in the US, production was moved to Taiwan. The D7000Y, which I own an example of, has "MADE IN U.S.A." on the bottom sticker. Wonderful radios, BTW.
-Adam

The chrome on these is prone to get "Bubbly" & the vinyl trim shrinks/gets oily/sticky, too... I don't think it was Zenith's fault, per se, just the way things were then..Still, I'd LOVE to have a nice working 3000 some day...

Sorry about that. I had reference to the RD-7000Y, the model with PC boards rather than a metal chassis and socketed transistors. I'm hoping the one I am currently bidding on (time left 23 hours and 45 minutes or so, when I checked the listing just before starting to write this) is one of the American-made RD-7000s and not an offshore-made one, although if I wind up getting the latter (offshore-made, in Taiwan) model I won't complain -- as long as it works halfway decently or better. At this point all I know about the R-7000, etc. is what I have read about the radio on Phil Nelson's site and at RadioJayAllen.com.

The only thing wrong with the RD-7000Y set I'm after, in fact (according to the seller) is the dial light is burned out -- a minor flaw I can live with. I had one pleasant surprise while reading about this set -- that the radio is set up for stereo FM reception through stereo headphones (as noted on either Phil Nelson's site or on RJA.com). I always knew these radios were TOTL in Zenith's line of high-end portables just before they went out of the radio business altogether, but I never expected stereo FM in a Transoceanic.

For Sandy G.: Thanks for the heads-up on the chrome bubbling and separating of the vinyl covering of the cabinet on some R-7000s. Again, however, since these are minor cosmetic flaws that will not affect the radio's operation, I can live with it if the set I hopefully will get has it.

Exactly. The cosmetic problems DO NOT detract from the operational issues..I DON'T THINK the early transistors pose a problem to Being Operational...

Good luck, hope you get it. One thing about ebay is a lot of people usually bid during the last few seconds, so expect it to go for more than it is right now. I have been watching Transoceanics for a little while now and the earlier 7000's usually go for $100-120, sometimes more if they're in really good shape. The newer R-7000 are at least double that. I think they are not only popular with radio collectors, but also hams. One thing I don't understand is why Zenith didn't name the R-7000 an 8000 or some other number. They really are very different radios from the earlier 7000's.

I have wanted to get into Transoceanics for a while now, but have been too tight to shell out the money. I know part of the problem is once you get one, you have to have them all! I nearly got a Strato World a couple of times, but those are really hard to find in good shape.

What I find interesting is all the Transoceanic knock-offs that other makers had over the years. Some were pretty shameless. Others were even making them well into the early 90's. I would guess that the 1000-7000 T/O's were the most copied radios ever. The RCA Strato World and B411 portables were pretty heavily copied too.

So, an R-7000, then. The D7000Y was part of the earlier Royal series, and has the hand-wired chassis. The different revisions of the R-7000 are indicated by numbers on the end; the -2 version is considered the best, from what I've heard, due to a switch from using a toothed belt to a series of gears in the tuning mechanism. I wouldn't mind finding an R-7000 someday, but the Royal D7000Y is an excellent radio.

Actually, the chrome and leather issues he mentions affect the earlier Royal 1000 and 3000 series sets. By the time of the 7000 series, they'd ironed out most of the cosmetic issues, though my Royal D7000Y does have some pitting in the chrome.
-Adam

Was outbid for the R7000, but found a 3000-1 and won
 

I was outbid for the RD-7000Y at the last minute (the last few seconds, actually), so I lost the auction. :no: However, not being one to give up on anything easily, I looked around a bit on eBay today after the auction ended, and found a Royal 3000-1 from 1966. I won that auction, :yes: so I'll be expecting my new (to me) Royal 3000-1 in about a week. The seller has an excellent feedback rating, and in fact said in the item description he had done a lot of restoration work on the radio -- cleaned and lubricated the band switch, volume and tone controls, replaced the original dial lamp with two bright white LEDs, replaced the spring-loaded switch for the lamp with a regular switch so that the lamps will remain on as long as the switch is in the on position, and also replaced the original battery case with a rechargeable NiCad pack. The charger is included.

BTW, I think I'm better off with the 3000-1 anyway, as that radio is built on a metal chassis and has socketed transistors--like my Royal 1000-1. The 3000-1 is 47 years old, but since the set has been overhauled and cleaned up (in a manner of speaking; the seller said nothing as to whether or not the radio has been recapped), I think I'll have a very good set when it gets here. The seller said in the description that the radio sounds very good for its age.

I've wanted a T/O with FM for quite some time, but this one is a treasure because of all the work that's been done on it to improve an already excellent radio--one of Zenith's best TOTL portables. It was just too bad when the company went out of the radio business after the R7000, as when they made these radios, they broke the mold. We'll never see the likes of the T/Os again. :no:

The Royal 3000-1 is a great radio. I've had one for years, but my use of it was hampered by the fact that the battery box was missing its cover (IMO, the second most important revision to the 7000 (first being the moving of the telescoping antenna to its own compartment) was giving it an integrated battery holder). However, I recently acquired a Royal 1000/3000 battery box which had corroded contacts. Removed its cover, snapped it onto the half-box I had, and I'm back in business. Just need to buy a bunch of D-cells in bulk... :D
-Adam

My new (to me) Zenith T/O 3000-1 arrived this morning via UPS. Worked right out of the shipping box, bringing in every local and a few distant FM and AM stations in this area near Cleveland -- and it sounds great; typical Zenith. (I will test the shortwave bands after dark.) The radio survived the trip from the Bronx, New York to my apartment without a scratch, although I'm not surprised as the seller packed it exceedingly well. The set had been upgraded from standard D-size batteries to rechargeable cells; they are on charge as I write this. Band switch and volume/tone controls were cleaned and lubricated by the seller before shipping, so there was absolutely no noise of any kind when I tested the radio after it got here. They don't make them like that anymore. :thmbsp:

Nice score, Jeff, congratulations :-)

I hope that you are not overlooking the possibility of some excellent SW reception on the higher bands during the daytime. Right now (about 4:10 pm) for example, I am easily hearing the code practice sessions on W1AW from my location near the West coast on 14.04750, 18.09750 and 21.06750 mHz. I am not hearing W1AW on 7.04750 and below. Also not hearing it on 28.06750 mHz.

jr

I tested my Royal 3000-1 on all its shortwave bands a couple days ago. It works, but the stations I heard were mostly high-power religious broadcasters. (I was using the radio's built-in FM/SW rod antenna, as I cannot erect outdoor radio antennas here due to lease restrictions.) I tried looking for WWV on 5, 10, 15 MHz and found what sounded like it, but the signal was so weak I couldn't be sure what station I had. Same for CHU in Canada. I thought I heard something that sounded like their clock ticks on 3.3 MHz, but again, the signal was so weak I couldn't be sure whether it actually was the Canadian time and frequency station. This struck me as odd, since I live within one mile of the south shore of Lake Erie and should have been hearing CHU coming in like gangbusters. The radio's performance on the AM broadcast band is good, but not great and certainly not fantastic; I can hear most Cleveland AM stations, including a 5kW oldies station about 35 miles east of here, during the day.

FM reception on my Royal 3000-1 is, again, good but not great. It gets most Cleveland FM stations and a couple of out-of-town ones fairly well, but it isn't too good with distant FM reception most of the time even though, being as close to Lake Erie as I am, I should be hearing some stations from Toledo and Detroit, not to mention southwestern Ontario, Canada during good weather conditions. I have heard one station in Sandusky, Ohio on 94.5 MHz, but to date no other distant, out-of-state stations. I chalk this up to the fact that the Royal 3000-1, built in 1966, was one of the first AM-FM portable radios and is not nearly as sensitive as its predecessors; this means the radio was not meant for use in low-signal areas such as far suburban or fringe. (I have a Royal 1000 from 1958 that works better on AM, and probably shortwave as well, than the Royal 3000-1.)

As far as CW reception goes, even if I could hear W1AW here (actually, I probably can, as I am only a couple hundred miles from Hartford, but it would be worthless as I am about to explain), I couldn't use the station for code practice since the Royal 3000-1 does not have a BFO circuit, which of course is a necessity for code reception. As the radio is now, W1AW's automated code practice sessions would sound like thumps instead of tones. I could use the receiver in my Icom IC-725 for W1AW reception if I could put up an outdoor antenna, but, for reasons I mentioned above, this is absolutely out of the question. :no: If W1AW were available on Echolink, however, I would be able to get code practice that way; maybe that's my answer to keeping my code-copying skills from getting so rusty it wouldn't be funny. I'll have to look on EL's station list; I'm almost sure they do have W1AW there, and being on the Internet, the code signals would, of necessity, have to be modulated.

Be sure and check that there's no battery drain with the radio off. I have a 3000 that showed a drain 200 microamps, caused by leakage in the battery feed-through socket. The leakage was from the lugs to chassis. It's a fairly common problem with the 3000, and might also be with the 1000.

Your Icom is very likely the most sensitive and selective receiver that you have... as long as you are not trying to transmit, the antenna does not need to be outdoor or matched for low SWR. A 10-25 foot extension cord strung around a room can make a dandy SW antenna in a pinch.

For grins, last night I connected my Icom IC-R8500 to a 15 ft chunk of hook-up wire slung over the back of a chair, and could easily hear WWV on 2.5, 5, 10 &15 Mhz, and CHU (fairly weakly) on 7.850 Mhz. Might be worth a try for those W1AW sessions. :)

A small loop can work quite well for AM reception on the Icom.

jr

Getting back to my Zenith Transoceanic 3000-1: Is there any way to increase the sensitivity of this radio on FM by means of adjustments to trimmers, etc.? The set has a separate FM tuner. In my area (I am some 35 miles from downtown Cleveland and about ten miles further from the transmitters, most of which are located in a southwestern suburb of the city) it will receive every commercial Cleveland FM station but one (using its built-in Waverod FM/SW antenna) quite well, but it doesn't do so well with the low-power college, university and translator stations below 92 MHz. There are at least two stations, one of which is a translator for an NPR station some 60 miles from here, in that part of the FM band which I would like to be able to listen to. I realize the Royal 3000-1, built in 1966, was one of the first transistor portable radios with FM, but I would think it would have been designed, as are almost all older Zenith radios, to receive low-power and other weak stations where other sets fail to do so. I can hear the NPR translator on 89.1 MHz quite well, actually, as the transmitter is only a few miles away, but the signal sounds distorted; the other stations come in very well. I am currently charging the radio's batteries (it was modified by its previous owner to use rechargeable NiCad cells rather than the usual nine D cells) on a hunch that the batteries may be weak, thereby reducing the overall sensitivity of the set. If a freshly charged set of batteries does not cure the sensitivity problem, where else could it be? As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am curious to know if there are other things I can do to get this radio working as it probably did 47 years ago, such as adjustments of antenna trimmers and such, although if the solution involves realignment, I won't touch it since I don't have a signal generator or alignment instructions. Again, I am aware that the Royal 3000-1 was one of the first portable radios to cover the FM broadcast band, but somehow I think mine could do better than it does in the signal-pulling department, short of using an external FM antenna. Also, the AM sensitivity of the Royal 3000 does not seem up to par. I can get most of the AM stations in Cleveland, its suburbs and outlying areas, but I cannot hear AM 740 in Toronto (for example). The dial calibration seems quite far off on the low end of the AM band as well; for instance, WJR 760 in Detroit comes in at about 650 or thereabouts on the dial, and WGR 550 in Buffalo, usually very good here, doesn't come in at all on my Royal 3000. This (and the FM sensitivity problem) seems well out of character for any radio made by Zenith. Was the quality of their radios starting a downward spiral in the mid-1960s that continued until the company exited the radio business in the early '80s? :scratch2:

Update - Zenith TO-3000-1
 

I did some tweaking on the trimmer capacitors located on the chassis (under the battery box), and managed to get the low end of the AM band back. I can now hear several stations, including CFZM-AM 740 in Toronto, that I wasn't hearing before. I also noticed that the location of the radio has a decided effect on the number of stations I can receive. When I listen to my TO3000-1 in my bedroom, I notice a lot of noise and interference. Move the radio into the main part of my apartment, however, and the difference is like night and day. I can then hear AM 740, WJR 760 in Detroit, and many other stations, in the Cleveland area and elsewhere in northeastern Ohio, that are all but inaudible in the other location.

There is even less noise in the living area of this apartment than there is in the bedroom; I don't know why that should be. I do notice, however, that, since the switch to digital TV, and since a lot of my neighbors in this apartment building now have flat screens rather than CRT sets, there is a drastic reduction in horizontal-oscillator harmonic noise on the AM broadcast band. Makes DXing on AM much easier, and yes, I have heard some stations on my TO3000 I never heard before, such as a Canadian AM station identifying itself simply as "Newsradio 1310" (this one may be new in the Toronto or southwestern Ontario area) and a few other small stations I have yet to identify. Of course, the big 50kW clear-channel stations such as WBBM 780 and WCFL 1000 in Chicago, WBZ 1030 in Boston, KYW 1060 in Philadelphia, as well as other 50kW stations in the Great Lakes region, not to mention up and down the East Coast.

When I shifted the alignment to get back the low end of the broadcast band, however, it caused another problem. The dial calibration is just about correct from about 970 kHz to the top of the band, but below 970 the calibration is off. I read somewhere that this is a common problem when aligning these radios; I wonder why. Was there something about the design of the local oscillator in Zenith TO's (my TO 1000 has the same problem) that makes it difficult, if not downright impossible, to get proper tracking across the entire broadcast band? I have read that it is quite difficult with these radios to get accurate tracking across the entire band, so most owners of these sets just tolerate the problem. Was this problem actually as bad as it seems, or is there some trick to aligning these radios so that the tracking is reasonably good across the entire band? One thing that comes to mind is setting the oscillator trimmer so that a station on 1000 kHz comes in with the dial pointer set just to the left of "110" on the dial; this should work since 1000 kHz is roughly the center of the North American AM broadcast band. If this does not cause proper tracking across the BC band, what else (if anything) could be causing the problem? I'm thinking it is just a quirk in the design of the AM section of the TO's, from the 1000 through and perhaps including the 7000 series.

The alignment procedure for these sets is somewhat complicated, but if followed correctly, using the proper equipment, good dial calibration and sensitivity over the entire band may be achieved. I suspect that your set has been "messed with" by someone lacking the proper equipment/skills to do a proper job. I don't believe that there is any inherent design problem that affects dial calibration on these sets.

jr

Thanks much for the reply. From what you said, however, it looks as if I am stuck with the alignment problems this radio has, since I do not have any test equipment other than a digital multimeter and I do not know anyone in my area who could realign the set. There is a TV/radio repair shop about five miles from me, but I don't think they would even look at a radio as old (mid-1960s) as my T/O, let alone align or service it; they probably only provide warranty service on flat screen TVs these days, and wouldn't touch an old radio with a 10-foot test lead. I found this out when I asked them over the phone about ten years ago for an estimate on repairing my 1951 Zenith Consol-Tone H-511Y radio; the person I spoke to acted as if they never heard of it. I repaired the set myself, including replacing the crumbling AC line cord with one from a defective RF modulator.

The former owner of my T/O stated (in his eBay item description) that he had realigned all 12 bands, but the performance problems I am experiencing on the AM broadcast band (and also on shortwave) lead me to believe that the alignment wasn't done properly, or else something was jarred out of place during shipping; I'm not sure what the problem is. The FM band, however, seems to be in proper alignment, so it isn't a total loss. Further, most AM stations in my area near Cleveland are on frequencies from 850 to 1540 kHz, so I don't have much use for the low end of the band anyway--except of course for AM DXing. The radio does receive stations such as CKLW (800kHz) in Canada and WJR (760kHz) in Detroit, as well as AM 740 in Toronto quite well, and of course the AM dial lights up with stations after dark, so sensitivity isn't the issue. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have heard several very small Canadian and North American stations, such as "News Radio 1310" somewhere in Ontario, while tuning this set through the BC band, so I am reasonably certain the problem is simply poor alignment.