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

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

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

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?

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

"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

Portable batteries. ;)

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

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

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? :scratch2:

jr

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.

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.

And how well works on the radio? :scratch2:

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.

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?

Unfortunately, the radio I have is currently not working. I don't have batteries to run it on, and there is a problem with the AC power supply. I will need to take a look at it some time.

You can put in series 10 9 Volts batteries :D

I own Austrias first all tube FM portable radio:

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/radion...?language_id=2

and its hybrid successor

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/radione_r25t.html

This radio offers not only a built in mains transformer but also a transistorized DC/DC converter which obivated the anode battery :thmbsp:

Dummy me....I have, what I consider to be a really PRIMO all Tooob AM-FM radio-a Newcomb model AFM-1500. I got this Bad Boi about 5-10 yrs back from a Facebook local, who knew I'm into old radio/TV junque. Newcomb also made school record players & whatnot, their stuff was always good quality & "Built to Take It" This set has an AM section that rivals any of my Boatanchors, & the FM section is equally good. I used to have it on my nightstand, & would go to sleep to Art Bell/George Noory by it, on WLAC 1510 in Nashville. They came in the best here in Greater Bugtussle, but my wife won't let me play it anymore. But SHE can listen to her I-thingy doodad, it ain't FAIR, dammittall.... (Grin) Anyhow, if you ever run into one of these sets, I HIGHLY recommend you get it. If you don't want it, I'll happily beg, borrow, buy, steal it off you. They're portable-Well, "Luggable" would be more like it, but they're a DANDY radio, roughly the size of a moderately large tool box. Mine is rather "1960" looking, Kent T. looked 'em up, & I think mine went for $270 or so back then, a princely sum for a radio in 1960...

1st times I've read Australia and I wondered how come portable tube radios with F.M. in 1957 since in Australia F.M. camed only in 1975.
But it was Austria. The radio had 5 or 6 tubes for radio frequency as I can see. Most had only 4. How did it worked on radio? And what F.M. frequency range it had?

Oh, it's 88-100 M.Hz. (M.c.).
I wondered if for Europeanen domestic market some one produced F.M. 88-108 M.Hz. portable tube radios. The Swedish produced some F.M. 88-108 tube radios for it's market, but I could'nt find out if they made portable tube radios with that band.

An FM tube portable..... I could get into that!

I've got an early 60s Zenith tube clock radio that does FM quite well, It's on my desk at work.

Other FM/tube sets I have are consoles. The first one is a Zenith AM/FM with a V-M Cobramatic record changer from 1950. Uses the Armstrong type circuit. The second one is the Philco 42-390 cabinet with a 42-380 chassis with a Pilot FM tuner rigged to it

I remember seeing a German AM-SW-FM portable radio in the mid-50's. The cabinet was wood and plastic construction.
I asked to see the inside and it was all tube and used an odd-ball battery pack of German with a 103 volt "B" section.
This was at the Olson Radio store in downtown Milwaukee. :scratch2:

Intresting memory.
But by chance, do you remember the price?

IIRC, it was well over $100.00 USD back then!
I was only 12 or 13yrs old at the time. I was there picking up some small parts to complete a project that was in an a Popular Electronics or similar magazine back then. :scratch2:

100 U.S.D. Ui! Like 1,000-1,300 U.S.D. in today's money. Not cheap, but more affordable then to an Romania... think that avarage (not minimal) wage (sallary) around here is 500-800 Dollars (in big cities).

Well, and would the typical Romanian even be able to HAVE a fancy radio/TV back in the days of the Comecon bloc? We've heard-at least I have- That you guys weren't allowed to have lots of "Western items", because the Reds didn't want you picking up western TV/radio stations.They also used different frequencies, used PAL & SECAM, where we just had NTSC-"Never Twice The Same Colour" things like that. I think, honestly, BOTH sides used jamming quite often. I, for one, would have LOVED to have had a few of the examples of Soviet high-end hi-fi & radios. Over on AK, a few years back, somebody posted some pics & specifications of a little bit of it all. I think I can say that almost ANYONE would have been DELIGHTED to have some of it.....

Yes, we had F.M. 65-73 M.Hz.
Only formers Yougoslavia and Eastern Germany (G.D.R.) had F.M. 88-100 (G.D.R. 88-104 in the '80's). 1st because it wasn't in the Soviet Bloc and Eastern Germany because it introduced F.M. (U.K.W.) before the introduction of F.M. O.I.R.T. standard.
Radios could be modified to work on 65-73 M.Hz. (M.c.) in stad of 88-100, 88-104, 88-105, 88-108. But the where some nice Eastern-Europeanen radios with F.M. (I'm talking about the good recivers, 'cause there where the poor qualty ones too). Now you have to midify the O.I.R.T. F.M. ones, because Europeanen bastards made us quit F.M. O.I.R.T. F.M. took off in Romania only after 1989, with the arrival of private stations.
In 1973 that 3rd Program of State Radio becamed Radio 3 (Trei) România Tineret (Radio 3 Romania Youth). F.M. only. Online only in the '000's because there is a law stipulating that in F.M. one company could have only 3 national networks and they chosen another 3 stations... In the '80's Radio 3 România Tineret stoped broadcastign Western music... so you tuned to forgein stations. The Yougoslav had intresting programing...
In Romania, there was an expresion for when a rumor was spreding fast: A emite pe ultrasucrte = To broadcast on ultrashort [waves]. F.M. is also called ultrascurte in Romania. The German U.K.W. (Ultra Kurtz Welle) means also U.S.W. Same Czech V.K.V. or Russian Y.K.B. (readen U.K.V.).

The East-Germans where the only ones from the Soviet Bloc to make portable tube radios with F.M. Ha, on the other hand I never seen a British portable tube radio with F.M... 1-0 for the Commies. Anyway, from the Capitalist countries only Western-Germany and Holland made nice radios... maybe the Swedish had some (oh, the Swedes and the Italians where the only one to make some domestic tube radios with F.M. 88-108... not top radios, but I want one; the Italians made only 2 models when F.M. was introduced, but after that they made those stupid 88-100 ones).
But the Czehoslovakian "Tesla" made 2 nice auto radios with F.M. (I don't know if there was an export version with C.C.I.R F.M.).
I hate the fact that they don't make any more 45, 90 or more Volts batteries. And 1.35 (the Zinc - Air 1,4 sucks and I can't find an adapter ring with voltage lowerig), 15 and 22.5 Volts ones, which where by far more common. Let them throw to junk theyr houses, I don't want to throw my apparatures.
P.S. in Romanian 22.5 Volts (twenty two and half Volts) is written 22,5 Volţi. So 1.000 = one thousand.

The tv sets that had varicap or electronic tuning where simple to modify if the worked on 625 line standard: just add filters for the 6,5 M.Hz. image - sound difference and you had sound (trough all that I heared some coulnt' be modified). My nickname had both C.C.I.R. and O.I.R.T. sound. And colour decoders wheren't a big deal...
In Romania we used P.A.L., not S.E.C.A.M. So officially Soviet imported colour tv sets had to be modify with a P.A.L. decoder. Former Yogoslavia also used P.A.L.

Somewhat related, I saw a Nice Philips-Merkur 473 on my local Craigslist, allegedly works, The FM only tunes to 100Mhz. Makes me wonder why they imported them. And I guess it works on 120 volts, maybe it has a universal primary winding? :scratch2:

Still debating picking it up. It's kinda expensive.

The Europeanen radios where multivoltage in that era, because back then 220 Volts wheren't yet the standard. Some cities used 110 or 120 Volts. Oh, and some former Austro-Hungarian cities had 42 Hz up untill the '50's. Other could have some d.c. networks.
Can you post a link with that radio?
Probably they imported it as a novelty or something exotiq. Or just some one went to a trip in Europe and bought it, because it was a portable F.M. radio (or fellas don't make such stuff, we will boght from the ones who make it).

https://albuquerque.craigslist.org/a...881876757.html

I think I can tweak it to tune out to 108 Mhz

Oh, it's a stationary :)
160 bucks is pretty much for such radio.
Yes, it can be make to work up to 108 M.Hz.

For the ones owing such a radio: how would you describe the radio performances of it?
Audio ones I guess wheren't on the top...

I finished the restoration of the hybrid set 2 weeks ago. It's now possible to directly compare the tube version with the hybrid.
Both sets work surprisingly good, espcially the sound quality of the tube set is impressive, even though the output tube is not really strong to save battery capacity.
To the restoration: Both sets usually have massive problems with a built in rechargable battery which leaks out it's acid that causes a lot of corrosion usually. Also the handle is usually broken as well as the antenna.
Finding a good example can be time consuming and expensive too also these radios are quite wanted and sell fast usually.

Would LOVE to see an inside pic of that Bad Boy... Your example is GORGEOUS, in any case...

@Sandy: No probelm, here we go:
The aluminium box in the lower right of the first picture is the shielded DC/DC converter. The circuit on the Pertinax board are the insides.
As you can see this radio is hand wired and quite well made. The cabinet is made of wood covered with a colored plastic foil.
Not to mention that you could buy 3 small FM only mains powered tube radios for the same price back when this set was new :scratch2:
The leaky waxies are already replaced with axial styroflex and mustard caps in these pictures.

I bought this radio from the widow of a well known radio collector who passed away some time ago. So there also is some sentimetal value in this set.

Danke, Josef ! I have a few German AM/FM/SW sets, & marvel at how mainly, they did everything w/just 5 tubes, too. American sets, to the best of my experience, pretty much always used at least 6 or more often 7.

Bitte sehr!

The tube set also has 7 tubes, but the hybrid needs only RF and IF tubes because the AF amp is already transistorized.

But if the bateries leaked (sheesh, I can't imagine how is to have leaks from an anodic battery) the electrolite impregnated into the wood of the case it can be a problem or it dosen't smell bad?
Did you ever seen and Austrian tube portable radio that had F.M. (U.K.W.) 88-108?

The leaked out acid causes excessive corrosion on the aluminium chassis and discolors the wood. The problem is that there is a built in NC battery which leaks terrible. So event though if you remove all batteries you can't avoid the built in battery.
At least there is no smell left over because everything is dried out since ages.

To be honest I don't know an Austrian tube portable radio up to 108 MHz. Even though early transistor radios went up only to 100MHz.
Mains powered tube radios which went up to 104 MHz were available in the early 1960.