From Behind the Bamboo Curtain, a Plum Flower Blooms.
 

I thought you guys would appreciate this. A friend teaching English in Beijing sent it to me knowing I collect vintage radios. I can now say I'm probably one of a handful of people in the US who own a tube radio made in Red China during the mid 60's, the height of Mao's Cultural Revolution.
It's a "Plum Flower" 750-A
http://i.imgur.com/3SLXd37l.jpg
From what little English information I can gather on these sets, this model was made from about 1965 to some point in the early 70's.
When I got it, It needed new filter capacitors, a dial drive cord, and a new ECH81 detector/first IF tube.
It covers AM Broadcast, general coverage Shortwave 3-20 MHZ, and also has a 1/4" phone jack in the back for a phono input.

Tube Lineup is a 6z4 ,(Chinese 6x4 with weird pinout) 6H2, (6BA6), 6n2 (6DJ8), 6J1 (ECH81), 6E2, (EM84) and a 6P1P (comblock 6v6gt equivalent in a nine pin miniature envelope)

The cabinet is made of a thin, light pine with a heavy lacquer finish. Rather than the typical masonite or cardboard back, this cabinet has one made from a thin sheet of plywood.

Strangely enough, despite being built in China at a time when the country was more or less closed off to the West, all of the dial scales and labels on this set are printed in English, including the values on individual parts, caps, resistors, etc.
Supposedly the Communist party had a plan to export electronic products to the west, but it never went anywhere until long after the Nixon thaw.

In terms of construction and quality, it shares a lot more with Japanese and European radios of the mid 1950's than their not so good Russian neighbors to the north. It's actually a half decent performer on Shortwave with a longwire antenna, (that's the only antenna it has, ferrite loops are capitalist decadence) and due to the 6P1P (soviet block miniature 6V6GT equivalent) audio output tube, large output transformer, and big oval speaker, has good sound.

I'm currently listening to the evening English broadcast of Radio Habana Cuba as I type this post. It's sort of fitting.

Fantastic - I like the radio and the story. Have you got any internal photos ?

These are the best shots I have of the chassis right now. I took them when I restrung the dial. I'll take the back off and get some shots of the chassis in a bit.
http://i.imgur.com/jtwmdA7l.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/pFffS3Hl.jpg

This is really neat, I agree it looks different from USSR made equipment. Hard to I imagine a time when "made in China" was something unusual!

To me, the styling reminds me of the Grundig and Telefunken sets of the 60s. We saw a lot of them for repair, being in a Navy town.

That's the first time I have seen the infamous phrase "Made in China" displayed so prominently. I had a couple of items from around that time from Hong Kong, one being a military flashlight, but that was long ago.

I guess even they were capable of making good stuff, they just don't need to now.

I took the liberty of exaggerating the color and brightness to see better some of the detail. That's a real treasure. :thmbsp:

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...2&d=1436062325

_________________

Your radio looks more modern than the "Panda" I have:
http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/panda601-1a.jpg
and found a schematic:
http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/xm-dlt.jpg
Someone had shorted two of the three caps across the oscillator coils to disable SW reception. So the owner wouldn't hear the lies from America? :scratch2:

Well. I'M in Love...Or at least, fairly serious Lust... (grin)

Got a thing for Asians huh? Don't let your other radios find out.

:lmao:

Oh, THEY know how I am... Along w/all the R-3XXs, I have a RACAL RA-17, & a Rohde & Schwarz EK-07. IMHO, it is perhaps the FINEST radio of its type ever made. It hears stuff that the Collinses only THINK they hear.. If the Collinses are Lincolns or Caddys, it is a Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman... Or if the Collinses are Annapurna, and/or K2, it is Everest... Yeah, its THAT good... (grin)