Quote:
Originally Posted by radiotvnut
My cousin had me come to his house to show him how to use his DVD player for the 13th time and before I got ready to leave, he informed me that he had a radio to give me. He said someone at work was going to toss it and he grabbed it for me.
It is a Sony ICF-9650W "fidelity sound" AM/FM table radio from the late '70's. It has controls for bass and treble as well as a lighted dial. The speaker is branded "Pioneer" and is a heavy 6" air suspension type. Normally, I don't give solid state table radios of this vintage a second look; but, this one was free and it seems to be a higher end model as far as late '70's consumer table radios go.
My camera is unavailable at the moment; but, here's a link to a photo of the same radio.
http://www.radioatticarchives.com/radio.htm?radio=4273
When I got the radio home, I discovered that the controls were extremely dirty. Now, after a proper cleaning, the AM band plays great; but, the FM band has a strange problem in that the audio rapidly "skips" or "fades in and out at rapid intervals" The problem is less noticable when tuned to a weak station. First, I'll change the electrolytic caps and see if that makes a difference. If that doesn't work, I'll have to find a diagram and start checking voltages, etc.
The only real thing that I don't like about this radio is there's no way to switch off the AFC. As most know, this makes reception of distant stations difficult. I have a similar late '60's solid state Zenith that does have the ability to switch off the AFC and it makes picking up distant stations much easier. |
I know someone (my barber in my hometown) who has a radio like that in his shop. Not exactly like yours, but very close to it. He would use it more than he does, he tells me, but a wire came loose on the speaker some years ago, and he never had it repaired. Too bad, because I think his set has about the same circuitry as yours and works just as well, just a different front-panel layout and knobs.
I have a Zenith C845 (the radio in my avatar) that has switchable AFC. It will bring in, using just its built-in antenna, a classical music station 50+ miles from here that is right next to a very strong country station--the classical station is at 104.9 and the country-western station is 0.2 MHz down the dial, at 104.7. I can also hear stations from Akron, Ohio, some 60 miles southwest of here, almost as clearly as if they were local, and of course it receives all Cleveland FMs (about 30 or so, counting those stations in suburbs and outlying areas) quite well. However, with two IF stages and an RF stage, both used on AM as well as FM, I'm not surprised this radio works as well as it does. These older radios were built and sold during a time when FM stations were few and far between, so they had to be built for DX. Many of these radios also had a phonograph input jack on the rear apron of the chassis for use with a turntable with a high-output cartridge, but I wouldn't use that input for anything unless I was sure, beyond the shadow of even the most unreasonable doubt, that the blocking capacitor in series with that jack was good; these are almost always defective in radios of this vintage.