Quote:
Originally Posted by radiotvnut
I think the 3000 came along somewhere around '61 and was discontinued in '68, in favor of the 7000 models.
In '89, I bought a mint 3000 from a ham who was giving up the hobby and moving into an assisted living home. The $35 I gave him seemed like a lot to a 12 year old at the time; but, I now realize that was a bargain. For some stupid reason, I ended up selling that radio and I've kicked myself several times for doing that.
Concerning Zenith foreign made radios, I know they were being made as early as '72 because I have a '72 AM/FM clock radio that was made in Korea. It's an OK radio; but, it is no where near as good as the USA built Zenith's of just a few years before.
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Is that Zenith clock radio one of the "Circle of Sound" models, with Target Tuning? I had one in the '80s that worked well, but the former owner (one of my great-aunts who was moving to an apartment) said the main control switch lever on the clock broke off. When I got the radio I removed the clock, rewired the power circuit using a pushbutton switch, and used it until I moved in 1999. The radio got lost in that move; too bad, as I liked its design, sound and sensitivity. The Target Tuning feature was one I had never seen before in a Zenith (or any other brand) radio, and it was fascinating to watch it flicker on and off when a local radio station signed off, leaving only a mishmash of weak signals. On FM the TT indicator stayed off for the most part, as by this time, late 1990s, almost all FM and AM radio stations ran 24/7, although there was one station about 50 miles from where I lived at the time that would sign off at midnight every night. I lived near an airport at the time, and the radio would often pick up aircraft radio signals when it was tuned to 97.1 MHz -- the frequency of the station (one of the last remaining easy-listening stations in my area) I mentioned earlier that would sign off at midnight. Every time a plane would fly over my home, its radio communications would blast in -- right over top of the radio station.
BTW, that ham radio operator from whom you bought the Zenith Transoceanic radio need not have given up the hobby entirely unless he had health issues or other problems that forced him to do so. (Worst case, he could have operated a 2-meter handheld transceiver through a local repeater, thereby remaining active in a hobby he must have enjoyed immensely, as I do.) If he had access to or owned a computer, he could have continued in ham radio by using a program called EchoLink. This software, developed by a ham (Jonathan Taylor, K1RFD) in New England, allows licensed amateurs to communicate by voice with other hams in much of the world and all 50 states here in the US. I have EchoLink on my computer but have yet to use it for anything but testing; I myself had to give up my 100-watt ham station when I moved (not by choice) to an apartment 12 years ago. Was off the air for about a decade, then discovered EL, downloaded the software, and was back "on the air", digital style. I did make one contact via EL about a year ago (IIRC), through a Cleveland FM amateur repeater station, but for some reason I haven't used the Echolink system since. (One of these days . . .) The microphone sits on my desk between my calculator and telephone.