1961 Zenith Royal 2000

[TUD1]

I got this at the thrift store for a whopping $4.99 today. And as expected, it sounds excellent on both bands. The switches are a little dirty, but that's easy. I love all those socketed germaniums! Now to go out and buy 8 D cell batteries...

[Titan1a]

Good show!

[TUD1]

I attempted to clean the controls, but the band select and tone were impossible to reach from the back, so I had to go in from the front. It helped, but it's still a little staticy. Other than that, this radio sounds excellent! Tons of bass, plenty of treble. Contrary to what I've read about these having lackluster treble, the FM on this one is very colorful.

[TUD1]

To my surprise, this thing has 3 IF stages and a push-pull output. No wonder it sounds so good!

[jr_tech]

Great find! These are very likely the first AM/FM portables produced in the US... A historically significant piece, for sure.

jr

[TUD1]

Thanks. What I'd like to find now is a late 50's, early 60's Transoceanic. Royal 1000 or 3000. Those are pretty cool.

[jr_tech]

Decent radios for sure, but the pinnacle of TO performance, IMHO was the Royal 7000. Difficult to find at a reasonable price. Here Jay Allen restores one:

https://radiojayallen.com/zenith-royal-7000/

jr

[TUD1]

What makes the 7000 better than the 3000? I like them both, just wondering. I know where a bunch of them are stashed away. I want to go down there and look for a tube tester this weekend, I'll also check out the TO's.

[jr_tech]

The Royal 7000 has several performance enhancements, such as a BFO for ssb and cw reception, a tuning meter, a rf gain control, more bands ... but best of all a redesigned stronger handle, and better chrome that does not seem to get pitted.
The 1000 and 3000 are very good collectable radios, but be really careful picking up one loaded with batteries by the handle

jr

[TUD1]

Ok. Thanks for the info. This is my first portable radio that actually sounds good, and it really makes chores go a lot faster! I used to AM transmitter to broadcast while I worked outside.

[albanks]

How do you find such good stuff at thrift stores? The stuff up here is mostly garbage. What stores do you go to? Something other than Savers, Goodwill, etc, thats all we have here.

[TUD1]

I find my best stuff at the Big Saver, Alabama Goodwill Industries, and Heaven Cent Thrift. We have more like The Starvation Army, Mission-Impossible, and America's Thrift, but the latter three are overpriced junque.

[Captainclock]

I have found quite a few good things at reasonable prices at the Goodwill I work at here in Elkhart, Indiana, although most of my stuff I've gotten off the salvage bin in the back and only had to pay a couple of bux for the items in question, I've gotten a couple of vintage box fans, a TOTL Sanyo Rack System from 1985 that came complete with 120 watt 3-way floor speakers, a mid 1980s HiFi Betamax VCR, a KLH Model 21 (which was actually on the floor and currently needs restored), a couple of vintage Westclox windup Travel Alarms, 3 vintage Japanese Hand-Painted Vases, some carnival glass (which I gave to my mom) and a 1970s vintage Schwinn Suburban 5-Speed Bicycle that I got from the Salvage Bin. And that's just to name a few things that I've found at the Goodwill I work at.

[Jeffhs]

I have two Zenith Transoceanics, Royal 1000-1 and 3000-1, that look and sound great for their ages (58 and 50 years, respectively). I just bought an AC adapter for the 3000-1 on eBay (Buy it Now) and am expecting it to be delivered here in a week or so.

The solid-state T/Os are excellent radios. I have had no experience with the Royal 2000, but from what Dave (VK member TUD1) said about the fantastic sound of that radio, I'm thinking most of the higher-end Zenith portables have basically the same audio output stage: push-pull, which delivers the best possible sound. I want to get my T/O 3000-1 working again so I can enjoy it on FM. (The other bands aren't currently working, but as long as I can get this thing working on FM, that's all that matters to me right now.)

My T/O 1000-1, on the other hand, works perfectly; the only thing wrong with it at the moment is the dial cord is broken, which forces me to open the back of the radio and manually turn the tuning capacitor rotor to change stations. I'm not sure I want to be trying to restring it, as the dial cord stringing procedure looks very complicated (I have the service manuals for this radio and for my 3000-1, both of which, of course, have the cord stringing instructions).

The only thing I don't like about the solid-state T/Os is the cost of the batteries. These radios take nine D-size flashlight batteries, which are quite expensive if you get the alkaline cells. The last set of batteries I purchased for my T/O 1000-1, several years ago, cost me something close to $10. The 3000-1 has a rechargeable battery pack, but I'm not sure how it's wired, so I'll be using the radio with an AC wall-wart until I can rewire the charging circuit.

The charging system also uses a battery fuse, which seems to be a very small (much less than one inch long) fuse such as is used in automotive electrical systems. The problem with my T/O 3000-1's charging system might well be simply a blown fuse--I hope, anyway.

[old_coot88]

A little heads-up about the 3000-1 if you're using it on batteries.. on my 3000, the battery feed-through socket had developed leakage paths between lugs and between lugs and chassis. With batteries installed, there was 200 microamps of leakage with the radio off, which woulda drained the pack in a few weeks. Another 3000-1 owner also mentioned having a leakage problem in the feed-through socket that drained the batteries.
On mine, i replaced the plug and socket with model airplane style connectors since original parts aren't available.
No more leakage.