1962 Admiral AM FM transistor portable

[ctc17]

What does that use for the fm tuner? Some of the Zeniths had separate cores that moved inside tuning coils like a car radio.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by ctc17

What does that use for the fm tuner? Some of the Zeniths had separate cores that moved inside tuning coils like a car radio.

I think that Admiral radio used a tuning capacitor, with two or possibly three gangs -- three if the set has an RF amp stage on AM.

Some of Zenith's better AM/FM radios of the '50s-'60s, such as the 845 series and the MJ-1035, had permeability-tuned FM tuners which moved powdered-iron cores into and out of coil forms to perform the same functions tuning capacitors do today. I read somewhere that this type of tuner is actually better for FM in certain respects than a tuning capacitor, but I'd have to go back and look at the article (which may well have been a post to this forum a while ago) to find out just what the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of the two tuning systems actually are.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Admiral was in fact trying to compete against Zenith when the latter came out with its solid state TransOceanic line of multi-band radios. One obvious difference between these sets is that the Admiral radio Doug owns has FM (he also mentions that Admiral had a version of this set that just tuned AM and shortwave), whereas the Zenith Royal 1000 and 1000-D models (the latter including a longwave band) did not. The first Trans-Oceanic solid-state portable to include FM was, IIRC, the Royal 3000. These were excellent radios, according to reports I've read on them, but the cabinets were just a tad too small to accomodate the FM tuner chassis; the back cover bulges out about one inch because of that. I think Zenith may have corrected this problem, however, when the Royal 7000 series was introduced.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by ctc17

What does that use for the fm tuner? Some of the Zeniths had separate cores that moved inside tuning coils like a car radio.

That's a Sarkes- Tarzian FM tuning unit. Really an excellent radio. Too bad it doesn't have a three gang AM variable condenser. I like those fat RCA transistors.

[stromberg6]

Super nice! That'd look really good sitting next to my Y-909's.
Kevin