Little AM radio in western NC

[Sandy G]

Oh, yeah...I remember my dad got one for me on a business trip in 1964 or '65...An' it was the bestest radio in the whole wide world on earth, 'cause My Daddy had got it for me...It picked up the local Angel Modulation daytimer VERY LOUDLY-No AVC, I suppose, but was pretty silent on everything else. It ended up in my parents' bedroom as the Are We Going To School Today 'Cause it SNOWED radio...(grin)

[Jeffhs]

That "Essex" brand radio was a Japanese import dating from the 1960s; these radios, with the same basic cabinet design (albeit in different colors) and chassis, were marketed under a blue million different brand names. I never owned one of these, but I have heard they weren't the most sensitive radios on earth -- these sets were considered good if they could receive local (read within 5-10 miles or high power) stations. They probably had signal circuits not much better than a glorified crystal set, which explains their extremely poor sensitivity. Sandy G. mentioned that his set only picked up the local AM station in his area, with the rest of the AM band completely dead.

I can't imagine any 5-tube AM radio being that bad. I once owned a 5-tube Arvin model 540T with, IIRC, four tubes and an external wire antenna that picked up every local AM station in Cleveland very well (I lived in a suburb of the city at the time); however, where I live now, 40 miles from most Cleveland stations, that set would probably be doing well just picking up the 1kW/0.5kW (day/night) AM station in the next town south of me. The point is that that Arvin radio probably had the same bare-bones circuitry as had the Essex set we are discussing here. These radios were obviously made for use in urban or close-in suburban areas; they would have sold like hotcakes in places like downtown Chicago, New York City, et al. -- places almost literally within a stone's throw of the local AM stations, where the signal strength is incredibly high. In my area (northeastern Ohio), many of these radios were probably in use in or near the city of Parma, Ohio (southwest suburban Cleveland), where all Cleveland AM, FM and television transmitters and towers are located. In that area, in fact, with a small radio like the Essex, every one of the local stations would probably be crowded together on the AM dial, with no space in between. This was a common problem with small, cheap radios such as these. I remember a GE clock radio my grandmother had in her summer cottage that would receive a local, 50kW Cleveland station, the transmitter for which was only a couple of miles down the road. The station came in very well; so well, in fact, that it could be heard at two spots on the dial -- 600 and 1220 kHz, the latter being the local station's fundamental frequency. That radio had a four-tube TRF circuit that was not known for razor-sharp selectivity, or any real degree of same. Put one of these sets in a very strong signal area and the AM dial turns into an instant mishmash of stations, difficult if not impossible to separate; that is, the radio will pick up most or all the local stations, but they will bleed over into each other, creating one grand mess and making finding one's favorite station a nightmare.