GE SuperRadio III--as a tuner.

[stereofisher]

I moved in June about ten miles north here in Ulster County in southern NY. We lost FM on cable in my old location and I put an antenna in the attic to get WQXR's FM repeater. Thought I would get it in my new home as we have an outside TV antenna with a rotator. Not listenable. Not on my receiver or the portables. Got a nice NPR station from Connecticut but no WQXR. \

One night I was playing with my Zenith TA 3000 and it got it! The Zenith drifts for about 30 minutes and settles down. Sounds like a job for a GE Superradio III. Did not have one as I give them away to needy friends. Got a used one off Ebay and threw a set of batteries in her and a good solid signal No drift. Figured I would try it on my Pioneer QX 8000 and run it as a tuner off its ear phone jack. Not bad for a poor mans tuner!! Makes a good AM tuner. I listen to AM 740 CHWO a lot and it sounds pretty good even on AM. Very little drift on Fri night (10-6-06) Funny how radio varies. Kind of crummy Sat night after having a good signal the night before. Finally got a cool AM tuner of sorts.

Anyone try this? Eric

[Celt]

I use mine to burn in guitar amps after I work on them. As long as you use batteries and avoid the built in AC, they work dandy.

[VinylHanger]

Love those Superradios. They just can't be beat for pulling in stations in the boonies. And they have a great sound to boot.

[tgunner]

Anyone want to buy a perfect condition one?

[radioactive]

i have a ge superradio III also and used it for dxing the am band which they seem to do amazingly well for a portable.alot of people say the older II's are suppose to be better than the III's but iv'e never had one to try.there's even some mods that people do to the III that's suppose to make them even better .if you handy with a soldering iron heres a link to some mods that can be done to the radio.GE Super radio

Anyone want to buy a perfect condition one?

just a reminder that we're not allowed to sell in the forums

[Dave A]

I heard a very interesting talk tonight at our local radio club...the Delaware Valley Historic Radio Club. The CBS radio tech manager for WPHT-AM and WOGL-FM (the old flame-throwing WCAU combo. 38 states at night on AM) gave a lecture on Hi Def radio. Both AM and FM.

The interesting thing was the impact of adding digital to the side bands of AM. To do this, the analog carrier is being narrowed from it's usual 10kc either side of center...which is AM wideband...to 5kc. The digital is added outside that starting at 5kc to a limit of 15kc either side of center for a lower and upper digital sideband. The problem of station interference at the extra 15kc width is for a later discussion as they figure this out.

The net result is that AM wideband will go away as the AM's add digital. For now, AM digital is daytime only as the digital DX goes flying all over the place just like analog at night. It is up to the local station to determine if they configure their transmitter to go back to wideband on their transmitters at night or just shut down the digital.

All of this is to say that if your Superadio does not sound so good on some of your favorite AM stations, now you know where to look.

And if you ever see a monster, silver GE boom-box looking radio with a cassette player in it labeled as a model 3-5280C, grab it. It appears to be a Superadio in sheeps clothing and acts just like one. A great performer on AM and FM.

Dave A

[bigmsound]

[QUOTE=Dave A]I heard a very interesting talk tonight at our local radio club...the Delaware Valley Historic Radio Club. The CBS radio tech manager for WPHT-AM and WOGL-FM (the old flame-throwing WCAU combo"


"Hot Hits" WCAU-FM I used to pick up WCAU-FM here in Brooklyn, many times throughout the 80's during the evening hours. Yes..I remember Terry "Motormouth" Young on "98 WCAU-FM Flame Throwing Hot Hits"

[billinkansas]

I had a Superadio I for a while, very impressive reception, but the dial was way off. My dad has a II version - mint.

FWIW, I have used my Grundig Yacht Boy 400 radio as a tuner. It will play stereo FM out the headphone jack. Great reception, and really pretty respectable sound though a Fisher amp, I think.

[stereofisher]

Originally Posted by billinkansas

I had a Superadio I for a while, very impressive reception, but the dial was way off. My dad has a II version - mint.

FWIW, I have used my Grundig Yacht Boy 400 radio as a tuner. It will play stereo FM out the headphone jack. Great reception, and really pretty respectable sound though a Fisher amp, I think.

The dial issue seems to be a problem with GE Superradios. There are a lot of posts on the net concerning these radios. Mine is not too bad. Decent reception. I have one station I like that nothing else seems to get. My Super Radio I is really good on AM. Was a nice work project. Took a front off a nicer one cosmetically with crappy AM and put it on my not so nice SR I. Its nightly player. AM 740 comes in well from Toronto CA here in SE New York. The III is set on WQXRs repeater accross the Hudson River in Dutchess County.

Lawrence Kansas Huh? Always liked Lawrence. Spent 15 years in Hays KS. Not nearly as nice as Lawrence. Would propably still be there it I had lived in Lawrence. My son went to KU. With all the course there I could never figure why he could not find a major The other kid went to KSU in Manhatten. Liked it too. Both are now in Olathe,KS. Loved the fact Lawrence never let in Malls. Kept the downtown alive. Enjoy the Fisher. Had a 400 receiver in Hays in the early 70's

Eric

[billinkansas]

Hey Eric,

If you have time in your next trip to KS, there's always cold beer waiting here for AK'ers.

[Nolan Woodbury]

I have all three versions; the SR I was given as a gift years ago when my brother purchased a CC-Radio as an upgrade. The CC has a digital turner and some others nice features, but it isn't a better radio, reception wise.

Found a battered SR II at a thrift store. Pretty much the same as the first version, but better sound and a tweeter added. Even with the antenna snapped off, it pulls in stations pretty well (I'm about 45-miles from Phoenix) but I rigged an outside-extension wire from a diagram I found in a radio book. Pulls in crazy signals at night, with TONS of stations from Mexico and South America. I even caught a Cuban station one night, talking about Fidel Castro's illness.

About two years ago I purchased a new GE SR III on the internet for stupid-cheap; something like $28.00 with shipping. MUCH better sound on FM, and while the reception on either AM or FM isn't better, the (quality of) sound and lack of static is. A very respectable unit that’s better than any solid state table radio I have, save for my Kloss Model One which is a completely different animal.

I mostly use my Zenith tube-types for FM music listening, and that's a better way to go. Still, I'm attached to the SR; a real 'last a lifetime' radio.

[stereofisher]

That why I like fixing up transistor radios. They respond to TLC well. And they live a sheltered life around here. Gave several to a good home(s). Been having fun with the SRI set on AM 740. It cleaned up nice. Have it on the nightstand. Have the SR III set on WQXR. I have a rule to keep my collection at 5 radios. Not doing so good. I have the following:

Zenith Transoceanic 3000
Zenith 755
GE P780
GE P865, the granddaddy to the Superadios
Super Radio I (2)
Super Radio III

Sure is fun fixing up them. Got a SR I thats going to the Salvation Army. They had one that was not for sale and was playing in the store. Someone stole it. Can you beleive that? They run FM only. Works well on FM.

While I like the SRI, Good radio but the SRIII is better on FM. The III gets that one station I like. The SR I doesnt get it as well. Still is a keeper!!! eric

[Celt]

Dial calibration was off on mine too, but I took it apart and realigned it. Not that hard to do if you are handy at that sort of thing. See here: http://users.netonecom.net/~swordman...srIIIAlign.htm

[Jeffhs]

[QUOTE=bigmsound]

Originally Posted by Dave A

I heard a very interesting talk tonight at our local radio club...the Delaware Valley Historic Radio Club. The CBS radio tech manager for WPHT-AM and WOGL-FM (the old flame-throwing WCAU combo"


"Hot Hits" WCAU-FM I used to pick up WCAU-FM here in Brooklyn, many times throughout the 80's during the evening hours. Yes..I remember Terry "Motormouth" Young on "98 WCAU-FM Flame Throwing Hot Hits"

I heard Terry "Motormouth" Young on XM Radio's Sixties on Six channel last year, as part of a repeat of a radio program from the mid-'60s featuring a former Cleveland disk jockey of the period, Jackson Armstrong, who used to be on top-40 WKYC-1100 AM (now WTAM talk radio). Motormouth also did a couple segments on that WKYC-AM retrospective. Was a blast hearing these guys and the old WKYC Radio Eleven jingles again; I used to listen to that station all the time when I was growing up and until they were sold from NBC in 1970. The oldies FM that replaced WKYC (FM) 105.7 in 1981(after several ownership, format and callsign changes in between) is WMJI, Majic 105.7, which I still listen to (I like oldies--have a bunch of oldies CDs as well), but it just isn't quite the same as the old WKYC Radio 11. The DJs on 105.7 aren't bad (though I cannot abide one loudmouth with a terrible voice by the name of Don "Action" Jackson, on 105.7 from 3 to seven p.m. weekdays, not to mention the station's morning show which is worse, IMHO), but I listen mostly to the station's overnight program (midnight to 5:30 a.m.) since it is 100 percent automated; it has some commercials, but absolutely no DJ chatter. The rest of the time I listen to my oldies CDs, which I ripped into my computer quite a while ago, or to XM satellite radio Sixties on Six or Seventies on Seven (my Winamp player came bundled with about ten AOL Radio with XM music channels, plus Shoutcast and Winamp radio, so I have very little use for local FM anymore).

Your collection of oldies CDs (or MP3 files downloaded from the Web) and your computer, the latter used with a media player such as Winamp (current version 5.32, IIRC) et al. is a good way, IMO, to hear your favorite oldies again if your area's oldies station changes formats suddenly (as many stations do these days), if you don't have an oldies station in your town, or if the nearest oldies station is so far away the signal doesn't reach you. Your oldies will sound that much better if you play them through your stereo system, rather than using the speakers that came with your computer (which, in many cases, aren't good at all for lows and don't get much help from the equalizer built in to many media players such as Winamp. ) The only reason I'm listening to my music over my computer's own speakers now is that my stereo is presently in for repairs, but I'm picking it up from the shop tomorrow so I'll have my regular music system back in place in no time.

As for using FM radios as tuners in stereo systems: I did that in the early '70s, using an old FM tuner which I patched into the audio stages of a 23" Zenith b&w TV I owned at the time. The set was a console and had a very powerful audio system, with a 6BN6 gated-beam discriminator and 6BQ5 output tube driving a 6x9 oval speaker mounted in the base of the cabinet. The sound was great; I enjoyed it immensely while I had the TV, but unfortunately I had to get rid of it when I moved in 1972. My Zenith IS-4041 4-mode integrated stereo was my first real stereo system, which I bought new in 1982; I left that one at my former home when I moved to my present apartment seven years ago. I now have an Aiwa 4-mode bookshelf system, 200 total watts, that I swear sounds better than even the first Zenith stereo I had (as well it should, since my Aiwa system has an eight-band equalizer with five user-defined settings and four presets, not to mention 4-mode surround sound), but not as good as the audio from my 1963 Zenith console TV. That set easily had the best audio of any television I have ever heard in my life, except perhaps for the big Magnavox stereo theater consoles of the '60s-'70s and Zenith's older 3-way entertainment combos of the same era. But my '63 Zenith TV (model K2739) had very good sound in its own right, something we may never hear again from today's black-plastic cube sets (unless one hooks them up to a stereo system using the A/V in/out jacks on many large-screen sets). I have the audio output from my digital cable box hooked up to one aux input on the Aiwa stereo and the output from my computer's sound card going into the other. The sound is great, but again, not nearly as good as the sound from those older TVs with huge bass/midrange speakers. I'd love to be able to use external speakers other than the supplied ones with my Aiwa system, but the company warns on its web site against using anything other than genuine Aiwa speakers with these compact systems. The reason, I am fairly sure, is that the woofers are of a nonstandard impedance (six ohms) and the subwoofers and tweeters may be set up the same way. Why Aiwa decided to use 6-ohm speakers, rather than 8 ohms, in its compact systems is beyond me.