70's Zenith

[Jeffhs]

This is an addition to a previous post. In addition to my Zenith K731 pictured in my last post here, I also have a Zenith TransOceanic Royal 1000-1, an ebay score a few months ago (the first transistorized T/O, from about 1958-1962; somewhere in there). The 1000-1 is the Royal 1000 with an AC adaptor jack. Mine came without the battery compartment (most of these radios are missing this component, from what I have read here and on other antique radio websites), but I was able to find one at John Kendall's Vintage Electronics (www.vintageelectronics.com) about a month or so ago. Haven't used the radio on batteries yet; when I do use it, I plug in the wall wart (fortunately, the set shipped with the original Zenith transformer). The AM reception on this unit is great; I get stations which are just barely audible (or not at all) on many of my other vintage radios. One of my favorite stations is a 0.5-kW oldies station about 35 miles east of here; the T/O gets it just fine all day and into the night, until the station signs off or drops its power (don't know which, as there is no warning before I lose the signal--no announcement, etc.; a standards station in another town some 50+ miles away just goes silent when it signs off--again, no announcement or any kind of warning or notification that its broadcast day has ended). No matter. The T/O still gets that station and the one I mentioned above just fine while they are on the air. Not surprising, considering that the Royal 1000 series, and probably all T/Os up to the Royal 7000 series in the late '70s, had high-performance RF stages (the '1000 has an RF amp stage ahead of the antenna, as I am sure all other T/Os did). I also have a Zenith model R-70 AM/FM portable which seems to work just as well; gets the 500-watt oldies station every bit as well as the T/O, despite the fact that the R-70 was manufactured some 20 years after the first T/Os (and has no RF stage ahead of the antenna, not to mention having most of its circuitry on a PC board rather than being hand-wired). Just goes to show how well Zenith's older radios (and TVs--I've had a few) were made.

[frenchy]

How did the 'zoom' feature actually work on this set, I mean, what did the set do to accomplish it since back then they didn't have video chips, video memory etc.? I remember my sister had one of these and it was weird being able to push the button and it clicked and there was the zoom (lousy resolution of course as it was not startign out with HD to begin with)...Frenchy

[old_tv_nut]

Essentially they made the retrace time extra long and the trace time shorter, but normal amplitude. You saw only the center part of the picture, no centering control. We used to joke that it should be called "bazoom" because that was the part of female stars you were likely to zoom in on. Once the man of the house did that in front of his wife, it likely never got used again.

[jstout66]

HA! You got that right. I remember selling those in the shop new, and that feature was available when VCR's first came out. Not alot available in pre-recorded movies, but there surprisingly was a fair amount of Porn (on Beta). You just know those people that bought those movies were using the Zoom....... I have a 1979 System 3 that has the Zoom feature, so I wonder what years Zenith had it available. I know they had it on Chromacolor 2 sets, so I'd guess mid 70's thru the early 80's.