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Old 05-16-2004, 11:32 AM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
Posts: 4,035
Zenith K731

Paula,

Both your Zenith 731s look great. I too have the Early American model, which works very well for having been made over 40 years ago (mine was introduced in the early '60s). I like the looks of the cabinet and the sound (this is the first table radio I have ever seen in 30-some years of electronics experimenting that has an electrostatic tweeter), which is why I bid on it on ebay last year.

My set worked as soon as I got it here--didn't have to do a thing with it or to it (not even changing the filters), just plugged it in and turned it on. I like the defeatable AFC because there is at least one FM station in Cleveland which is drowned out by another station just 200 kHz away in the next town east of me--I live between two cities (the Cleveland station is on 104.9 MHz; the one in the next town east of here is at 104.7). The 104.9 station is inaudible on my bookshelf stereo and almost every other FM radio I own because most of my sets, including my stereo, have full-time AFC, but the Zenith will bring in the station just fine if I put the band switch on FM. The amazing thing is that I get every station in Cleveland loud and clear on the '731 just using the line cord antenna (I live in a small town some 45 miles from most of the Cleveland FM stations) whereas I must use an amplified indoor antenna on my stereo to get the same results, but I chalk that up to the set's 19T8 FM RF amplifier.

I almost hate to think how many stations this thing will bring in when the FM band opens up to Detroit, Toledo, Ohio and southwestern Ontario, Canada this summer! Those are the areas I usually get out-of-town FM from in the spring and summer, although I have had reception under very unusual conditions from as far away as Florida (I once heard an FM station from West Palm Beach on 107.9 when one of the Cleveland stations was knocked off the air during a thunderstorm some 35 years ago).

I don't know how far you are from Indianapolis (you say you live in northeastern Indiana which would probably spot you a lot closer to Fort Wayne, though if you can get AM radio from Cincinnati, maybe you are closer to Indy at that), but if you're in the metropolitan area you probably will be able to hear the sound from that city's WFBM-TV on Channel 6. Most FM radios will tune in the sound carrier from local channel 6 stations because the FM sound carrier frequency is 4.5 MHz above the lower edge of the channel (channel 6 is 82-88 MHz). This puts the sound carrier for channel 6 at roughly 86.5 MHz. Most FM radios will tune slightly above and below the upper and lower limits of the band so that you'll be able to hear the audio carriers of any channel 6 TV station within range.
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Jeff, WB8NHV

Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002

Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten.
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