1969 General Electric P2900A multiband receiver

[drh4683]

This could be one of the most impressive sounding radios you will ever hear. Its the second generation GE World Monitor from 1969, model P2900A SW portable. Quite an improvement from the first generation from '65. When I picked this up, I figured it would just be a typical sounding multiband radio, nice but nothing extrodinary. I actually opened up the back before trying it out for the first time, I was too curious what the circuits looked like. Its an a real deal GE using an array of American and Japanese parts. I was impressed with the nice speaker I saw in this set which looked to be a domestic make as well. Its a nicely styled unit. It also has a flywheel tuner which is rather unusual for a portable (or any regular table radio for that matter). It has seperate bass and treble controls too. Powered it up and the dial scale all lit up nicely and the sound took my complete surprise. It sounds like a grundig with that deep bass and crisp highs. It will distort on full bass though, just like the grundigs... The speaker can't handle what the radio can deliver. So backing off the bass about 1/6 of a turn brings the radio to a very pleasing rich bassy sound. I guess the sound is something that GE made sure they beat their domestic competitors out on, they certainly win and blow the Zenith TO away, and its probably even better than the comparable Grundig satellit 210 from '68. The japanese radios don't come close on the sound this one has. This one can really blast out of the room too.
As far as it being a good receiver, its quite nice. Very sensitive on AM so its nice for dxing. Shortwave reception is very impressive to say the least. I can pick up all sorts of stations on all bands, however, GE kind of dropped the ball on making this a user friendly radio for SW reception. The problem: Not enough room on the dial scale for the SW band spread, so what they did is simply provide a SW log on the dial and you have to reference a chart on the right hand door. All that chart does is tell you what frequency range is between the 6 different band spreads leaving the user to "guess" as to where he is at when tuning the radio or you'll need take the difference in freqency coverage and divide it by the number of log graduations to get an idea where you're really at. GE apparently didn't want to put the money into creating a more elaborate tuning system such as a rotary drum, but making the dial smaller as to cram in more scales would result in a dial you couldn't read without a magnifying glass.
I guess it makes this radio unique, still an extremely impressive peice. A must have if you like multiband portables.

[bgadow]

I have one of these-picked it up close to 20 years ago, and would agree that it is a terrific sounding radio. It's one of my "keepers". I'm glad you posted this, as mine is missing the doors and I never knew what they looked like. Seems like they would be pretty easy to lose. I'm also missing the battery cover. About like most of my collection-rough around the edges, but workable!

[Reece]

That radio looks like it's 99-44/100% new. Never saw/heard one of these before. Very nice!