Admiral Y1009 10 band radio

[drh4683]

I've wanted one of these for the longest time, almost as long as a Silvertone model 9226 that I can seem to never find. From my understanding, these Admirals are all metal cases and quite heavy. I found one on ebay and paid quite a bit for it as its one of those deals that if you pass it by, it may never show again or for a very long time at least. This one came with its manuals and its vinyl cover which was a nice plus for such a rare unit. This particular model is from '65 and has FM, where as the previous model (Y909) introduced in 1960 did not. I always thought these had a really nice style to them and Im sure its a quality peice as its a true Admiral made in Chicago. Does anyone have one of these and care to comment on its performance and or quality?

[Sandy G]

Looks like it was Admiral's answer to the T/O...Will be interested to see how it performs.

[bgadow]

It is almost scary how much they copied their crosstown rivals. I have one; it worked very poorly until I recapped it. I haven't played with it much, but I do like it a lot. I need to reattach the trim ("Admiral All-World") as the glue has dried up and it fell off. The original wallwart was with mine but it allows too much hum. That's the first time I've seen a vinyl cover like that!

[drh4683]

Was your wallwart beige in color? I think this one comes with one too but it was hard to tell. I could see a beige looking cable in the background plugged into the back of the radio with what looked like a 1/8" mini plug.

I assume it was the lytics that were toast on yours? I had an Admiral solid state phonograph that had a bunch of dried out caps, they were those solid plastic lytics with the red epoxy on the ends and had an ESR as high as the sky. After a recap, the thing came back to life. I assume this radio uses similar type of caps? Maybe nashville caps or something of the like.

But yes, indeed its a very close design concept to Zenith's TO. Im surprized Motorola didn't put out something similar as those big three were just a few miles away from each other.

[JohnHacker1]

Sure resembles the 2 TO's I have. I like listening to them occasionally-they perform quite well-especially outside at night around a fire!
Get that puppy going!

[Jeffhs]

Did Admiral or Motorola ever try to make a multi-band radio that had a rotating drum dial (linked to the band switch) such as the Zenith T/O's had, or did Zenith have a patent on that design? It seems as if the wording on the dial of the Admiral set is similar to that on Zenith T/O's, even down to the notations as to when to expect reception on each band (all day, morning, evening, etc). The only thing I don't see on the Admiral is an external AM antenna as the early SS and tube-type T/O's all had. Again, was this an exclusive design patented by Zenith?

[jr_tech]

The collins 51-j4 had a rotating drum frequency scale in the 50s, So I suspect that Zenith did not a patent on it for the Trans-Oceanic sets:

http://www.radioing.com/collins/rx04.html

I have a Hallicrafters transistor portable (WR-3000) which is about the same size as the T-O sets. It was likely made in about the same time period and indeed does have a rotating drum frequency scale.

jr

Add: Couldn't find a pix of the Hallicrafters WR-3000 on the web, so I took one. It is almost exactly the same size as the transistor T-Os but configured as a "horizontal" set.

[bgadow]

I have a National boat anchor with a drum dial, as well.

Yep, it was those electrolytics. Before the change it worked but very poorly with clicking in the audio and other issues. I just did a wholesale swap. I think that wallwart is beige, but would have to look to be sure. Somewhere I have another one that looks just like it, not sure if it is really the same. I wonder if they have any caps inside?

I used to have a somewhat odd Motorola multiband from the early 70s. The model was called "Concept 90". I have no idea why I parted with it. It was designed to lay flat, like some cassette players. It was an import.

[Jeffhs]

The wall wart that came with my T/O is brown, with a slotted tab on top; the slot will accept a screw so that the transformer could be anchored to the wall socket. The tab on mine is bent over against the case, so I guess it was never used by the radio's former owner.

[JohnHacker1]

The one I have for my Zenith 3000-1 is black, and actually made by Dynamic Instrument Corp. cat. #PNP-368.

[drh4683]

A box was on my doorstep when I got home this evening and this is it! The guy packed it very well, made it in one peice. This a very impressive radio to say the least. Its built very solid, its case is completely metal, with grey crinkle finish paint giving it a very robust quality look. This must have been as case of the executives at Admiral ordering their engineers to create the best product they know how to beat out their neighbors. The radio works excellent and does come with its original Admiral AC adapter. The power supply caps are shot, the radio hums terribly on AC as well. With battery power, the radio performs flawlessly. While I have not compared it to a TO side by side, I do think this radio might be more sensitive than the TO. Its extremely sensitive on SW picking up all sorts of stations with good selectivity and is a very hot AM DX'er. I was pleasantly impressed with how this thing performs, not to mention how nice it sounds. FM also works extremely well which is usually a short coming on 60's radios. Aside from 46 years of exterior dirt build up on the case, I'd say it will clean up like new. It was never serviced and the guy who owned it never hacked it up. Factory fresh inside yet. Of course the date stamp year has to be smudged, but it appears the radio was built on October 1, 1965. Parts are dated 1965 in the radio as well. The antenna mast alone is close to 3/4" OD at the lower section. It'll be an interesting one to take apart and clean and recap. I need to study how they got the chassis in there, the panels on the side look like they snap on the case frame which cover the chassis mounting screws. I'll also need to reglue the front metal nameplate as it basically fell off once I unpacked it. I don't think the radio got used since about 1978, or thats the last time someone put batteries in it. It had Quasar batteries with 78-03 date codes on them but they didn't leak too bad so no damage done to the battery box.
Its a very nice quality unit, aside from some original nichicon capacitors, this radio is all American parts. I'll eventually put some new sprague atom caps in there, so it'll have more American parts when I'm done fixing it than when it was new...

[radiotvnut]

That's a very sharp looking radio. I don't think I've ever seen an Admiral solid state multiband portable.

As far as caps, I've seen a lot of solid state equipment from the '50's and '60's that used those hard plastic cased electrolytic caps and they are almost always bad. The most recent examples were two RCA solid state console stereo's. One was from '65 and the other was from '69. Both worked fine after an electrolytic recap.

[drh4683]

Indeed those hard cased lytics are always bad. I never saw a good one, they cause all sorts of problem. This one has about 3 of them off to the right of the tuning cap, they're radials on the PC board and part of the power supply hence why the radio blares a loud hum when operated off the AC line. From what I can see there are maybe 4 or 5 nichicon axials as well but those are hit and miss as far as being bad at this age. Not sure what else is behind the chassis and PC board, but I doubt theres much as far as lytics.

[dieseljeep]

It really looks that Admiral outdid thereselves on that one. Too bad that A/C adaptor is a poor excuse. It looks like there was enough room inside to have a built in A/C supply.

[Reece]

That really is a nice radio. I was not aware that Admiral had made one like that, and made in USA when many radios from overseas were coming in. I have a "Space Master Plata" from 1966 that looks similar, described in this thread. The handle treatment, the chrome, and the vinyl sides were common through this era.

http://www.videokarma.org/showthread.php?t=17983&page=4