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  #16  
Old 01-19-2005, 03:17 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shain
There was a powerful AM station in Chicago, that I could get pretty much all the time.
That was probably WLS, which was also extremely popular with kids and teens throughout Illinois (and nationwide at night) in the '60s-'70s (their 50kW clear-channel signal covered the state very well and had very good national coverage after sundown). I could hear that station at night where I used to live (suburban Cleveland) and can still get it where I live now, 35 miles from town.

Chicago also had 670 WMAQ, which was an NBC-operated station in the '60s-'70s and until the original NBC radio network was sold in 1986. WMAQ was a 50kW clear-channel station which had several formats in the '70s: top-40, country, talk (IIRC), and finally, a brief stint as an all-news station before it was sold and the call sign changed to WSCR. The format was changed to sports "The Score" at the same time (under new ownership by now--early '90s).

WMAQ-FM, now rock WKQX-101.1, became an affiliate of NBC's National News and Information Service, a short-lived news/information network operated by NBC in the '70s. The calls were changed to WNIS until the National News and Information Service folded in the mid-'70s.

The WMAQ calls are still held by the NBC television station in Chicago, which is still owned by the network.

Chicago's 780 WBBM-AM is all-news from CBS (the station, along with WBBM-FM and WBBM-TV, is operated by Infinity Broadcasting, a division of CBS Incorporated).
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  #17  
Old 01-19-2005, 03:44 PM
lynnm
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I have a fairly long commute and listen to CBC Calgary on the A.M. band quite a lot. Other than the CBC everything on the A.M. band is Country,talk,or religion.
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  #18  
Old 01-20-2005, 06:32 AM
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I have been able to get WBBM in Odessa Texas a few years ago...also got WHAS Louisville. I can remember when WHAS would have an overnight music show...it was not that long ago, but then it went all talk even at night.

Yesterday was driving in my '78 Grand Marquis and found that the AM sensitivity on the orginal Philco AM/FM/8 track was very good...was able to get a station from Lubbock fairly clearly, about 150 miles away. Those old Philco and Delco car radios are some of the best in my opinion for AM performance.
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  #19  
Old 01-20-2005, 12:37 PM
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Quote:
I built a one tube kit radio, and had a wire antenna strung from my window, over to the garage, and to another pole, so formed a big traingle. I could get stations all over the US, and could pick up Mexico. (I lived in Kansas at the time)
Was it this one by any chance?
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  #20  
Old 01-20-2005, 09:00 PM
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Shain Shain is offline
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No, I don't think so. But it's been a long time ago.

It was on a larger board as I recall. It could be made into other things I think, besides a radio. But I had other kits too, could be confusing it with one of the others. I seem to recall it had a small speaker.

What is that one shown? The one pictured looks to have an antenna on it. I don't think mine did. Also has an ear phone.

Sure would like to find one now. Would be fun to play with a kit.

Last edited by Shain; 01-20-2005 at 09:03 PM.
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  #21  
Old 01-20-2005, 09:30 PM
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glen65 glen65 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shain
What is that one shown?
It was one of a series of different kits called P-box kits that Radio Shack
sold in the early to mid 70s.

Quote:
The one pictured looks to have an antenna on it. I don't think mine did. Also has an ear phone
Thats not the antenna thats what was called a loopstick. It was a
variable inductor used to tune the stations. You had to use a long wire
antenna.

Quote:
Sure would like to find one now. Would be fun to play with a kit.
Ok, here's one.
http://www.midnightscience.com/xs104.htm
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  #22  
Old 01-20-2005, 11:12 PM
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Shain Shain is offline
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Yea, I meant "tuner". I know it's not an antenna. But weren't those also called a ferrite rod?
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  #23  
Old 01-20-2005, 11:21 PM
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I think it had a ferrite core but most of the time when I seen the term ferrite rod it was referring to a small antenna. Something like they use in portable
radios.
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  #24  
Old 01-22-2005, 07:12 PM
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Well, I just joined up with this site, and I'm sitting in my "office" in my house about 30 miles from anywhere here in the middle of Arkansas with my Zenith Trans-Oceanic on the rack behind me. This radio lived with me in the even deeper woods further up in the Ozarks for 12 years or so, and has followed me all over the place since some time back in the 1980s. Like a lot of you, I grew up tinkering with radios and tube amps and old junk (which now sells for strange amounts of money...) and didn't really start listening to FM until coming back from Uncle Sam's Boat and Gun Club back in 1969. I quit listening to it when I moved to my cabin about '82 or so and stuck with shortwave and AM. I married a little babe from Syracuse NY a few years back and along with Parkinson's disease, she was the engine of desire that led me back to the world of Unix and big iron, and I'm back in the electro-toy hobby. Starting to cast about for one of those old 4-foot-tall Zeniths I remember from my youth. Mine had an electromagnetic voice-coil and an electric guitar input. woo hoo. Cheers. great forum.

Last edited by drjuju; 01-22-2005 at 07:14 PM.
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  #25  
Old 01-22-2005, 10:06 PM
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Drjuju- Be prepared to lay out some fairly serious dinero for one of them old Zeniths, if its in any kind of shape. What model T/O you have? I have 2, a 1951 model & a '54 one. Sometimes, you can get lucky & score an old console in an antique store, but most of the ones I've run across are fairly well beat-to-shit, & still have high prices. I'll assume you want one of the "Big Black Dial" models-they're the ones to have. Anyhow, good luck, & here's a big welcome to AK !!!-Sandy G.
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  #26  
Old 01-22-2005, 10:31 PM
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asynchronousman asynchronousman is offline
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Drjuju-the usenet group rec.antiques.radio+phono is a great place to find TO owners. Two people you can ask are Peter Wieck (as he's the expert) and Ken Gooding (Ken G--who has more housebound Zeniths than TOs but probably could find one easily). After that would be www.radioattic.com and I believe there may be one available right now in one of the member's ads (RA is a collective of repair and sales people not an auction for you to take your lumps on), Antique Radio Classifieds provides a one month previous look at the ARC classifieds (subscribing is of course the way to get the NOW)...

http://www.antiqueradio.com/classads_stat.html is what you need.
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  #27  
Old 01-23-2005, 10:13 AM
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thanks for the replies, guys. I was up way past my usual. I work 5am to 2pm Tues - Sat and usually am cutting Zs by 8 or 9. Must have been the ice cream. The TO is a model 1000-1 with what I presume to be a date stamp of 11/11/66 in blue on the chassis inside. I once had a 7000, and a Sony 5100 that was a sort-of TO, but this old 1000 has been really good to me. I have stickers on it from a couple of trips to Europe back in the 90s (used to be a travelling musician and did my swan-song tour at the age of 46 before coming home and un-retiring to work on computers). It has no knob on the band-selector, and I've been changing bands with a pair of pliers for more than 20 years, but it's my buddy, right? I lived in a cabin (28x12 with a loft) in the deep woods for a long time. I'd set it on a stump while doing chores in the yard and garden and listen to AM and shortwave. Always had a thing for distant stations. The world is a lot further away and a lot bigger for those without satellite or cable tv. Of course now I've got the sat stations and a 32" tv, DVD and sound system, blah-blah, but I still retreat to the office for sanity's sake. Currently building a mono system with a 1956 Klipsch short-horn, Phase Linear 400 amp, Marantz 3200 preamp, and Pioneer TX-6800 tuner. Looking for a 15" 16ohm woofer for the Klipsch. Also casting about for a tube amp kit. I've been away from this stuff for a long time, and am constantly amazed by the prices attached to tube stuff. Gee, while I was sleeping the tube market went from extinction to high-dollar rage. Makes me pine away for the warehouse full of stuff I've sold, lost (2 exes), or given away over the years. Could have financed a nice retirement on all that stuff.

Thanks for the tips and links. I'll check 'em out. Nice friendly bunch here.

Cheers
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  #28  
Old 01-24-2005, 09:18 PM
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Ed in SoDak Ed in SoDak is offline
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a cheaper Zenith

Unless it really took off in the last month or so, the last one like mine I checked went for about $250, looked way cleaner than mine.

You guys with the whistling radios, I think that may be your IF coils are out of tune. Not to set everyone diddling around, but if you can find a schematic, you can track it down and maybe stop the heterodyne whine.

Another good site for old radios, if not mentioned already, is www.antiqueradios.com

I remember KAAY from Littlerock AR. Good rock n roll late nite, but I had to sneak out and listen to it in the car, couldn't get it on my portable and didn't know about adding antenna wires to those cheapie sets.

-Ed
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  #29  
Old 06-05-2005, 03:47 PM
peverett peverett is offline
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I live near Austin, Texas. The only AM music channel that can recieve during the day is an oldies station in San Antonio. All the Austin AM stations are either talk radio or sports radio. Needless to say, I only listen to the SA station.

As far as FM, we has a good classic rock station and a good oldies station here. However, last fall, both changed formats. The former classic rock station claims to play rock, but after the format change played a lot of junk. They seem to be slowly migrating back, which is to my taste. The former oldies station became "Bob FM" which I cannot stand, so they lost me completely. Both stations seemed to forgo local content, but the rock station is slowly bringing it back.

In changing their formtats, these stations are trying to compete with satallite radio and MP3 players, forgetting that their advantage is to be different and contain local content.
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  #30  
Old 04-09-2006, 02:41 AM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
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I have one of those early TO's, Royal 1000-1 (an ebay score last year). Like Donny's, though, the dial cord on mine is broken, but I haven't gotten around to restringing it (I hate to think what a job it will be to get the chassis out of the cabinet, let alone restringing the dial drive itself; from the diagram of it on the schematic, it looks as if there are two dial cords in there). The radio works very well and sounds great, like all Zeniths; I can change stations by reaching in the back and moving the tuning capacitor rotor by hand, so I am really in no hurry to restring the dial (I've been using the radio this way for some time).

I like AM radio as well. Don't care too much for talk radio, but there is a very good music station from Toronto that comes in here like gangbusters all day and all night (CHWO-AM740). All six of the Zenith radios in my collection pick up this station extremely well, but I'm not surprised, as I live about a mile from the southern shore of Lake Erie. I can hear many southwestern Ontario stations and Detroit stations all day and into the night; at night, the dial just lights up with stations, including every major AM station in New York and Chicago as well as most 50kW stations up and down the East Coast. I listened to WWL in New Orleans during the hurricane (when the station was on the United Broadcasters of New Orleans network; it's back to news/talk now, I think) and my Royal 1000 picked it up really well after dark--no fading, interference or anything else except a good strong signal. I don't think I had ever heard WWL before then.

I've been wanting to listen to that oldies music program over New York's WABC you mention (I like oldies a lot, and have many of my FM radios set on the oldies FM station in Cleveland or a small AM oldies station about 35 miles east of here), but I keep forgetting when it's on.
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