zenith transoceanic royal 1000 - transistors, circa 1960

[radiodayz]

Nice score, Jeff, congratulations :-)

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I will test the shortwave bands after dark.

I hope that you are not overlooking the possibility of some excellent SW reception on the higher bands during the daytime. Right now (about 4:10 pm) for example, I am easily hearing the code practice sessions on W1AW from my location near the West coast on 14.04750, 18.09750 and 21.06750 mHz. I am not hearing W1AW on 7.04750 and below. Also not hearing it on 28.06750 mHz.

jr

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

I hope that you are not overlooking the possibility of some excellent SW reception on the higher bands during the daytime. Right now (about 4:10 pm) for example, I am easily hearing the code practice sessions on W1AW from my location near the West coast on 14.04750, 18.09750 and 21.06750 mHz. I am not hearing W1AW on 7.04750 and below. Also not hearing it on 28.06750 mHz.

jr

I tested my Royal 3000-1 on all its shortwave bands a couple days ago. It works, but the stations I heard were mostly high-power religious broadcasters. (I was using the radio's built-in FM/SW rod antenna, as I cannot erect outdoor radio antennas here due to lease restrictions.) I tried looking for WWV on 5, 10, 15 MHz and found what sounded like it, but the signal was so weak I couldn't be sure what station I had. Same for CHU in Canada. I thought I heard something that sounded like their clock ticks on 3.3 MHz, but again, the signal was so weak I couldn't be sure whether it actually was the Canadian time and frequency station. This struck me as odd, since I live within one mile of the south shore of Lake Erie and should have been hearing CHU coming in like gangbusters. The radio's performance on the AM broadcast band is good, but not great and certainly not fantastic; I can hear most Cleveland AM stations, including a 5kW oldies station about 35 miles east of here, during the day.

FM reception on my Royal 3000-1 is, again, good but not great. It gets most Cleveland FM stations and a couple of out-of-town ones fairly well, but it isn't too good with distant FM reception most of the time even though, being as close to Lake Erie as I am, I should be hearing some stations from Toledo and Detroit, not to mention southwestern Ontario, Canada during good weather conditions. I have heard one station in Sandusky, Ohio on 94.5 MHz, but to date no other distant, out-of-state stations. I chalk this up to the fact that the Royal 3000-1, built in 1966, was one of the first AM-FM portable radios and is not nearly as sensitive as its predecessors; this means the radio was not meant for use in low-signal areas such as far suburban or fringe. (I have a Royal 1000 from 1958 that works better on AM, and probably shortwave as well, than the Royal 3000-1.)

As far as CW reception goes, even if I could hear W1AW here (actually, I probably can, as I am only a couple hundred miles from Hartford, but it would be worthless as I am about to explain), I couldn't use the station for code practice since the Royal 3000-1 does not have a BFO circuit, which of course is a necessity for code reception. As the radio is now, W1AW's automated code practice sessions would sound like thumps instead of tones. I could use the receiver in my Icom IC-725 for W1AW reception if I could put up an outdoor antenna, but, for reasons I mentioned above, this is absolutely out of the question. If W1AW were available on Echolink, however, I would be able to get code practice that way; maybe that's my answer to keeping my code-copying skills from getting so rusty it wouldn't be funny. I'll have to look on EL's station list; I'm almost sure they do have W1AW there, and being on the Internet, the code signals would, of necessity, have to be modulated.

[old_coot88]

Originally Posted by Snade

...I am listening to the Cubs game on AM right now. Installed the 9 "D" batteries. Lucky for me the battery case was empty and not full of 40 year old batteries.

Cheers, Snade

Be sure and check that there's no battery drain with the radio off. I have a 3000 that showed a drain 200 microamps, caused by leakage in the battery feed-through socket. The leakage was from the lugs to chassis. It's a fairly common problem with the 3000, and might also be with the 1000.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I could use the receiver in my Icom IC-725 for W1AW reception if I could put up an outdoor antenna, but, for reasons I mentioned above, this is absolutely out of the question.

Your Icom is very likely the most sensitive and selective receiver that you have... as long as you are not trying to transmit, the antenna does not need to be outdoor or matched for low SWR. A 10-25 foot extension cord strung around a room can make a dandy SW antenna in a pinch.

For grins, last night I connected my Icom IC-R8500 to a 15 ft chunk of hook-up wire slung over the back of a chair, and could easily hear WWV on 2.5, 5, 10 &15 Mhz, and CHU (fairly weakly) on 7.850 Mhz. Might be worth a try for those W1AW sessions.

A small loop can work quite well for AM reception on the Icom.

jr

[Jeffhs]

Getting back to my Zenith Transoceanic 3000-1: Is there any way to increase the sensitivity of this radio on FM by means of adjustments to trimmers, etc.? The set has a separate FM tuner. In my area (I am some 35 miles from downtown Cleveland and about ten miles further from the transmitters, most of which are located in a southwestern suburb of the city) it will receive every commercial Cleveland FM station but one (using its built-in Waverod FM/SW antenna) quite well, but it doesn't do so well with the low-power college, university and translator stations below 92 MHz. There are at least two stations, one of which is a translator for an NPR station some 60 miles from here, in that part of the FM band which I would like to be able to listen to. I realize the Royal 3000-1, built in 1966, was one of the first transistor portable radios with FM, but I would think it would have been designed, as are almost all older Zenith radios, to receive low-power and other weak stations where other sets fail to do so. I can hear the NPR translator on 89.1 MHz quite well, actually, as the transmitter is only a few miles away, but the signal sounds distorted; the other stations come in very well. I am currently charging the radio's batteries (it was modified by its previous owner to use rechargeable NiCad cells rather than the usual nine D cells) on a hunch that the batteries may be weak, thereby reducing the overall sensitivity of the set. If a freshly charged set of batteries does not cure the sensitivity problem, where else could it be? As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I am curious to know if there are other things I can do to get this radio working as it probably did 47 years ago, such as adjustments of antenna trimmers and such, although if the solution involves realignment, I won't touch it since I don't have a signal generator or alignment instructions. Again, I am aware that the Royal 3000-1 was one of the first portable radios to cover the FM broadcast band, but somehow I think mine could do better than it does in the signal-pulling department, short of using an external FM antenna. Also, the AM sensitivity of the Royal 3000 does not seem up to par. I can get most of the AM stations in Cleveland, its suburbs and outlying areas, but I cannot hear AM 740 in Toronto (for example). The dial calibration seems quite far off on the low end of the AM band as well; for instance, WJR 760 in Detroit comes in at about 650 or thereabouts on the dial, and WGR 550 in Buffalo, usually very good here, doesn't come in at all on my Royal 3000. This (and the FM sensitivity problem) seems well out of character for any radio made by Zenith. Was the quality of their radios starting a downward spiral in the mid-1960s that continued until the company exited the radio business in the early '80s?

[Jeffhs]

I did some tweaking on the trimmer capacitors located on the chassis (under the battery box), and managed to get the low end of the AM band back. I can now hear several stations, including CFZM-AM 740 in Toronto, that I wasn't hearing before. I also noticed that the location of the radio has a decided effect on the number of stations I can receive. When I listen to my TO3000-1 in my bedroom, I notice a lot of noise and interference. Move the radio into the main part of my apartment, however, and the difference is like night and day. I can then hear AM 740, WJR 760 in Detroit, and many other stations, in the Cleveland area and elsewhere in northeastern Ohio, that are all but inaudible in the other location.

There is even less noise in the living area of this apartment than there is in the bedroom; I don't know why that should be. I do notice, however, that, since the switch to digital TV, and since a lot of my neighbors in this apartment building now have flat screens rather than CRT sets, there is a drastic reduction in horizontal-oscillator harmonic noise on the AM broadcast band. Makes DXing on AM much easier, and yes, I have heard some stations on my TO3000 I never heard before, such as a Canadian AM station identifying itself simply as "Newsradio 1310" (this one may be new in the Toronto or southwestern Ontario area) and a few other small stations I have yet to identify. Of course, the big 50kW clear-channel stations such as WBBM 780 and WCFL 1000 in Chicago, WBZ 1030 in Boston, KYW 1060 in Philadelphia, as well as other 50kW stations in the Great Lakes region, not to mention up and down the East Coast.

When I shifted the alignment to get back the low end of the broadcast band, however, it caused another problem. The dial calibration is just about correct from about 970 kHz to the top of the band, but below 970 the calibration is off. I read somewhere that this is a common problem when aligning these radios; I wonder why. Was there something about the design of the local oscillator in Zenith TO's (my TO 1000 has the same problem) that makes it difficult, if not downright impossible, to get proper tracking across the entire broadcast band? I have read that it is quite difficult with these radios to get accurate tracking across the entire band, so most owners of these sets just tolerate the problem. Was this problem actually as bad as it seems, or is there some trick to aligning these radios so that the tracking is reasonably good across the entire band? One thing that comes to mind is setting the oscillator trimmer so that a station on 1000 kHz comes in with the dial pointer set just to the left of "110" on the dial; this should work since 1000 kHz is roughly the center of the North American AM broadcast band. If this does not cause proper tracking across the BC band, what else (if anything) could be causing the problem? I'm thinking it is just a quirk in the design of the AM section of the TO's, from the 1000 through and perhaps including the 7000 series.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

When I shifted the alignment to get back the low end of the broadcast band, however, it caused another problem. The dial calibration is just about correct from about 970 kHz to the top of the band, but below 970 the calibration is off. I read somewhere that this is a common problem when aligning these radios; I wonder why. Was there something about the design of the local oscillator in Zenith TO's (my TO 1000 has the same problem) that makes it difficult, if not downright impossible, to get proper tracking across the entire broadcast band? I have read that it is quite difficult with these radios to get accurate tracking across the entire band, so most owners of these sets just tolerate the problem. Was this problem actually as bad as it seems, or is there some trick to aligning these radios so that the tracking is reasonably good across the entire band?

The alignment procedure for these sets is somewhat complicated, but if followed correctly, using the proper equipment, good dial calibration and sensitivity over the entire band may be achieved. I suspect that your set has been "messed with" by someone lacking the proper equipment/skills to do a proper job. I don't believe that there is any inherent design problem that affects dial calibration on these sets.

jr

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

The alignment procedure for these sets is somewhat complicated, but if followed correctly, using the proper equipment, good dial calibration and sensitivity over the entire band may be achieved. I suspect that your set has been "messed with" by someone lacking the proper equipment/skills to do a proper job. I don't believe that there is any inherent design problem that affects dial calibration on these sets.

jr

Thanks much for the reply. From what you said, however, it looks as if I am stuck with the alignment problems this radio has, since I do not have any test equipment other than a digital multimeter and I do not know anyone in my area who could realign the set. There is a TV/radio repair shop about five miles from me, but I don't think they would even look at a radio as old (mid-1960s) as my T/O, let alone align or service it; they probably only provide warranty service on flat screen TVs these days, and wouldn't touch an old radio with a 10-foot test lead. I found this out when I asked them over the phone about ten years ago for an estimate on repairing my 1951 Zenith Consol-Tone H-511Y radio; the person I spoke to acted as if they never heard of it. I repaired the set myself, including replacing the crumbling AC line cord with one from a defective RF modulator.

The former owner of my T/O stated (in his eBay item description) that he had realigned all 12 bands, but the performance problems I am experiencing on the AM broadcast band (and also on shortwave) lead me to believe that the alignment wasn't done properly, or else something was jarred out of place during shipping; I'm not sure what the problem is. The FM band, however, seems to be in proper alignment, so it isn't a total loss. Further, most AM stations in my area near Cleveland are on frequencies from 850 to 1540 kHz, so I don't have much use for the low end of the band anyway--except of course for AM DXing. The radio does receive stations such as CKLW (800kHz) in Canada and WJR (760kHz) in Detroit, as well as AM 740 in Toronto quite well, and of course the AM dial lights up with stations after dark, so sensitivity isn't the issue. As I mentioned in my previous post, I have heard several very small Canadian and North American stations, such as "News Radio 1310" somewhere in Ontario, while tuning this set through the BC band, so I am reasonably certain the problem is simply poor alignment.