AM Radio Stations

[glen65]

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.

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.

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

[Shain]

Yea, I meant "tuner". I know it's not an antenna. But weren't those also called a ferrite rod?

[glen65]

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.

[peverett]

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.

[drjuju]

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.

[Sandy G]

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.

[asynchronousman]

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.

[drjuju]

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

[Ed in SoDak]

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

[superdeez]

Orlando's only "oldies" FM station recently changed its format, so its competeting broadcasting co. switched one of its faultering AM talk stations to oldies. Orlando has always seemed to have a rule that the english-speaking AM stations were talk, and the spanish-speaking AM stations are the only music on the AM band. Imagine my surprise to hear music I could understand! Plus, this station seems to limit itself to pre-1970 music, and even plays the unpopular stuff (not the same 15 songs the FM oldies station played repetitavely).

It's quite an experience to hear these oldies on a set that would have played them new.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by superdeez

Orlando's only "oldies" FM station recently changed its format, so its competeting broadcasting co. switched one of its faultering AM talk stations to oldies. Orlando has always seemed to have a rule that the english-speaking AM stations were talk, and the spanish-speaking AM stations are the only music on the AM band. Imagine my surprise to hear music I could understand! Plus, this station seems to limit itself to pre-1970 music, and even plays the unpopular stuff (not the same 15 songs the FM oldies station played repetitavely).

It's quite an experience to hear these oldies on a set that would have played them new.

My favorite AM oldies station is a 5kW fulltime operation (0.057 kW or 57 watts nights) on 1360 kHz, in a town about 35 miles due east of me. It also plays oldies from the 1950s through the 1970s (nothing after 1979 and definitely no disco) from a satellite network, The True Oldies Channel (no local DJs or live personalities at all except for a morning news broadcast). The station was formerly a talk station and was switched to oldies shortly after a 500-watt oldies station in a Cleveland suburb went from oldies to talk some three years ago. The 5kW station also plays many obscure oldies that the oldies FM in Cleveland either does not have or doesn't play more than once every six months, although the oldies FM seems to have more variety in oldies now than it used to--again, since the oldies AM I mentioned above dropped oldies for talk some three years ago. Every one of my antique/vintage Zeniths (and most if not all of my other vintage transistor portables, including a 1973 Sony 17-transistor AM/FM/FM stereo unit) will pick up the 5kW station all day long until it fades into the noise at sundown, as I fully expect from Zenith. These radios, too, could have and probably did play all the oldies I hear now when the songs were top-40.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Hey guys!!!! I found a little gem out there in radioland. WABC out of New York City on 770 kc every Saturday Night, plays music! Right now, I'm listening to it over my grandfather's, 5 tube, 1953 Philco, 2 band radio. My other radio in here, my Sanyo RP-8700 is too close to the computer so I had to resort to the older model.

It sounds great and I'm glad to hear a little sanity return to the world. I feel like I'm in a time warp or something. It's nice to suspend the real world a bit with terrorism, war, political hate from all corners and to ease back into the world of my childhood back in the 1970's when you can just chill and listen to some tunes and everything will be alright. Yeah, I got to come back to the real world, but it is nice to have these few hours of bliss.

I haven't had this much fun with music on AM since WNBC's Time Machine back in the 1980's. I should tape some of these shows on my ghetto blaster or my Panasonic Cassette receiver component stereo.

There is some fading but I still get signal, just have to adjust the volume on this 5 tube radio from time to time.

[superdeez]

Originally Posted by NowhereMan 1966

Hey guys!!!! I found a little gem out there in radioland. WABC out of New York City on 770 kc every Saturday Night, plays music! Right now, I'm listening to it over my grandfather's, 5 tube, 1953 Philco, 2 band radio. My other radio in here, my Sanyo RP-8700 is too close to the computer so I had to resort to the older model.

It sounds great and I'm glad to hear a little sanity return to the world. I feel like I'm in a time warp or something. It's nice to suspend the real world a bit with terrorism, war, political hate from all corners and to ease back into the world of my childhood back in the 1970's when you can just chill and listen to some tunes and everything will be alright. Yeah, I got to come back to the real world, but it is nice to have these few hours of bliss.

I haven't had this much fun with music on AM since WNBC's Time Machine back in the 1980's. I should tape some of these shows on my ghetto blaster or my Panasonic Cassette receiver component stereo.

There is some fading but I still get signal, just have to adjust the volume on this 5 tube radio from time to time.

What kind of music?

Here in Orlando we have three "good" music stations on AM...a satellite rebroadcast oldies station, radio Disney (OCCATIONALLY they play something I like or can stand) and a good spanish station that plays a lot of salsa.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by superdeez

What kind of music?

Here in Orlando we have three "good" music stations on AM...a satellite rebroadcast oldies station, radio Disney (OCCATIONALLY they play something I like or can stand) and a good spanish station that plays a lot of salsa.

I live about 35 miles from Cleveland. Most stations in the area are talk these days, but there are a couple of music stations. One is an oldies station that is programmed almost entirely from satellite feeds (The True Oldies Channel), one is Radio Disney in Cleveland, and two others are standards/big band from about 80 miles away; I also get three 50kW music stations from Canada most of the time (I am about a mile from the south shore of Lake Erie, so I hear quite a few stations from Canada, Detroit, and other cities along the lakeshore, although the two 50kW stations I hear from Detroit, WJR and CKLW, are talk). All are AM stations. Haven't heard any Spanish-language stations around here yet, though, although there is a low-power Spanish FM about 50 miles west of here.

I get a much better variety of AM music stations at night when the band opens up. WSM in Nashville, WABC New York's oldies program (which I have yet to hear), and several others I can't recall at the moment. I am only sorry I did not tape the last few days or hours of WNBC-AM oldies radio in New York before that station was sold to Emmis Communications in 1986 and its callsign changed to WFAN (has it really been twenty years ago since that happened?); I used to listen to their nighttime hosts such as Cousin Brucie, aka Bruce Morrow (now on Sirius satellite) when WNBC would boom in to the Cleveland area at night.

I used to enjoy listening to WKBW-1520 in Buffalo at night before they switched to talk a few months ago; one of the reasons I liked that station so much was that they had a former Cleveland radio personality on in nighttime. I often wondered what had happened to him after he left 50kW WKYC-AM (now WTAM) in Cleveland in 1970 or so. Was a real kick to hear him on again in Buffalo. I wonder what's become of him since KB let him go. I had heard he was on at least one station somewhere in the Carolinas several years ago.

I've said this here before. AM music radio in this country is not dead; there are a few stations out there that still specialize in older music (many of them are in Canada, though). There was a really good live oldies station about 40 miles south of here (just 1kW but it came in here very well) that went broke and off the air about three years or so ago; it hasn't been heard from since. Another 0.5kW (500 watt) oldies station near where I grew up went to satellite programming (all talk) about two years ago. I think it was because the 500-watt oldies station changed formats that the oldies FM in Cleveland now plays more 1950s oldies than it used to (mainly on weekends; most of it is live, although there are a couple of satellite programs on as well), though most of their music during the week is from the 1960s and seventies.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by superdeez

What kind of music?

Here in Orlando we have three "good" music stations on AM...a satellite rebroadcast oldies station, radio Disney (OCCATIONALLY they play something I like or can stand) and a good spanish station that plays a lot of salsa.

Well, the one here in Pittsburgh on 770 kc usually plays 60's and 70's music, sometimes delves into the early 1980's and late 1950's although there are segments that play 1950's and early 1960's music too. WABC on Saturday nights plays mainly 60's and 70's, creeping into the late 50's from time to time. If you remember a typical music AM station from the 1970's, that's basically what WABC plays.