Do you still use your old radios

[compucat]

Whenever I listen to the radio at home, it is almost always on a tube set unless I'm using a portable. I listen mostly to AM and shortwave so I don't have many FM tube sets. In fact, I think I now only have one, a mid-fifties Zenith.

Now when I look for a radio for serious use, it has to have AM, Shortwave, and of course, tubes, preferably at least six. I just scored a 1939 RCA T-64 tombstone with AM, Shortwave, a tuning eye, six pushbuttons and that unmistakable tube radio sound. It is my oldest tube set and my first with tuning eye and tombstone cabinet. I have to correct some hack repairs and recap it but it is definitely a quality radio.

[Rybeam]

I use a 1959 Zenith AM-FM tube radio going thru one of those little 2-way Radio Shack metal cabinet speakers [ ADS ? made ] in my "mini barn". Wonderful full sound, excellent reception.

[compucat]

I have found that Zeniths perform much better on FM than RCA - just my personal experience.

[Dan Starnes]

I seem to be drawn to my old radios especially during the time frame from thanksgiving to christmas. The closer to christmas the more likely you will find music, especially christmas music. Listened to my 1931 Crosley for several hours last nite on WTAD 930 AM,, one of the oldest radio stations in the USA. Just like my great grandparents did so many years ago. Tonite (christmas eve) we had the console Motorola 75F21 playing the christmas songs, sounded splendid. But I do listen to them all year when I take the time.

[compucat]

I'm about to put a Philco 37-610 tombstone radio into dailey service. I finally finished it and I am impressed at how good a 69 year old radio performs. It is going in the living room so it will get plenty of use and look great too.

[truetone36]

I use my Truetone D-724 from 1937 daily.it's also a great radio to listen to short-wave broadcasts at night on. My 1962 Delmonico (JVC) hi-fi consolette sees a lot of use as well, since most of my really good music is on vinyl.

[Phil Nelson]

With every tube radio or TV whose electronics have been restored, it's a good idea to slide it off the shelf and play it for a while every month or two. Warm everything up to operating temperature, keep the controls lubed up and movable, etc.

These things were designed to be used, not shelved.

I'm not as systematic about this as I should be, but everything that I listen to daily, in the office, family room, and bedroom, is hollow-state.

[vintagecollect]

AM Music stations are a thing in the past for here in Northern CA despite big company sponsors that used to support programming. Just political blog stations now.





Only use my 1930 Zenith to listen to news station. AM is a dead and obsolete entertainment medium out here. Sold many a good radio, just can't keep them all to listen to news for 1/2 an hour, sometimes during day. Someone must have their ears glued to listen for this crap, big corporations taking over programming.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by vintagecollect

AM Music stations are a thing in the past for here in Northern CA despite big company sponsors that used to support programming. Just political blog stations now.





Only use my 1930 Zenith to listen to news station. AM is a dead and obsolete entertainment medium out here. Sold many a good radio, just can't keep them all to listen to news for 1/2 an hour, sometimes during day. Someone must have their ears glued to listen for this crap, big corporations taking over programming.

I know exactly what you mean. I live some 35 miles east of Cleveland; most of the city's AM stations are talk or news-talk these days. However, I did find one Canadian music station, AM 740 CHWO in Toronto, so music is not entirely a forgotten format on AM--you just have to know where to look. I am not familiar with what is on radio anywhere in California (never been there or anywhere west of Ohio in my life), so don't know what your AM situation is like except from what you tell us in your post. I would think, however, that there might be one or more music stations in small towns in your part of the state, even if most stations in San Francisco, et al. have switched to talk or news-talk. Don't know what you are using for an antenna on your 1930 Zenith, but if you have a reasonably good outdoor antenna hooked up you should be able to hear smaller stations in northern California or even Oregon. It wouldn't surprise me if Portland has one or more music stations; if you look around your AM dial at night, you might even hear the more powerful stations in Seattle or even north of the border in Vancouver, British Columbia. There are still many good music stations in Canada--CHWO 740 in Toronto, the one I listen to a lot, is one, but I doubt if it will reach the West Coast, as its signal pattern is configured to cover greater Toronto and much of the northeastern United States.

My point is that AM music radio is not dead yet, nor will it be any time soon. If worse comes to worst and you actually cannot find any music stations on your AM dial, look around on the Internet. There is a service called Live365 that plays 24-hour music, any kind of music you like, with no commercials if you subscribe to the paid version ($5.95 per month); there is a free ad-supported version of the same service. Log on to www.live365.com to get more information and the free player you need to listen to their music. Also, if you have digital cable or satellite television service, you almost certainly will have access to several digital music channels. I have both Comcast digital cable and Live365 service, and like them both so well that I have all but abandoned standard radio (which isn't all that great here either, even on FM). The commercial-free nature of digital cable music and Live365 are well worth the monthly subscription fees. The Live365 player is free, and as I said, the basic service is free as well, so you really have nothing to lose.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot. Public radio stations often have very good music; the San Francisco area (and most major metropolitan areas) have at least one NPR affiliate. If your area's local NPR station is on AM or simulcasts AM and FM, you can tune in the AM station on your Zenith and it will very likely sound as good as FM--those old Zeniths have great sound (I have five such radios, one of which has a very good audio system for a table model, so I can vouch for the sound quality of the earlier Zeniths). If you want to hear the local NPR station on FM through your old Zenith AM radio, all you need is an FM-to-AM converter such as was used with car radios in the '60s and '70s. Set your Zenith to the output frequency of the adapter (usually 800-900 kHz or 1400-1500 kHz) and tune in your NPR station on the adapter. Just a thought.

[Sandy G]

Yeah-I've heard tales of R-390As being on 24/7 for years, until a tube went kerflooey. Turning 'em on & off was harder on 'em than just leaving 'em on-R-390s also used a peculiar kind of multi-position microswitch that would arc & "weld" itself "on" after years of wear-I had one do that. Thankfully, I have Terry DeWick 75 miles down the road...<grin>-Sandy G.

[Charlie]

I've noticed that many small towns have good AM stations to listen to, but they are usually very low power. There's one near my cabin broadcasting from Woodville, TX (population 2000) that I enjoy. My cabin is roughly 15 miles south of Woodville, so I can just barely pick it up. They play a good mix of older country songs.

I've encountered many AM stations during my travels on board ship. My favorite is from New Jersey... WMTR 1250. They play the best oldies from the 50's and 60's. It's like stepping back in time.

[Midnight Blues]

I use my tube radios every day. I'm partial to Zenith though. I have a nice original AM/FM High Fidelity(c845)that I use in the kitchen, wonderful sound.


I also have a 600 series Transoceanic shortwave that is just amazing, she pulls in stations from all over the planet (a few satilites too).....

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Midnight Blues

I use my tube radios every day. I'm partial to Zenith though. I have a nice original AM/FM High Fidelity(c845)that I use in the kitchen, wonderful sound.


I also have a 600 series Transoceanic shortwave that is just amazing, she pulls in stations from all over the planet (a few satilites too).....

I am also a Zenith fan, having six vintage radios built by the former Zenith Radio Corporation. The oldest of these radios is a Zenith H511(1951); the newest, a Zenith R70 AM/FM transistor portable and a Zenith H480 AM/FM/FM-stereo clock radio (both from 1980). The sets in between are between 1960 and 1963 vintage. My Zenith K-731 is from '63, I also have a Zenith TransOceanic solid-state portable from I would guess 1962, and my newest acquisition is a Zenith C845 from about (again I'm guessing) 1960 or thereabouts. However, every one of these radios work, in some cases not as well as they probably did when they were new, but they still power up and receive stations. I am particularly impressed by the sound of the C845. Fantastic! It even sounds better, IMHO, than my K-731, which I always thought was hi-fi with its electrostatic tweeter and 5x7 main speaker.

Zenith really had a winner times at least ten in the C845. This radio sounds so good it could be the center of a small sound system, as it has stereo speaker inputs and a phono jack. The audio is so powerful I can hear most of the local stations without even turning the volume control up at all--I simply turn it on and most stations are already at normal volume. I hate to think how loud this thing can go; probably could be heard quite a distance away at full volume.

The sensitivity of the C845 is great as well. I live near the south shore of Lake Erie and can hear many Canadian stations as well as if they were locals on this set, and every other AM radio I own. (My personal favorite AM station is a standards station in Toronto, CHWO-AM 740; it comes in like gangbusters here.) I bet my C845 will get stations on FM like crazy from Detroit and southwestern Ontario, Canada (which all my other radios, including the so-so digital tuner in my stereo system, get as well) when the band opens up this summer, as sensitive as I understand it is with that 6BJ6 RF stage. This radio was clearly built for distance reception on AM and FM; they didn't refer to it and other radios they made, from the '20s through about the '60s, as "Long Distance" for nothing. The designation was dropped, however, some time in the '70s, IIRC; my two 1980-vintage Zeniths do not have the slogan anywhere on their cabinets, so I would guess it was dropped by the seventies if not earlier. Was this an early peek at things yet to come at Zenith? It wouldn't surprise me one bit if it was.

[Midnight Blues]

Jeff I'm with you, that C845 is a fantastic radio. There are times when I just can't belive how good it sounds. I really do use mine every day and I'm never disapointed.
I had the Transoceanic fired up on Sunday and the 19m band was lit up like a Christmas tree. It seemed as though I pulled in 50 stations.

In my humble opiniion Zenith sure could build a radio.....

Originally Posted by Midnight Blues

Jeff I'm with you, that C845 is a fantastic radio. There are times when I just can't belive how good it sounds. I really do use mine every day and I'm never disapointed.
I had the Transoceanic fired up on Sunday and the 19m band was lit up like a Christmas tree. It seemed as though I pulled in 50 stations.

In my humble opiniion Zenith sure could build a radio.....

I have a C845 that I've been listening to at the office for the past three years. I'm looking for a copy of a SAMS on the C845 since I'd like to get the last of the old paper caps out of it (I think I've pushed my and the Zenith's luck far enough, even though it still plays fine). I tried the one online site that I saw referenced in one of the threads on this forum, but the Deja Vue viewer they use doesn't produce a very readable printout when I tried to get a hardcopy. It would also be nice to get the SAMS so I can see a complete list of all the caps it takes without having to trace through the schematic to find them.

If anyone has one and doesn't mind photocopying theirs for me, I'd be happy to reimburse you for the cost of the copy and mail.



Thanks,
Joe