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#16
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One of the finest multband receivers made is the Grundig transistor 6001, known as the satellit 210. This receiver is from 1968 and has great features and supurb sound to any other portable, even to this day its one of the best sounding portable multibands. Just a great radio. As great as they are, I'll still take a zenith TO anyday.
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I tolerate the present by living in the past... To see drh4683's photo page, click here To see drh4683's youtube page, click here Last edited by Charlie; 03-26-2006 at 01:35 PM. |
#17
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This radio is from around 1970. Grundig transistor 865. Another good quality grundig. Being a cheaper portable, it was made in portugal.
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I tolerate the present by living in the past... To see drh4683's photo page, click here To see drh4683's youtube page, click here Last edited by Charlie; 03-26-2006 at 01:32 PM. |
#18
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A westinghouse 9 transistor AM SW receiver. Looks nice but horrible sensitivity. Just the nature of the design. I went through it and got it as good as it can get, just a basic low end AM SW portable. This is from 1960.
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I tolerate the present by living in the past... To see drh4683's photo page, click here To see drh4683's youtube page, click here Last edited by Charlie; 03-26-2006 at 01:30 PM. |
#19
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Beautiful collection of multi-band radios! I have the T/O 7000 and I also have a similar Grundig radio but mine is called an Ocean Boy and has a vertical row of pushbuttons for changing bands. It looks about the same size as your Grundig and you're right about the sound quality. I really like the Zenith, but honestly I thing the Grundig sounds better.
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#20
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Thanks, Doug, for sharing all those nice photos and comments with us! It's a very impressive collection!
Last edited by Paula; 10-28-2004 at 10:27 AM. |
Audiokarma |
#21
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Doug,
Those are some slick lookin radios! We are going to start calling you "Mr. Zenith"! ![]()
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Charlie Trahan He who dies with the most toys still dies. |
#22
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Thanks for the compliments. I love transoceanics, and you can get them relatively cheap on ebay now. Ive wanted a TO for ever, and never found one before ebay. I always took ads out of the old NG magazines. Went to many garage sales as a kid and never any luck. At that Time finding a TO was more important than a TV. Still never found one around here to this day!
When the ebay demand of the R7000 goes way way down, Id love to have one of those. Those darn things go for $500 which is crazy. The only other models Id like to get are the 2000 AM FM portable and a 1000-D. I like the nickname charlie! We can probably all agree that zenith was the best. Too bad they are gone ![]() |
#23
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That's a groovy lookin Airline! In fact, it looks like the same model Doug has... or at least damn close to it.
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Charlie Trahan He who dies with the most toys still dies. |
#24
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Sony AM/FMs
I have several vintage transistor sets here, but the best ones, IMO, are two Sony AM/FM radios. One is a rather large 18-transistor AM/FM/FM stereo portable (model MR-9700W), the other a smaller AM/FM 3-volt portable (model TFM-7720W). The AM/FM/FM stereo radio sounds like a console, and has incredible bass for a portable
![]() The smaller three-volt portable works well, but has an intermittent somewhere as the sound will cut in and out at random. I can bring it back simply by tapping the volume control, so I suspect either the control itself is defective or noisy or else there is a bad connection on the PC board it is soldered to. I hope the problem is just a noisy control, though, as I don't look forward to tearing the set apart to resolder bad connections around it. That is, I can do it if need be, but I'd rather not if I can possibly avoid it. I also have a late-1960s vintage Aiwa AM-FM portable that works very well; the only problem is, I can't find it--yet, anyhow. Probably stored away in a box somewhere around here. Liking radio as much as I do, and since the set works, I wouldn't dream of putting it (or any of my vintage radios) out with the trash. The power supply for the TFM-7720W receiver seems sorta' odd (to me, anyhow). The set will work on AC or two 1.5-volt size D flashlight cells; the latter is why I say this set's power source is unusual. Most larger portables use at least four C or D cells (my late-'60s Aiwa portable, mentioned above, uses four C's for 6 volts; the MR-9700W stereo receiver uses four D-size flashlight cells, also for a total of six volts). How did Sony manage to design the TFM-7720 to operate on just three volts? The set has a tuning indicator (most likely a small, perhaps grain-of-wheat bulb behind a small rectangular red lens on the tuning dial--I doubt very much it's an LED, given the radio's vintage) which I'm sure eats up power like crazy when it is on (this would explain why this radio has been designed to use D-size batteries, as these are capable of higher current output than C or penlight cells). BTW, at my former home, some 20 years ago, I had a small Japanese-made portable (AM, FM, and two shortwave bands) that looked an awful lot like one of Zenith's Interoceanic models. I was reminded of this when I saw a pic of a later-vintage Zenith Interoceanic in one of Doug's posts, earlier in this thread. Also, Heathkit offered an AM/FM/SW set in the early '80s, IIRC, which looked like a knockoff of one of Zenith's later solid-state TO sets. The Heathkit set, I swear, was a dead ringer for the Zenith, as the Heathkit had the same rotating drum dial, front-panel layout, etc. as Zenith's solid-state TO. I think Heath may have offered their version of this set after Zenith bought out Schlumberger in the early '80s or thereabouts.
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. Last edited by Jeffhs; 11-16-2004 at 01:15 AM. |
#25
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My latest ebay score: Zenith Royal 1000-1
Quote:
The radio had a very low opening bid on it when I came across it on ebay, but another potential buyer outbid me by $1 at first. ![]() I did not include a picture of my new (to me) Royal 1000-1 in this post, as the picture Doug posted of a 1000-1 earlier is the exact model I have. My set sounds great, and as I stated earlier it pulls in AM stations here which many of my other Zeniths (including my R-70) won't touch. BTW, I decided to fire up my Zenith H511 the other evening, just to see if it still works. It does, in spades. I plugged it into a ground-fault-interrupter outlet in my apartment just in case there was a problem, but I need not have worried or even been concerned, as the radio powered up and played flawlessly as soon as the tubes warmed up. I left it on, tuned to a big-band/standards station in Toronto (CHWO 740), much of the rest of the evening. The set sounds wonderful, even with the speaker cone rather torn up--I can't even notice anything that would even suggest a torn cone, such as garbled or distorted sound. The TO Royal 1000-1 brings to five the number of Zenith radios in my collection. Except for the H511 and the TO, the other three Zeniths are somewhat less than antique (although my K-731, manufactured in 1963, is getting close at 42 years).
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Jeff, WB8NHV Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002 Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten. |
Audiokarma |
#26
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I have a 1956 Telefunken Bajazzo that's in the process of being repaired that I picked up curbside a month or so ago. Tubes, huge batteries and a plug...what's not to love?
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#27
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I have a radio with the same exact design except it is branded with both SounDesign and "Readers Digest".
-Dan. Quote:
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#28
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Here's my daily-use radio... Zenith Royal 2000. I read somewhere that this was Zenith's first AM-FM transistor set. Weighs a ton, has color TV type rabbit ears antenna for FM, and has a metal chassis with transistor sockets. Uses 8 D batteries, and no AC provisions. This radio is the only one I have that will receive AM up here in the canyon. We can't get ANY FM or TV, and most AM radios will only pick up one or two fuzzy stations. This one pulls in Bakersfield, CA, and a few Los Angeles stations fairly well.
Charles |
#29
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Would not mind having one of those, but I am over my self imposed limit fo 5 portable radios. Got six sets and I am moving. The "wife factor" is kicking in. Dont really want to part with any of them
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#30
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Sears Wayfarer
It is a shame that most of the pictures on this thread do not show up ... It would have been nice to have seen all of your radios!
When a little kid, Santa brought me a Sears Wayfarer for Christmas (1972). It has serviced me well through the years, as I went DXing and recorded my finds on tape. And, it worked wonderful as an amplifier (with RCA input) for testing various equipment through the years. It still is in my arsenal, and works well to this day. While hamfesting one day, I found another rather cheap, and will hold on to that one for parts, if mine ever needs them. Saw one go on eBay the other day ... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...tem=5876622352 |
Audiokarma |
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