That first set is just like the one we got when we moved to a farm that had electrical power. Dad took us to a farm auction, and he bid on the radio. Ours was in a floor model. It never got as much use as our old battery set, as Dad went to town and bought us a second hand television set, being 1961, it was, of course black and white, Motorola floor model. We got CBS and NBC using a huge antenna atop an old 3 story house that sat next to the small house we lived in on the farm, that antenna was atop a pipe that held it up another 8 feet above the house, the pipe ran all the way to the basement and if we needed to turn the antenna a bit, we could do that in the basement of that old house. Again, thanks for the memories!
KMOX in St.Louis.- Mom worked there for the time I grew up. The stations have now been sold. All those stations on the first radio are all “biggies “(50,000 watts), from all over the U.S.-very cool ❗️
My multiband radio is a Panasonic RF-1600. It is a high-fidelity 6-band portable set from the mid-60s with exceptional selectivity across all of its bands, and it will play FM better than the vast majority of modern FM radios.
we DX on the shortwave bands. there is a small group of people still listening to eastern europe stations and russian stations. sometimes the usa stations bounce in.
I had the GE radio in a black leatherette case 5 transistors 4 D batteries it had a great sound plus good sensitivity a little heavy but it stomped those wimpy radios using aa or 9volt batteries mine also suffered a broken antenna from falling off shelf onto concrete floor tks for showing great memories
I used to live near the old KMPC transmission antennas off of Burbank blvd. in N. Hollywood. For years it had the call letters on the building. Then one day the building was gone and a new smaller building was built. Never could find out what they were transmitting but the antennas are still functional today.
Cool Radios! - especially the Airline - noticed KWKH "the radio ranch" - (home of the Louisiana Hayride show where Elvis got his start) at 1130 KHz - Long before the FCC, there was the FRC (Federal Radio Commission) - these regulating agencies came about as a result of "RF Wars" - frequency & power assignments, and "public decency". KWKH owner, William K. Henderson was known to get tanked up and "editorialize". He frequently signed on the station with the tagline: "Good morning world, goddamn ya!" The Aircraft band still uses AM to this day for voice communication, because it is easy to tell if two people are transmitting at once. With FM's "capture ratio" (when one signal is about 2.2 times or more powerful than the other), the weaker signal is totally swamped, and the receiving station has no idea that someone else transmitted at the same time. With AM, a station with as little as 1/100th the power can be detected because of the heterodyne produced with two signals at once. It is highly unlikely that any two radios would be within less than a hundred cycles of each other. When air traffic control hears the heterodyne, they can call for the weaker station to transmit after handling the stonger stations request.
Have two things to send you when the tax check comes. It should be here in a week or so. Waiting for the govt! Hey, I know u are a tech, did u work for a radio station too? I noticed you know a TON about transmission too... Steven
The aircraft automated broadcast you were listening to is called ATIS (automatic terminal information system) it provides essential information to pilots about airport conditions to lighten the radio traffic and the work load on controllers at busy airports. Just thought you would like to know..
Hey Shango, great to see a new electronics video from you. Looking forward to watching you recapacitate the capacitators and screw in new vacuum bulbs in that first unit!
A buddy of mine has an RCA radio very similar to the one you demo'd here (the last one in the video). It was silent, so I changed a capacitor or two, and while it came back to life, it's still considerably quiet. He's just happy that it can be heard. Something to take to the beach while listening to MLB on 570am.
Radio Marti and VOA(Voice of America)is still on the SW bands.I am writing this from the Marti/VOA SW transmitter plant in Greenville,NC.Running 250Kw on SW to Cuba and for VOA to South America and Africa.The plant can broadcast to anywhere in the world with its 38 antennas.The ONLY Gov't SW transmitter plant left in the US.There used to be two SW plants in California-closed and Bethany,Ohio-closed.also 3 sites in Greenville-2 closed the Black Jack NC plant still operating-3 transmitters right now-mid shift-site runs 24/7 .One Brown Boveri,one AEG/Telefunken and one CEC 419F.Looking at a report-radio usage is actually INCREASED for this year.The plant I am working at has gone thru MANY site improvements-so the place can still be around for awhile longer.Look in Radio TV World Handbook for the frequencies-can't give them here.
Buddy of mine in Vietnam had a radio like that RCA one, he used to carry it into the boonies when we were on operations. We were usually out for 3 to 5 days on long rang patrols, so we had a ruck sack on our backs, he carried his radio in the ruck. One evening, we were about ready to hole up for the night when an NVA patrol caught us, and opened fire with their AK'S. Luck was with us, and we won the day, but my buddy was hit in the back. The round penetrated his rucksack and hit that damn radio. Believe it or not, that radio was sturdy enough that it STOPPED that 7.62X39 mm round! The radio never played another tune but my buddy carried it back to the base and taped it together, then mailed it home. He said he was going to send a picture of it and a letter to RCA and thank them for saving his life, had that radio not stopped the bullet it would have torn through his spine and probably taken out his heart, or one lung at the least.
I have both of the GE radios in this video. The tan one with the AC built in is from 1961 and this is where I noticed the extensive use of Japanese parts. The leather one is a robin egg blue form 1959. It has all U.S. made parts and has mostly Tung-Sol transistors as their EIA code 322 is marked on each one. I've noticed this in many of this model the use of T-S transistors. Both radios I got at tag sales and to this day, both work fine and both have all the original parts. Never had to touch them.
I agree! Those early American made coat pocket radios are some of the coolest transistor portables. They hold up pretty well too, I got an Emerson Pioneer 888 that just needed battery cleaning and it was good to go. It didn't sound as good as my Zenith 500D but it works, fairly sensitive too.
Dont worry about all the foreign stations, all you have to do is install a foreign language reject filter capacitor. It uses American Flag materiel as the dialectic.
We have some great commercial over the air FM stations from St. Louis. We still get free TV too . I mean, why pay to listen to commercials? I guess not everyone thinks the same way. Great video, by the way.
The RCA portable radio looks like it could be a companion to the RCA 5H and 10H AM transmitters worked on those a lot-can draw out their schematics and tell you where the major parts are and failures!Classic transmitters--AND---they had mercury vapor rect tubes!!!!Nice to watch those tubes flicker to the modulation!also 50Kw RCA AM Ampliphase rigs from that era.Another Tx classic!!!
Those were some nice radios there. You are right about the GE radios, they always had great sensitivity. The GE televisions however, I remember they had a a lot of problems with poor solder connections.
I opened up an old wooden cased multimeter, inside were two Winchester D Cell Batteries, still in great condition. Of course they had no power but no leakage either. At the time I was a working gunsmith and did the gun show circuit. I took the batteries to the next gun show and a fellow offered me a Star PD .45 ACP Pistol in trade for the two D cells. It was a nice pistol, I kept it for many years and never have regretted the trade. Alas as with most of my guns from back then, I traded it for something else down the line. Now I have a Citadel .45 General Officer's model which is about the same size as the Star, but weighs about twice as much, the Star had aluminum frame where the new pistol is all steel.
The other day I picked an Emerson pocket radio that's very similar to the RCA. However it comes with those ancient trannies on a metal case that slightly resembles that of the quartz crystals from late plastic CRT TVs. ''888 Vanguard'' I think the model was, made in New Jersey. In the other hand it does absolutely nothing. The audio stages woke up after a while for some reason though. The Airline is quite a beatiful set, and find the way the front of the GE's lift novel. Kind of gives you an easier access to the guts than the more common opening back cover. The link to the CBS article is uncomplete, used the site's search box to find it.
Radio's still very viable, it's more popular then ever compared to how bad it tanked in the late 70's early 80's. Politics is what's driving the sale. Think CBS likes the fact they have to air Rush, Hannity, Levin, Savage, etc? Great video, very cool radios. Thanks for sharing.
You crack me up!!! ROFL. Steam punk batteries for $5K each!! EXCELLENT VIDEO AS ALWAYS! Couldn't agree more about the GE radios. Had one of the leatherette radios like yours (at about 30 min in your vid) when in high school. It just worked as you say, but cosmetically was junk. Gave it away. Wish I still had it.
I saw the CBS Radio comment in the Wall Street Journal and thought the same thing you did. Pretty soon if I want to listen to AM radio I'll need to learn Spanish or Chinese or Korean or....anything but English!! Loved that news clip at 9:20...prevailing wages ....sounds like unions working to lock up/freeze out housing developers like they already have for any government construction jobs in California. And they make it sound sweet by putting "affordable housing" as part of the deal to get the sheep to vote for it. As if housing will be very affordable once union wages are put into the mix!
re: That beige all-plastic portable from GE: I used to have a GE radio with exactly the same cabinet - only the cabinet back was seafoam green and the chassis was the classic 4-tube portable (1R5/1T4/1U5/3V4) circuit.
There are 3 General electric 250Kw SW transmitters at the operating Greenville "B" plant-Marti/VOA and 3 at the closed VOA Greenville"A" plant.Use those for parts to keep B plant ones going.These were built in 1962-1963.B plant ones still operate just fine.Like how your GE radios still work!!!And very well!!!
Good job. The first thing I noticed early in your vid was the most obvious clue was the VERY incorrect overhand knot in the line cord, showing that it was installed by a rank beginner at radio repair. That knot should have been the correct self-tightening, strain-relieving UL knot, sometimes called the "electricians-knot". Thanks for sharing, & keep-em coming. .......Dick
On Mexico, the government try to avoid the AM broadcasting. They offering a change to FM band broadcasting for all dealers with "free charge". But the AM broadcasters refused the offering, the AM is more profitable than the FM. End of this history.
Nice collection of radios, that Hitachi had an awesome sound, nice and bassy! The plastic GE sounded great too...until you put the face back on, then it was a little high! I like GE radios (amongst others) I do find they are cheap price wise however they just work well! FarmRadio is a great YT channel, enjoy his video's!
Wow, I saw KOMA on that thing when you were doing the tune through on the old Bakelite! There were more babies made listening to KOMA then any other station in the middle of America. Back in the 60;s they blasted rock and roll throughout the middle of the USA from Oklahoma City, the KOMA Good Guys kept us rocking all night long! KOA out of Denver was responsible for keeping cops across America awake with their night time talk jocks as well.
Hey shango066, Liked the video some of those RCA radios are pretty cool especially like the comment about the batteries "the steampunk batteries I'll list on eBay for $5,000 a piece" that was funny! Thanks again, Roy
Hy! Just wanted to mention that there is a shortwave station in Europe called The Mighty KBC 6095, or 6040khz for USA, which plays Emperor Rosko and Ron O Quinn, but next week itll have the last transmission. Then they will only be on web ...
DANGER! All American 5 Tube Radios with no transformer can kill you! If the line capacitor has opened, the line voltage will be present on the chassis! If you are going to work on this radio, be sure to use an isolation transformer in the line. You can try to put a polarized plug on the radio to keep line voltage off the chassis, but check with a voltmeter to make sure that you have the hot and neutral wires connected properly. Any doubt, install an isolation transformer permanently on the chassis and pass the line voltage through it before it reaches the radio.
@@FlatBroke612 I haven't been to a party in years. Nobody invites a "doomsayer" Emergency Operations officer who wishes to help make people safer during emergencies. I am electronics and communications expert Navy Trained and formerly employed - retired after 23 years. Bet all you want is to be at "ground zero" during an attack? It is the easy way out.
I use contact cement on the speaker..put it all over the front of the speaker...let it dry...it makes it sound better and fix the tear...Made by DAP 47264...nice video...
do you put the index card on the radios due to people stealing your videos? or does it somehow help with music copyright? just curious. love all of your vids! keep em coming
Thanks for sharing this with us, Shango! The radio industry is declining, just like the newspapers. There's not much money to be made in broadcasting today. I think it's interesting with the bakelite Wards Airline that it has Broadcast *and* shortwave band, and has only five (5) tubes! It appears to be a pre-CONELRAD unit. I believe that the aircraft band uses Amplitude Modulation (AM) to superimpose audio signals onto the carrier. As we know, the FM band is also VHF spectrum, and just below the aircraft band, but commercial FM radio stations use analog Frequency Modulation (FM) to superimpose information onto their carrier waves.
+Chet Pomeroy Good observation. But I think you will find that aircraft services do not use FM is because of the "Capture Effect" characteristic of FM. Any strong FM signal on any nearby frequency tends to block out a weaker signal. Not necessarily something you want in a service that may have emergency traffic. Good observation, though, thanks. .................Dick
6:00 Shango066 predicts the future. As of August, 2023, the Shortwave bands are being repurposed. "The FCC is taking public comment on a proposal to revise the rules governing the frequencies above 2 MHz and below 25 MHz. The Shortwave Modernization Coalition thinks the 2-25 MHz band is underused and wants to use it for the long-distance transmission of time-sensitive data from fixed stations. The users would be companies working with certain kinds of financial transactions; the proposal would prohibit voice transmission and mobile operations. The firms in the coalition are “market makers and liquidity providers” for exchange-traded financial instruments."
I read that Rush L. some flagship stations have dropped his show and advertisers are bailing out. Maybe it's people losing interest in him or is just because young people are no longer listening to radio?
Those are some awesome radios. I'm surprised that both GE's and the RCA worked so well given the amount of germanium transistors between them. I'm guessing the RCA was one of the first transistor radios?
I wonder how they powered the heater on that eye tube. All the other tubes in there are 150 milliamperes heaters but the 6e5 is 300 mils. About the only option was a big hot power resistor. Strange.
"...unlock shareholder value.." Well, sure. It 'unlocked' some value maybe initially. But where are the shareholders now? Bankruptcy takes care of marking their shares to $0. These are mostly corporate things, giving the Execs, the Board some nice bonuses. Maybe trade their shares for another, more vibrant company. And the consultants and the Investment Bankers, the Goldman Sach's of the world - they wet their beak. Everyone else suffers. Paul Samuelson, very nice comments. His book is in *every* college Economics course (usually you have to buy the new edition of course, 2 extra pages and the chapters are moved around, so the old editions don't agree with this year's syllabus reading assignments). Zenith. That's rough. As I watched it, I though - wow, many of those folks with kids - they might be 70+ now. That was 42 years ago.
Man that old Airline takes me back. When we moved from the home place to a nearby farm that had electric power we were amazed at all the things we could have that had been out of reach at the home place where lighting was provided by kerosene lamps, running water was we kids running with buckets to the windmill to get the water and bringing it into the house. So dad went to an auction one day and came home with an old counsel radio that was like the big brother to that set, with the cylinder tuner and such, it was my first experience with 110 volt radios and taught me that you never reach behind the set and touch things that you don't know about. I swear that thing threw me across the living room with the power it had, but it was a neat radio none-the-less and we treasured it till one day when dad came home from town with a television set! WOW we had seen these things at our relatives homes and dreamed of one day having one in our living room, and now we had one! It was a used black and white set that mom and dad used for the next 12 years or more. I would love to have that old radio set back, but I don't know where we left it. Strange, back then the folks just left the stuff we didn't have room for in the place we were moving from. Our first move into town was a small 2 room sort of apartment in the back of a small house. The landlord was the same guy we had rented the farm from, so all our shit stayed on the farm till some young lads decided to hit the farm with their 12 gauge shotguns and blew the hell out of all our stuff stored there. While they were eventually caught, it seems they were all related to us so dad wouldn't press charges as his brothers would have been angry about it. They swore they would pay us for the damage, but no payments were ever made. You can indeed pick your friends, but you are stuck with your relatives.
Medium Wave has nearly all gone here in the UK, all the BBC channels have disappeared DAB radio has took over, as for these tube radios, 8 out of 10 problems are caused by heat, by fitting a simple 12v 80mm quiet pc extraction fan at the top (heat rises) would stop all heat related issues, in fact im very surprised fans were never fitted at the factory.
Ok I'd love to send you a cool old radio that I'd love for you to recap and if you wanted you could do a video on it. If there is a chance of that let me know and we will work out the details, thanks and keep up the great radio videos you put on here, it's much appreciated.
Shango, Where did you find your Variable power supply? At a Ham fest?? Does LA have a lot of em goin on? Also offtopic sorry but whats rent goin for a one bedroom in a good area of town? thanks point
In 1978 things weren't as bad as they are today. After Zenith closed there were still goods being produced. If the internet and cell phones went down what would people do without radio? In a catastrophic event the internet would be the first to go. And cell phones. Radio would be the lifeline. In a nuclear war tube radios would still work.
I am glad your able to put your copyright signage on your video. I wonder how many idiots try to use your vids for there own channel? I probably would not be surprised ?! point
Shango I'm messing around with a really nice Sherwood receiver. It has so much cool stuff, multiplex and all kinds if stuff, it has the old style output transistors I think 10, toshiba. The guy said it caught his speakers on fire. If I were to just change the output transistors do you think that would fix it? Or are the bias resistors all fried? If it didn't weigh so much I would send it. You should see the MPX tuner section. Has a bunch of pots you can change through the case labelled??? I'll take some pics. Great video. Steven.
+Steven King Usually if the outputs short a bunch of components that drive them fry too. If you dont get every single bad part replaced the instant you power it up everything will fry again. I am reluctant to touch those designs, too risky. Shelf it for a later day...
+shango066 if you have a chance I do have a question... Why does broadcast have hardly any high end audio response, and fm sound so crystal? If u have time... Thanks again. Steven.
You mean AM vs FM? AM is only 20khz bandwidth and FM is 200khz plus FM modulation rejects noise. Its a bit more complex that that but basically the FM channels are fat compared to AM.
I can understand why broadcast radio is on the decline. When we first came to New Zealand (from UK) the only way to listen to the BBC was on short wave. It was dreadful, most of the time impossible to hear. Now I have internet radio on a portable and on my HiFi amplifier and I can now hear any station on this planet in good quality, some stations in very good quality, no fading, no crackle. A perfect medium. I no longer even own ANY radio's. Regarding music on demand, I can understand that also. Why listen to mind blowing adverts every 4 minuets , mindless, pointless chatter and music that's kind of OK when you can pay for exactly the music of your choice without all the clutter!! It's not just for the young, I'm 66 and love the way things are going.
+Michael Beeny Also to mention the music selection . Here in the states Its Rap/hip hop. Mexican music, top 40 crapola or the oldies station that plays 50 songs over and over again. AM is full of political talk shows or more Spanish chatter. Not to mention that darn Cuba dose not know how to turn down the wattage of the transmitters at night.
So in the USA it seems to be opposite.AM and LW is dead in Germany.SW still has a few interesting Stations, but most of them are only once in a Week for a few Hours on Air. But I've also spotted international Stations with German Program.
That RCA is made with IMPAC plastic. While the name did not survive the test of time, the actual plastic has. IMPAC was just an RCA brand name for ABS plastic, nothing more.
+John McFerren They used the IMPAC brand name on their tube portables starting in the mid 50's. I think they were in competition to Emerson's Nevabreak brand of plastic ABS radios.
I heard a story about BMW wanting to remove the AM band from their car radios, but not sure if its true. I wish you would explain a little more in detail about the steps you take to repair a radio. In another video you replaced a dome shaped transistor, but didn't explain how you chose the right transistor to replace it. Anyway, enjoy your videos....
Wait there's a market for old, dead Eveready batteries?????????? I just took a bunch out of some older VTVM's I picked up on CraigsList! I've got to check this out!
Point Dexter Well I did go on EBay and they are for sale but no one seems to buy them either based on what I saw....I may post them and see what happens. They were headed for Hazardous Waste anyway.
Commerical radio stands ready with parts after a EMP EVENT. TO BE BACK ON FAST. NOT LIKE THE PROJECTED 18 MONTHS. ::: WEREN'T Some Power CORDS Resistive TO CUT DOWN ON AC AND HOT Chassis WERE USEING POLARIZED PLUGS.?
Man that really stinks about CBS. We must be getting old or something? Very cool radios! Those civil defense marked sets are cool. Good luck on your 5K per battery on Ebay.
tôi có thể mua loại như này thì bên nước bạn có thể gửi về việt nam cho chúng tôi không vậy. cái này có còn không và giá tien$$$ là bao nhiêu
Shango066, You should watch Frontline: Coming From Japan [The Fall Of The US Television Industry] (1992) if you have not already. It is on youtube. Thanks for all your videos!
Radio was never free, it was paid for by advertising. Sadly too many stations put marketing too far ahead of customers, leading to 'Narrowcasting" programming to time blocks for heaviest ad content. This is what drove customers and later advertisers away, now radio is dying. Of course the same media outlet business who had the waves given to them by crooked politicians are now upset that profits are falling off and that's all they care about. Maybe the big companies will begin selling analog off to smaller companies who might just begin caring more about content in order to get listeners back, this didn't work for TV broadcast as it's cost is too high, but radio not so much. Sadly I'm sure much of the bands will be religious and hispanic, but that's who still listened in any number..
