I have that same radio today, I just pulled it out of my closet. last time it was on was 1982. I think i Bought it in 81. The knobs are scratchy, but after cycling then several times, they seemed to clean themselves and makes better contact. I used to have it attatched to a outdoor antenna rigged for SW, etc, and was able to pick up allot of activity especially at night. I need to rig another outdoor antenna, since I have moved since then.
great radio ! my first shortwave radio . it had a great fine tuning knob in the middle . my neighbor had a huge tree and i had huge tree we strung up a copper wire for the antenna . i spent many hours at night listening to the world . this is the radio that got me interested in shortwave .
It's strange that all of the AM stations in your area are in the top half of the band. And that's the first time I've heard WWV (the shortwave time station) received during the day. Here in NJ I can only get them at night.
I had one in the eighties, and it was the best radio I ever owned. About 3 years ago I bought another one on E-Bay, and it was every bit as good as I remember and better than anything made today. I also have a similar one called the Patrolman SW-60, which has AM, FM, SW (6-18) VHF Low, VHF high and UHF, that I got at a thrift store. As far as SW goes, I like it better than my Grundigs. AM has great selectivity, and I love it for DXing. It also has great FM Selectivity, easily as good as a car radio for pulling in distant signals. You will pay a good price for this radio on EBay. Mine cost me over $60.00.. And worth every penny. My Patrolman that I got at the thrift store was $8.00, and all I had to do was replace a broken Antenna.
Some De-Oxit should take care of the scratchy knobs and band-switch. I just gave my Panasonic RF-2600 knobs and switches a good dousing and now they are silky-smooth, no scratchiness.
I have one and still use it. I got mine about the same time you did... if it still works use it, if it's broke fix it, if it can't be fixed toss it away. Thanks for the interesting video :)
Thanks for publishing this. A long time ago, I also had one of these radios and had it open many times. Is there any chance you can make a schematic of the receiver available? Now, many years later, I'm wondering about the specifics of the receiver design (like what the intermediate frequency was, what kind of IF filter was used, single or double conversion, front end filter, etc).
The UHF models were double conversion, 48MHz and then 10.7. They had 3 tuners to cover all those bands, re-treading a dial string is the toughest I've ever known.
