The first time I noticed good bass response was
inside my dad's 1953 oldsmobile. We were listening
to the car radio and I don't remember the song at
all. I just remember appreciating good bass response
for the very first time. I must have been about 8.
I told my dad what I heard, and he remarked that
the low frequency sound from this car radio and
speaker was very good. We
were sitting in a parking lot waiting for someone,
I remember. That's why there was time to sit and
really listen to the music on the radio with the
engine off. I did hear the vibrator power supply
buzzing. But once the volume was up I didn't
really notice it. Good early days in my life.
There so many remarks that I have but I
have to go.
Bruce
Many of us remember mysteries on the radio, made even more enjoyable by the fact that radio was and is a mystery.
Even when we understood that the voices were actors and the sound effects didn't come from real guns or horses, we still pictured a well lit studio somewhere filled with famous people.
But the heart of radio's mystery is up on a remote mountain, wind swept top of a sky-scraper or tall blinking tower standing in the night.
The real "alchemy" of radio is the transmitter/antenna/tower combination.
How many towers have been multi-purpose?
Of course many towers handle radio antennas exclusively and little else, but the Empire State Bulding is loaded with people, offices, elevators, shops, topped off by most of New York City's radio and TV transmitters.
The Eifel Tower in Paris has a fancy restaurant and high level tourist decks and is also an antenna tower.
Does the Space Needle in Seattle house antennas?
Seemingly the 630' Gateway Arch in St. Louis is not a transmitter site, but I've always imagined that the stainless steel structure IS a secret antenna sending very secret signals.
It would be hard to locate a restaurant or even a lawn chair on top of a 3-meter Part 15 tower, but imagine it.
Any other examples of multi-purpose towers?
This glorious piece of radio technology was the pinnacle of balls to the wall, everything goes engineering in 1937. It has a total of 30 tubes, two fully chrome platted chassis, a 15" woofer and two 5" tweeters. The audio amplifier is 40 watts.
We have high-end audio now, the Philharmonic was high-end radio in it's time. Superheterodyne radios didn't really begin to come into wide spread production until the late 30s. The Philharmonic came out only 7 years later and still stands as one of the best home AM radios ever produce.
Look at it here for an overview: http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/scott_radi_philhamronic.html
They originally sold for $275 in 1937. Today, a fully restored Philharmonic in pristine condition is practically priceless. It gets $20k to $30k and sometimes more.
They were sold without cabinets. Wealthy purchasers would have a custom fine-furniture cabinet built. Often the buyers would just get a speaker cabinet built and place the radio chassis on top, out in the open, as a showpiece.
These days it's all about who gets the house and the kids.
I'll guess that back in those days it was about who took the E,H.Scott Philharmonic.
In 1960 I bought a Motorola Model X15-N portable radio so I could listen to my favorite Rock and Roll station and also my Part 15 station. With this radio I performed many a range test as well as using it to DX at night.
This radio was very expensive costing around fifty 1960 dollars but it was a quality build. At 75 cents per hour at my job it took a while to save for it but it was worth it. This radio has very good sensitivity and razor sharp selectivity and could pull in many stations at night.
Alas, it stopped working years ago and was placed in storage for repair when I got around to it. Today I got around to it and it is fixed. I found a schematic and parts layout on the web and used this as a guide to troubleshoot. There were two loose solder connections, two broken wires, and four bad electrolytic capacitors. After resoldering and recapping the radio came to life. I aligned the IF which had drifted quite a bit and adjusted it to cover the X band. It was a thrill to hear it again and once again I am impressed with the sensitivity and selectivity. There are probably some portable range tests in store for my AM station since this radio runs rings around my el cheapo portable.
Neil
Ultra-Shortwave?
Ultra-Shortwave?
not the "real" X band, just up to 1700 kHz.
Neil
I found a picture of an X-15N
on the net. It's a nice looking
portable. I read it was part of
the X-15 series. You must have
been really really happy back then.
Almost nobody had anything like that
in 1960. (Although there were a lot
of pocket radios
around just a few years later.)
It's great you got it going again.
Wow.
Bruce
My father graduated from college and
bought my grandmother a "HIFI."
When I was little, I remember everybody
saying, " It has good tone." It was an AM
radio/record player in a big cabinet. I can't
remember if if sat on it's own legs or if it
was on a big table, but it was large.
Every once in a while, my dad would replace
tubes in it for my grandmother.
Here's my question - I think I remember my
dad saying he bought the thing for $750.
That would be in 1952 dollars. That price
seems a little high to me. Or maybe very
high. (????)
Bruce
Bruce, I don't know if a real "Hi Fi" set was available in 1952. Going only by memory, stereo came on the market later...maybe around 1958.
Early Hi-Fi consoles usually had a record turntable, AM radio and later stereo phono and FM (around 1960). The cabinets were usually real furniture made of high quality wood and finished well. This would boost the cost.
$750 in 1952 seems a bit high but not unrealistic. The cost of my first component set collected from 1962 to 1964 was:
Scott LK-48 amplifier kit $150
2 KLH Bookshelf speakers $250
AR turntable $110
EICO mono FM tuner $40
So, I had invested about $550 in my set and it did not come in a cabinet.
Regarding the Motorola radio, yes, I was thrilled to have it. I had previously built a 2 transistor KnightKit AM portable and it was miserable. I recall shopping at a large department store (Rike's) in Dayton, Oh where I found this. It was the smallest radio they had and it sounded better than the others. Price with optional leather case and earphone was $50. I had a job at a bike shop where I worked 12 hours scheduled when the shop was open and off hours at the shop doing bike repairs, sweeping, washing windows, painting oil tanks, stocking, inventory, and other odd jobs for extra pay. I was able to save $50 in about three weeks.
This was a great job for me since I developed mechanical skills, customer service skills, and picked up quite a lot about the business aspect of it. The owner was very good to me and I worked there from age 13 to age 17 and earned enough to buy equipment, parts, supplies, dating, and other high school kid expenses. Didn't have a car so saving was not that hard. When I graduated, I had enough put away to pay my first year's tuition at college. I wish all kids today had this opportunity.
Neil
As I recall it, the introduction of High Fidelity, called "Hi Fi," happened just about the time LP (long-playing) records were introduced.
LPs had the advantage of containing whole symphonies, which I think was the basis for choosing a speed that contained entire classic works, which tended to be about 40-minutes.
But the truth is, great monaural sound quality was already happening during the 78-rpm era, because radio broadcasting had lead to the development of exceptional sound quality with the ribbon and condenser mics...
In fact at 78-rpm quality was raised by means of the insreased record speed.
But good engineers kept adding bits of quality until ultra-fidelity became possible at the slow speed of 33 1/3-rpm.
About 1959 stereophonic LP records were introduced, and around the same time stereo FM happened.
Two ears? Two channels? It was the future.
The golden age of hi-fi and hi-fi stereo has passed. Back in the day, we judged hi-fi by how close it sounded to live performances. The typical "hi-fi stereo system" has disappeared and has been supplanted by the "home theater system". We no longer judge the sound by its resemblance to a live performance, but instead by its magnitude of artificially high, floor shaking sub-woofer bass, exaggerated highs that make a person's breath louder than their vocal cords, and multichannel surround sound.
Even the stratospheric realm of "high-end audio" is suffering a market slump because the ultra-wealthy can no longer impress their friends and acquaintances with fidelity alone.
Hi-fi seems to be headed toward history, and we thought old AM radios were history!
These are wonderful stories. There are
so many things I want to say, and I
eventually will.
I'll be back.
Bruce
Bruce, I saw your posting on the Artisan thread, and I do have vintage radios to hear stuff on, let's start with the biggest one:
Zenith Transoceanic Model No. 7000Y
This, I think, is the second transistorized model of the Transoceanic ever released. The AM dial does not include the AM extended band, but the shortwave section starts at the top of the AM band, so that takes care of that.
For having many SW bands, it cannot pick up 13.560 MHz, too bad.
Stand by for other old radios, some of which need help.
I have a friend in town - I believe
he has the same Transoceanic that
you have. What a nice radio. Actually,
much better than "just nice."
As of today, Oct. 6, 2014, my life here
is sort of like - - well - there's more "goofyness"
today than there was yesterday.
I want to talk a lot more about these old radios,
and I love the stories you guys have had.
I will have more stories about old radios, too.
I'm sitting in the office on break, typing this.
My phone is on the desk, softly playing a
"Blare On Air Lite." More to say about the
usefulness of your "BOAL' shows on another
thread.
Bruce
P.S. I wish I could have gotten that "Viscount"
1960s "transistor" radio working. As mentioned
in the other thread about listening to Artisan Radio -
I had piped the Artisan Radio audio through my AMT-3000.
It was then coming out of a 1960s pocket radio. The front
was labeled - 14 transistor HIFI Deluxe. I had mentioned
that the 14 transistor claim was almost certainly bogus.
(And it sure wasn't HIFI!)
This radio was/is from my collection. I tried to get another
1960s pocket radio working. It was the one with the "Viscount"
brand name. It didn't work. I think a wire was pulled off the
circuit board. So Artisan went through the first mentioned
1960s "pocket" radio until about 2:30 AM. At that point,
I turned off everything and went to sleep.