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Just wanted to know if anyone knows where we can find 36 am pocket size transistor radios at a good price.
Just wanted to know if anyone knows where we can find 36 am pocket size transistor radios at a good price.
We would like to give 1 radio to each classroom in our local school for their new 100mw station that we sponsor.
A search on google is fruitless. I see plenty of fm portable radios and some am/fm transistor radios as we will more than likely end up going to them although we really wanted a am only radio.
We, By the way are the new board of our community radio station WBTN AM 1370 in Bennington, Vermont. We are a not for Profit commercial station and have a program ready to go for all of our local schools.
They can produce their shows in our studios and we provide 1 100mw transmiter to each school.
Thank you for the many great resources that you provide in this forum and on this site.
Brian
Total posts : 45366A cheap pocket radio is likely to offer poor reception of a low powered AM station. Any kind of pocket radio with a speaker is becoming more and more difficult to find; especially good ones. You might see if Radio Shack has any AM only sets but I think they’ve all vanished. They used to sell the “flavoradios” a long time ago.
Also, is a small battery powered radio really going to be adequate in a classroom? Why not get something larger with a decent speaker so the class could hear it? There are some nice Sony table radios with reasonably good audio quality that you could consider.
Before spending money on a quantity of these sets, I suggest trying one in the places where you expect it to work and also seeing whether the audio quality and volume will provide the service you want. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, but covering the inside of a school classroom with a 100 mW free standing transmitter seems like a very difficult thing to do. You might consider a carrier current system for use inside the building, possibly supplemented with the free-standing 100 mW transmitter if you want outdoor coverage.
Just some thoughts… good luck! Sounds like a fun project!
WEAK-AM
Classical Music and More!
Total posts : 45366I use the SONY ICF-S10MK2 pocket AM/FM radio. It costs around $10.00, runs for weeks on 2 AA batteries, has remarkable sensitivity and selectivity and a thumb-wheel analog tuner. You can literally work the band at night with one of these.
This radio even uses the old “Transistor Radio” form factor. With all that space to work with I guess they packed in some good guts. The rather large (for a pocket radio) speaker sounds good, too.
If you wrote Sony and told them you were affiliated with education they might send 36 to a near by Sony retailer and give you a discounted price.
Experimental broadcasting for a better tomorrow!
Total posts : 45366Maybe it is just the particular unit I got, but I didn’t like the ICF-S10MK2. It had a lot of “grunge” noise in the background, almost as though something was oscillating. Tuning was very fast also.
Sony made a number of different radios in this series; all with fairly similar appearance but vastly different performance and quality. Some were made in China and some were made in other parts of Asia.
The one I have that I really like is the ICF-S14 (in black). It was made in China. This particular model had very good sensitivity and selectivity. I have logged thousands of stations with it, listening in bed mostly. (Of course, that was before the IBOC debacle)! I think this particular set was discontinued, but if you find one it could be a good catch.
WEAK-AM
Classical Music and More!
Total posts : 45366You guys are GREAT! Thanks, I think the transistor idea is out the door.
We wanted to let the students handle the radio and see it, And the input would only be announcements and such.
THANKS AGAIN!
Brian
Total posts : 45366Greetings,
I have been lurking here , gathering information and just wanted to tell the folks at this fourm THANK YOU!
We are underway with WNBGS 1580 AM in North Bennington, VT. We have 8 6th grade students creating a radio station. They use our studios (WBTNAM.ORG) for recording and have been on the air at our 1000 watt non-profit community radio station.
The equipment was a ramsey AM 30 transmitter, Mixing board and a well crafted antenna created by our local ham radio club, A special thanks to Randy Gates of Pownal for all the time he took winding the coils and his craftsmenship of the antena and transmitter.
We are scheduled to go live on Dec 11th with a 1/2 hour program.
This is a pilot project and with much success from the community, Parents and the board of directors at WBTN AM we will be able to duplicate this in ALL of our local elementary schools in our area next year.
I have been keeping good records of our progress so we don’t have to re-invent the wheel when we add more schools next year. It has been very rewarding to see the students progress and create liners, spots, and understand the timing invloved in a 1/2 hour show.
We would like to get more range as right now we have apr 300 feet from the highest poiint at the school, It reaches the streets on both sides of the school which is good but another 300 feet would give us air time in many local businesses.
I will keep you updated and we hope to have the show streaming on WBTN AM 1370 by 2009.
Thanks so much!
Brian Dempsey
Station Coordinator WBTN AM 1370
Project Coordinator WNBGS 1580 AM
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