I have here a Elgin-10
ten transistors
Model R-3100
AM only

Sorry about the aweful picture quality, my digital camera is almost 10 years old.

Hi Charlie:

Thanks for the link and extra info on the OPTALIX. I'll see if my wife can remember what the red switch does. Her French is fluent, but she might not remember what it was for.

Optalix Red Switch Purpose
 

Charlie: I got my wife to examine the Optalix and she pointed out that I thought the switch moved between "C" (at top of slider) and "R" (at bottom of slide); but she corrected me -- it is really "C" and "A".

The "A" I pointed out earlier from the inside images, is not an earphone jack -- it is a power jack. I found an earphone jack just under the strap's mounting pin.

So, she thinks "A" on the switch stands for Auxiliary, as in external power source, and the "C" on the switch is for running it off its batteries. The fact it is a red switch makes it likely it is power related, too, I think.

She was 13 when she got it and never hooked it up to "A" -- "I always walked around with it up to my ear tuned to Radio Luxembourg."

And that is E-X-A-C-T-L-Y what I thought it was when I saw it at a yard sale a couple summers back. Figured it was a Playmates or similar version as shown below. From 10 feet away, that is how it looked to me. I guess Trekkie minds think alike!

Koyo KTR-1022
 

This little radio was the very first purchase my Dad ever made using money he had earned doing an egg delivery route in about 1965 or so. Originally, it was an AM-FM unit, and it ran on 6V (4 AAs in a plastic battery holder), however my Dad shelved it sometime in the early 80s, and it sat in his closet, rotting, until about 1996, when it caught my eye.

I don't remember what I said or what happened, but soon thereafter he was excitedly telling me the story of his old radio and leading me out to the workbench all while I prayed he had removed the batteries. He hadn't. I'm sure any experienced audiophile can imagine what 15 year old Duracells looked like. My dad used a knife to free the batteries, and the electrodes in the battery holder were so rotted, they came right out with them! However, I couldn't help but notice the contacts for the battery holder are identical to a 9V socket. So I hooked one up...and it worked! But AM only. The radio is on when you switch it to FM, but you can't get any reception. Once or twice, I've put headphones on and turned the volume all the way up and I've BARELY heard the strongest local signals. Either the antenna's lost its ground or a transistor is blown. After all the board did spend a decade in battery acid.

The radio has served me well, and it used to compliment my old beat up Walkman with broken AM tuning circutry rather well. I used it to go to sleep when I was in Europe and could actually pull in an AM station. (Heh, the first broadcast I ever heard in Europe was on this radio, about a "common event" where a street gang had got hold of some nuculear waste and was trying to sell it on the black market. Made me wonder about what I was getting into! EDIT: Going to Europe, that is.)

I fired the radio for the first time in several years tonight, and I'm pleased to say it still works! It seems tired though, maybe it's the introduction of 9V into a 6V party, or maybe it's just age, or maybe it's that about half of the contacts are swimming in corrosion; I had to turn the volume almost to max to hear it pick up a strong local station weakly. Yeah, I could fix it up, but I really don't have the time, and I'd rather leave well enough alone, because it has a lot more sententimental value than usefulness.

Plus, I never have heard of anyone else with a Koyo. :)

"ME" bike light-radio
 

Here's another neat radio--a bike light!

No idea when it was made (I figure late 60s?), but it's a bike light, "siren", horn, and AM radio. My grandpa found it on an abandoned bike in one of his rental homes.

The bike was junk but this little guy worked great. I snapped it onto the handlebar of my bike, and used it for entertainment/light, and even for the horn if a person was on the sidewalk. If it rained, I kept a ziplock bag and I'd put it over it with a rubber band to keep it dry. If I had to lock the bike outside (which I avoided) I'd unsnap this light and take it with me.

Fired it up for the first time in a couple years, amazingly the batteries I left in it (oops) still had good juice. The radio still works--somewhat, the volume control is iffy and it falls in and out of place, causing sound to cut in and out. I stopped using it because I got a driver's license and stopped riding my bike, and because the light developed a short through the speaker and cuts in and out after the bulb warms up. I don't remember which happened first. I might try to put it to some type of use this hurricane season.

New Toys... Hitachi
 

Recently, AK member OMI sent me a little box of goodies. In the box was four radios... three pocket and and little travel radio.

The first one is a Hitachi WH-761 7-transistor AM/SW 9V radio. A book I have lists the radio as being from 1962. I put a battery in, but only got static.

Juliette
 

Next is a Juliette AK-6. It's AM and 9 volts. Still has the original box, instructions, earphone, and plastic carrying case. Fresh battery and plays fine!

Electra
 

This one is an Electra 8-Transistor Deluxe. There's no obvious model number. Still has the box, instructions, earphone and earphone case, and leather radio case. It even had the moisture-absorbing packet in the box... not paper, but a fabric packet that was sewn and stapled together! There is an old-style price tag sticker with 8 dollars on it. Put a new 9V in it, and it played just fine.

The little diamond shape at the top right is a window with a magnifying lens to view the station number on the thumbwheel.

Hi-Bunsonic
 

The last one isn't quite as vintage... this is likely from the 80's. But, it's small and kinda cute. It's branded Hi-Bunsonic, has AM/FM, and a LCD digital clock with alarm feature. There's a little antenna on the back for the FM. Runs on two AA batteries. It appears one battery is for the radio and the other is for the clock. I'd guess this to be a small travel clock radio. I'm willing to be it might have been some kind of "free gift" that someone got from ordering something on TV. Fresh batteries, and it plays fine.

A big thanks to OMI for these babies! :yes:

These little radios were very popular during the '60s and '70s. Radio Shack carried one for years that had a radio, light (I think) and an electronic horn activated by a little push button on the front panel. They may still carry an updated version today.

It's interesting to me that your radio's headlight somehow short-circuited through the radio speaker. I can think of only a couple of ways this can happen (perhaps others here can shed more light [pardon the pun] on it)--one of the lead wires from the lamp socket to the battery could be shorting against the metal frame of the speaker, or the loudspeaker itself could have some oddball short through the voice coil, causing the speaker to short to the frame. Since the sound intermittently cuts in and out when the bulb gets hot, it could even be some odd short in the lamp circuit itself that intermittently shorts out the speaker by way of shorting out the voice coil.

I wouldn't use the radio too long in this condition, as the short will cause the entire unit to draw much more current than normal; a new battery may not last more than an hour or so, if that long. I once had a multiband portable radio that drew so much current it kept blowing the fuse in an external power supply I was using to test it; I never used it with batteries, and it's probably just as well, as the thing probably had a shorted or leaky transistor creating a huge power-hogging short. The set sounded good at first, but the tone worsened as the radio drew more and more current from the supply until the fuse blew.

I would try a shot of Deoxit or standard contact cleaner in the volume control pot as a first step towards curing your radio's intermittent volume problem. A radio which has been sitting, unused, on an abandoned bike for who knows how long may be full of dust and dirt, both on the outside of the casing, inside the box, and on the PC board containing the radio (I would be amazed if I found a radio like this, even of 1960s vintage, with a metal chassis; these things were made to sell cheaply, so the radio is almost certainly all on a PCB). The volume pot may be and probably is extremely dirty, which would cause scratchy and/or intermittent audio.

Concerning my bike light radio, the volume pot is bad and always has been, so sometimes I have to tap it to make the sound work.

As for what happens with the light, after running for 30-45 seconds, the light begins to flicker on and off, and when I've held the speaker up to my ear I can hear very brief clicks, or pops as the light turns on and off. That's where I got the speaker part from.

I couldn't find anything obvious when I took it apart.

That was also a VERY expensive toy in its day. I just used an on-line inflation calculator - $75 in 1958 = $491 in 2005 dollars. But obviously very high build quality, since it still works 48 years later

Charlie, you sound like me. I once bought am radios on ebay.
Doesn't anyone here remember the Panasonic Ball radio? Or the toot a loop?
AM radio rocks! how else are you going to listen to sports radio like ESPN?
aloha,
jeff

A few tiny Sonys
 

If I get this right, you should see a picture of a few of my faves. 3 Sony ICRs, L to R: - an ICR-120, an ICR-200 and an ICR-100.
In the foreground is a rechargeable battery as used in the 2 small ones (the ICR-200 also uses rechargeable batteries, a little bigger). Both the ICR-120 and ICR-200 were supplied with a "walwart" style charger but the ICR-100 has an ingenious case which the radio fits into. When the case is closed, two pins fold out for insertion into a US type wall socket. An example of the charger is in front of the radios.
The volume of these radios is remarkable and for an idea of size, the little medallion on the end of the chain is about the size of a nickel!
Cheers! Haggis.

Hello,
Vic here, (vjf2549@optonline.net)
I just recently found this site and am beginning to try it out.
I collect transistor radios They can be viewed at geocities.com/vicsradios .
I am currently in need of a hopefully FREE copy of a Zenith Royal 85 schematic. If anyone can help, please e-mail me a copy????Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, and keep up the good work.

I have my mothers old RAC Victor,can't make out the model as the battery corroded at one point in time and I cant read the label inside the rear cover.It still has the serial # and says it was made in Indianapolis Indiana. It also calls for a replacement battery thats a RCA VS 149 4 Volt.. :scratch2:

GLAD THEY FOUND A GOOD HOME:)
:banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

Just found, cleaned up, and LOVE this little jewel. This is 60s high tech. It's a Panasonic 10 transistor RadarMatic. Takes 4 AA batteries. You wind up a spring loaded mechanism with a pop-up key on the back. You then push the lever on the top and let go and the radio slowly "scans" the dial for the next station and automatically stops on the next station. When it stops it is always very clear. Pretty amazing. A single wind lasts forever! Everyone who picks it up just can't stop scanning the dial. Lol! The only drawback is that it is AM only. FM wasn't much back then.

Zenith Royal 16

That looks just like my first radio, except mine was black. Mine was "AITC" brand, and it cost US$2.69 at a local discount store in our neighborhood. I got it for my 11th birthday in 1971.

2 transistor boy's radio & Arvin USA made transistor
 

I don't have many transistor radios; but, these two are my favorite pocket radios. The white one is a two transistor boy's radio that has it's own stand to sit it up & is made in Japan. The red one is a USA made Arvin in a genuine leather case. I think both of these date from the early '60's. I'm sure USA made pocket radios are rare, especially by the '60's.

More pocket radios
 

Here's a few more plain looking radios that date from around '65 to about '70. The first picture is a Sears Silvertone 7209. This is a hefty radio with a chrome metal front. This is a model 7209 and uses a round 9V battery.

The second picture is of four pretty plain models.

From L to R:
1. Realtone 10 transistor AM made in Japan.
2. AITC 8 transistor AM. Printed label says assembled in Singapore. The back has printed in tiny letters at the bottom "British crown colony of Hong Kong."
3. Philco-Ford AM made in Taiwan.
4. RCA AM/FM made in Japan. Model RHM19E. The antenna is broken and I think the band switch is erratic. This one has a stand on the bottom.

Pocket radios seem to be getting harder to find. The last one I saw was in a local flea market. It was one of those later model silver Radio Shack weather radios. They wanted $29.99 for it. I laughed and moved on.

my avatar is a radio
 

My avatar is actually an AM radio! I am into novelty radios and have over 1500 sets so far! I have over 520 transistor radios too, these things are just great!

I had a "Coronet" two-transistor "boy's radio" in the late '60s; got it from one of my cousins when his family was getting ready to move. The radio didn't work very well where I lived at the time; only picked up one station, a local station about three miles east of me. These two-transistor radios work great if you are in a very strong signal area, within a few miles of powerful stations, but if you are in the far suburbs of a city or even further away from the transmitters, these sets won't work worth a darn. I remember reading right here in this forum that these 2-transistor radios were little more than glorified crystal sets, with a very small amplifier to drive a speaker.

They performed poorly because they were only a crystal set with a two-transistor audio amp. Amazingly enough, they'd suck the life right out of a 9 volt battery in no time.

Candle 10-Transistor
 

:lmao:

Here's my latest catch from eBay...a Candle 10-Transistor. In very good cosmetic shape...not as loud as it was in its prime, but for an early 1960s radio it does fine. Quite sensitive, at night I can do some DXing with it. I don't know how many transistors are actually used in the circuit...the radio uses an 006P 9V batt. :thmbsp:

Chuck

Boy's Radios
 

:nono:


Boy's radios actually used a reflex circuit. Once I redid the antenna coil on an Angel 2-transistor (that was dumb, I'd sure like to have that radio today)...I replaced the smaller coil with one using more turns. The radio became much more sensitive and selective (and also drained the 9V battery quicker). Now I have several boy's radios from eBay...one of them oscillates at the high end of the band when I attach the whip antenna to it.

The first transistor of a boy's radio is actually an rf stage...:yes:

Chuck

:yippy:

I've got that RCA...the bandswitch is erratic on mine too, have to get it just right on FM. FM reception is weak, only the strong stations are good, but it does improve when I connect a random wire antenna to the collapsed whip. Very good on AM! A good DXer on the AM band! I have to tighten the tuning dial every now n then, luckily the screw for that is accessible...:yes:

Chuck

Learn something every day...

transistor radio find!
 

I finally found another transistor radio this weekend! Theya re getting way too scarce now. This is an Empire model td-810, made in Japan and included the box. Its rare to find one that has the box too! Its an unassumming little number, but hey, I got it!!
If I have posted this twice I am sorry; still learning the ropes of posting.:thmbsp:
If the picture does not show up: someone please tell me how to upload it, I have tried twice!http://www.noveltyradio.com/empire td-810.jpg

Gary, nice Empire radio!
 

Gary,

:banana:

Nice Empire, that's not a brand name I see often. The trim is even intact. Does it play? I think I'll try to recap a few of my simpler transistor sets and see how that goes. So many radios have lost their volume...would be nice to restore them but I wouldn't wanna ruin them in the process.

I think I've bought a couple of radios from you. Ahhh, yes, what a hobby! :thmbsp:

Chuck

Great radios,guys.Here is my little guy.A Panasonic Toot-A-Loop.The first transistor I ever brought home that my wife was jealous of.
Jimmy

Thanks for the kind words Chuck! It did play, even tho I had to replace the battery connector! I wish the picture didn't go big sized. I will have to learn how to do the smaller picture posting!
I am up to 611 transistor radios, and over 1520 novelty radios! I am like you, what a hobby!!
Gary

Gary...resizing pictures...
 

Gary, do you have any basic photo editing programs on your computer? I've been resampling my large pics down to more usable sizes...I think most photo editing software lets you do that...

But my favorite radio pics I still do save originals in their large size just so I can study them later...

Chuck
:scratch2:

I see Rat Shack is not very well supported here. This is the model I remember carrying around in my pocket when I was in Jr High School, 1969. The Realistic 12-1290, I think it sold for $4.95 or $5.95:

great radio, Blast, especially having the box for it!
Here is my contribution to keep the ole Rat Shack in the public view!
Its an older transistor, Realistic model 8
Lets see some more transistors!!:thmbsp:
http://www.noveltyradio.com/realistic8.jpg
ps, how do I make the images smaller?

Thanks! I am kind of impressed with that. I'm not usually impressed with my own photos as the camera I used sold for under $200.

I use Photobucket (a free service) to host my photos. After I upload to PB, I can go in, select 'edit' on any of my photos and scale them down to whatever size I want. They have other 'alterations' you can make but I haven't tried any.

You can also use photo editing software on your computer. Like Photoshop, Paint, etc. I like MicroGraphx Photo Magic for doing that kind of stuff, too.
Brian

I am using a Cannon Power Shot a510 which is now old by todays standards!
It does great and I use the editing software that came with it and then upload it to my website. Sometimes I still can't figure out how large it will show up here tho!
Have a good radio collecting weekend and hope you find some somewhere!
Might as well put another picture in! Here is a CANDLE PTR-100B
http://www.noveltyradio.com/candle.jpg

For me, it's all experimenting. For the professional graphics designer they probably know exactly what they are going for.

Interesting Candle- never heard of that one. What's the little leather case for? Earphone?
Brian