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New Old Stock Transistor Radio Never opened! Over 40 years old!
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A New Old Stock "Royaltone"
transistor radio, manufactured in Hong Kong in the late1960's or early
1970's.
I got this on ebay from a seller who said he had two PALLETS of
them! |
Let's open it!!
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The tape is cut...
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...OOOH! AAAH!
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In the top of the box are
batteries, an earplug and a shoulder strap. |
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The glue on the tape has dried but is still
holding the plastic bag around the radio.
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Exposed to the air for the first time in probably
45 years! It sure looks nice!
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Does it still work?
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The batteries that came with the radio tested at
.5 volts except for one that read 0 volts. Some "fresh" C batteries were
installed.
The "fresh" batteries expired three years ago. How appropriate! Then it was
time to test it. Would it work after all this time?
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It works!
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It picks up music on FM
and Field Hockey on AM!
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So how well does it work? You may well
ask!
It has incredibly loud volume, but no bass
whatsoever. I wouldn't use it to listen to music. I don't know
if it always sounded like this or if the speaker cone has stiffened
over the years. Do speakers cones stiffen? I guess they can. It's an
advantage for AM talk radio; the sound is very clear.
The tuning on FM is "mushy" and once you tune
the station in, you switch to "AFC". This is normal for these radios,
though I admit I forgot about it. I remember doing this as a
teenager.
The volume control isn't linear at all. You
turn it to a certain spot and the volume is suddenly ear splitting.
So you've got this small range that a "normal" person would listen
to, and if you turn it just a little more it's too loud. You can do
this by accident while turning it on. I suppose that if this was your
radio in 1968 you'd get accustomed to the controls.|
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Inside the battery compartment are the
particulars.
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I've always wondered why they included the
schematic back then.
Was that some regulation? I liked to look at them, so I was glad they
did.
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The leaking batteries did no
damage to the box and probably dried up before they could leak very much.
I like the graphics and I may keep one of them. "Battery Collecting" would be a
great hobby if they didn't leak. |
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My biggest
disappointment - the box clearly shows a radio telescope but it
didn't come with one!
All I got was a radio "telescoping" antenna. Oh well, I don't really
have room for a radio telescope anyway. |
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Where has this
radio been all these years?
I contacted the seller*who told me he bought the
two pallets from a warehouse. The warehouse had been occupied by a large
trucking company which had gone bankrupt. According to the stickers on
the pallets, they originated in Japan and were supposed to be delivered
to an electronics firm in New York City. For some reason the electronics
firm rejected the order. The supplier didn't want to take them back and
filed an insurance claim.
I suppose that in order to file an insurance claim, the pallets
would have had to "vanish". The pallets sat in the warehouse for
40 or 50 years
collecting dust. Eventually the trucking firm went out of business,
vacated the warehouse and sold everything.
*natyes347 |
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This concludes our broadcast day. |
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