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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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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!
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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, and I suspect it had something to do with the volume
control. 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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