We should be glad there isn't a service station on every corner anymore. They're a relic of the time when cars broke down a lot, engines needed constant tune-ups, tires wore out quickly, and flats and blow-outs were common. Many of them were environmental disasters, dumping their used oil and antifreeze on the ground or into the sewer, and had gas tanks that started leaking and polluting nearby wells.
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AM CAR ANTENNAS OF THE 60S.
- Thread starter wibgradio99
- Start date
I have driven a motorcycle in both states and always insisted on pumping my own gas. I don't want some droid splashing gas all over my bike, especially with a hot engine just underneath.
And if I haven't lost my mind completely I thought one or both of those states had excluded motorcycles from that policy?
Diesel fuel is excluded because it's not considered to be a flammable liquid (you can't light it with a match), but not motorcycles.
Cars, and tires specifically, have gotten much more reliable and longer lasting than in years past for sure but...
A tune-up was cheap and could usually be done by a person with minimal equipment and mechanical skills. Compare that to the cost, and sometimes time, it takes to troubleshoot a modern computer(s) controlled car.
Dumping was a mostly rural problem. Gas stations in urban areas are usually policed pretty closely and this goes back to the 50's (my first gas jockey job). Virtually all modern stations have a recycle pumping service to collect all used oil (and some recycle antifreeze as well). My old 76 station in the late 50's collected its used oil and recycled it.
Underground gas tanks did have a corrosion problem which led to leaks back then but the replacement of those old metal tanks with fiberglass tanks pretty much put a stop to that. The main problem now is our military bases such as Camp LaJuene and Air Force bases.
Diesel has a higher ignition temp than gasoline but it definitely can be lit with any sort of glowing source. What do you think glow plugs are? Yes, same as a match just without the flame. Once running, a diesel engine continues to run due to residual heat and compression of air but to get it started from cold requires a heat source hence glow plugs.
Who is the idiot politician who failed chemistry/physics? Or perhaps they decided diesel fuel was just a bit safer for the idiot motorist to pour and spill vs gasoline? It is definitely flammable though. Just read the FCC/ICC warning labels on diesel carrying fuel trucks.
Obviously diesel fuel can burn. But I'm talking about what happens if an idiot spills fuel on the ground and drops a lit cigarette on it. With gasoline, you get OMGWTFBBQ. With diesel fuel, you just get a mess.
wibgradio99
Banned
Boy do I know Atlantic, growing up in the 1960s, I lived a block from the old Atlantic refinery across the expressway at 30th and Mifflin streets, explosions every other day, non stop smoke and pollution and those never ending flare stacks, bright flames and rumbling, at night it looked like afternoon. They became ARCO later and moved across Passyunk avenue next to the Gulf refinery, where that horrible tragedy took place, killing all those fireman in 74, now I think they are finally all demolished. Nowadays they would never get away with what they did, or would they?
On those Delco and other car radios of that era there was a trimmer screw that you set the radio to 1400 (if I recall) and adjust for peak performance. Those radios could really pull in the DX, as I remember.
A glowing ciggy is virtually identical to an engine glow plug.
Good description of that fire here: https://ebrary.net/131190/health/philadelphia_august_1975_gulf_refinery_fire
Delco put that trimmer screw on the back of the radio IIRC. Very difficult to reach under most dashes of the day (but better than today).
The best damn car I had for radio reception was my first car, a 1962 Chevy II Nova. Bought it [the car] for $25.00. Yes, not a typo, TWENTY-FIVE in 1974. I sat in my driveway, twirling around the AM dial in Ohio and picking up KOA in Denver and a couple of stations out of California and many more from all around the country. Fixed antenna. From the Nova, went to a 66 Rambler, a Delta 88 with A/C so cold you could have kept a side of beef in the rear seat AND a Craig AM/FM/8-Track player which as far as FM reception went was phenominal, a Honda 600; so light I could pick up the back end and slide it over into a parking spot, a '72 Satellite Sebring Plus and many, many more. They all had either fixed or telescoping antenna. I had one of those cars that had the antenna in the window and it was horrid; so bad I almost drilled a hole through the fender to mount a REAL antenna....if I could have figured a way through the firewall I would have done it. Usually when I get a car I rip out the factory radio and install a high end aftermarket model but car companies seem to have upped their game as far as radios go [except for the AM side] so I haven't had to do that for a while. And if I had my druthers I'd still be driving a car from the 60s up till about the mid 70s models. Way easier to work on.....and the fact that if I had held on to my Satellite I probably could have made a fortune. I've seen some going for six figures!
The difference is that the cylinders in a diesel engine have around a 20:1 compression ratio. A puddle on the ground has none. And the glow plugs don't actually ignite the fuel. They just help to warm up the prechamber to aid cold starting. Above about 50°F the glow plugs aren't used or needed.
A diesel engine is more properly known as "compression ignition". Without compression, you have no ignition.
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On the car radio / antenna issue, I believe that today's short / odd looking antenna is used for AM / FM & Satellite radio. On cars with ON-STAR that antenna is also used. There is an amplifier for AM in-line with the antenna, this may have been pointed out already.
Auto radios were, and in most cases still are, excellent radios. I always felt GM car radios were the best . . . GM made them in Kokomo,IN,but sometime in the 80's moved production to Mexico.
In my opinion, GM radios were always good, sensitive & selective. Ford not so much.
Ford never really made their own car radios except for the time they owned Philco ( in the 70's ) Philco made TV's / Radio's ,etc.
Most Ford car radios were made by Bendix and/or Motorola before Philco came on the scene.
Chrysler also never made its own car radios, I think Motorola made some for Chrysler.
Later ( 80's / 90's ) Ford car radios were also made by, Alpine, a Japanese company.
The antennas ( power antenna ) that came up & down when the key was on/off was usually an option.
The dual antennas on the back fenders, if I remember only one was hooked up to the radio the other was for show.
A common thing too in early car radios was the two tube push-pull audio output stage or one tube audio output amp. . . if you got the better radio ( 2 tubes ) ,it cost more. Also "push buttons or no push button" again higher cost on the push button model.
GM also would split the electronics on bigger car radios, Buick & Cadillac . . . the RF/IF/Det. sections were in the middle of the dash . . . the amp ( push-pull ) was behind the speaker mounted on the rightside of the dash
Then you had the auto search & scan . . . nothing like todays search & scan car radios . . . GM's was called the WONDERBAR . . . it was electronics & mechanics all rolled into one! You even had a "local / distance " switch so it would stop on only strong local stations or strong & weak ones.
It even had a floor foot button near the foot high beam button to make the radio tune the band automatically.
The tubes models I liked, transistors were good to . . . again, especially GM models.
The tube models had the "famous" OZ4 rectifier in the 50's . . . often you'd turn the radio on and it might or might not work, that was 99% of the time . . . the OZ4 tube . . . it was bad . . . cost about 80 cents to replace in the 50's. Easy to get to after you laid upside down and got under the dash to pull it out and put the new one in.
Then you had the famous vibrator . . . that chopped up the cars 12 ( or 6 ) volts to get the radios transformer to work and make high DC voltages.
You also had beginning around 1959 the "hybrid radio" the RF/IF/ Det sections were "12 volt" plate tubes . . . no more vibrator and the audio output was either 1 or 2 transistors mounted on a decent size heat sink.
FM car radios came around in the 50's but mainly in more expensive cars. I recall when FM ( solid state ) converters were popular in the mid 60's , I had one, mounted under the dash. It would output its signal on the AM band , you could tune the converter to the frequency you wanted to hear it on the cars AM band.
Then the FAMOUS REVERB unit . . . you had to have one of these!!! I had a unit made by Fairchild Electronics in the late 60's . . . it had delay springs, in a metal box about a foot long, mounted in the trunk, I mounted mind on a cushion mount.
You could control the amount of "echo" unit produced via a control box mounted near the driver under the dash.
How about the tape players 4 and 8 track then cassettes, in the 60's - 80's . . . then CD . . . but they are all another story.
Got to mention " one more thing!!! The 45 RPM car record player, mounted under the dash ( over the hump ) . . . a friend had one in the mid 60's . . . it really worked but there was much pressure on your records to keep the needle in the groove . . . it played thru the AM car radio via RF.
The records played upside down, the needle pushed up into the records grooves . . . about 6 stacked at a time . . . Chrysler offered it as an option I think in the mid 50s. I don't think it ever was popular.
It was FUN !
Al
Auto radios were, and in most cases still are, excellent radios. I always felt GM car radios were the best . . . GM made them in Kokomo,IN,but sometime in the 80's moved production to Mexico.
In my opinion, GM radios were always good, sensitive & selective. Ford not so much.
Ford never really made their own car radios except for the time they owned Philco ( in the 70's ) Philco made TV's / Radio's ,etc.
Most Ford car radios were made by Bendix and/or Motorola before Philco came on the scene.
Chrysler also never made its own car radios, I think Motorola made some for Chrysler.
Later ( 80's / 90's ) Ford car radios were also made by, Alpine, a Japanese company.
The antennas ( power antenna ) that came up & down when the key was on/off was usually an option.
The dual antennas on the back fenders, if I remember only one was hooked up to the radio the other was for show.
A common thing too in early car radios was the two tube push-pull audio output stage or one tube audio output amp. . . if you got the better radio ( 2 tubes ) ,it cost more. Also "push buttons or no push button" again higher cost on the push button model.
GM also would split the electronics on bigger car radios, Buick & Cadillac . . . the RF/IF/Det. sections were in the middle of the dash . . . the amp ( push-pull ) was behind the speaker mounted on the rightside of the dash
Then you had the auto search & scan . . . nothing like todays search & scan car radios . . . GM's was called the WONDERBAR . . . it was electronics & mechanics all rolled into one! You even had a "local / distance " switch so it would stop on only strong local stations or strong & weak ones.
It even had a floor foot button near the foot high beam button to make the radio tune the band automatically.
The tubes models I liked, transistors were good to . . . again, especially GM models.
The tube models had the "famous" OZ4 rectifier in the 50's . . . often you'd turn the radio on and it might or might not work, that was 99% of the time . . . the OZ4 tube . . . it was bad . . . cost about 80 cents to replace in the 50's. Easy to get to after you laid upside down and got under the dash to pull it out and put the new one in.
Then you had the famous vibrator . . . that chopped up the cars 12 ( or 6 ) volts to get the radios transformer to work and make high DC voltages.
You also had beginning around 1959 the "hybrid radio" the RF/IF/ Det sections were "12 volt" plate tubes . . . no more vibrator and the audio output was either 1 or 2 transistors mounted on a decent size heat sink.
FM car radios came around in the 50's but mainly in more expensive cars. I recall when FM ( solid state ) converters were popular in the mid 60's , I had one, mounted under the dash. It would output its signal on the AM band , you could tune the converter to the frequency you wanted to hear it on the cars AM band.
Then the FAMOUS REVERB unit . . . you had to have one of these!!! I had a unit made by Fairchild Electronics in the late 60's . . . it had delay springs, in a metal box about a foot long, mounted in the trunk, I mounted mind on a cushion mount.
You could control the amount of "echo" unit produced via a control box mounted near the driver under the dash.
How about the tape players 4 and 8 track then cassettes, in the 60's - 80's . . . then CD . . . but they are all another story.
Got to mention " one more thing!!! The 45 RPM car record player, mounted under the dash ( over the hump ) . . . a friend had one in the mid 60's . . . it really worked but there was much pressure on your records to keep the needle in the groove . . . it played thru the AM car radio via RF.
The records played upside down, the needle pushed up into the records grooves . . . about 6 stacked at a time . . . Chrysler offered it as an option I think in the mid 50s. I don't think it ever was popular.
It was FUN !
Al
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wibgradio99
Banned
I remember summer of 1964, going to Wildwood in my uncles new 64 Impala, three section front fender antenna, fully extended, had WIBBAGE (WFIL had 2 years to go), on all the way crystal clear, just some static going under power lines. Funny thing, their site was up on 117 Ridge Pike way out of the city, they had an extra 30 miles to get into NJ. Driving over those rickety wooden bridges going into North Wildwood WIBG was still blasting in. Someone told me their signal would go down the Delaware river into the bay and up the coast, thats why they were solid, at night it was a different story. One other note, it was real neat to have the radio come right on (transistors), instead of waiting for the older tube sets to warm up. WMID/WOND were good alternatives at night.
ARCO didn't go out of business -- it's thriving on the West Coast.
I guess it's supposed to be exotic, using Atlantic fuel on the Pacific ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yup. A glo-plug heats the entering liquid fuel to its vapor form to allow combustion.
Nope. The glow plugs are only used for cold starting. They heat up the prechambers before the engine is started and before any fuel is injected. When the glow plugs are finished heating and shut off, then you start the engine. They do not operate when the engine is running.
As someone who has owned five diesel cars -- two Mercedes, two VWs, and one Audi -- I'm familiar with how they operate. And another benefit: no ignition noise to interfere with AM reception!
I remember an Atlantic gas station which changed to ARCO.
My grandparents had a car where the AM didn't work but it was the first car we ever had with FM, in 1983. They got a new car at that time and we got their old one. The AM worked if you were close enough to the tower to see it. That may be an exaggeration, but there weren't many stations that worked. I did pick up a 5000-watt station at 600 quite a distance away, but lost it when I went under a major power line. I didn't know where the antenna was but eventually found out those lines in the windshield weren't just there for decoration.
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