radiogooroo said:
Walk through the electronics department at Target or Wally World and count the HD ready radios. By my count it's zero.
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Walk through the electronics department at Target or Wally World and count the HD ready radios. By my count it's zero.
I believe that the RCA Superadio III is still available. The model is right on the re-designed website for RCA/Audiovox/ALCO Electronics:
http://www.1800customersupport.com/products.aspx?cid=12&p=81&pn=Portable Audio
Right now several sellers on ebay have the RCA Superadio for sale new-in-the-box. Around 1 year ago, it was normally stocked at Ace Hardware, but I have not seen it at Ace recently.
Perhaps the confusion started when Thomson decided to have various third party companies handle manufacturing and sales of RCA branded products.
I believe that the 'GE' brand does not exist anymore on complete consumer audio and video products, however it is still used on telephones (under Thomson), electronic accessories (under Jasco), and appliances (under GE).
In the mid-80's, GE bought RCA. In the late 80's, French company Thomson bought GE's consumer electronics business (both GE and RCA brands). A few years ago, Thomson eliminated the GE brand (except on telephones and telephone accessories), which is why the Superadio is now branded RCA.
Perhaps the reason has something to do with the purchase of some RCA products by Audiovox/ALCO Electronics from Thomson, but not GE portion. Today's RCA Superadio is manufactured and marketed by Audiovox/ALCO Electronics.
In the mid-80's, GE bought RCA. In the late 80's, French company Thomson bought GE's consumer electronics business (both GE and RCA brands). A few years ago, Thomson eliminated the GE brand (except on telephones and telephone accessories), which is why the Superadio is now branded RCA.
Perhaps the reason has something to do with the purchase of some RCA products by Audiovox/ALCO Electronics from Thomson, but not GE portion. Today's RCA Superadio is manufactured and marketed by Audiovox/ALCO Electronics.
radiogooroo said:
I'm SURE you mean that a few big local AMs are simulcast on HD3s. The idea that the whole AM band is somewhere simulcast is laughable.
Or can you actually get Philly and NY signals on some of your HDs?
I've spent a lot of time out there, and I KNOW there are many, many signals available on the AM band not reproduced in HD.
Or do you mean the "very local market" is the only thing that you consider as "the AM band"?
I'm confused. There aren't possibly enough HDs anywhere to put "the AM band" on HDs.
Just today, with the Wisconsin labor "issue", I was using AN OUT-OF-MARKET signal, WISN 1130 for direct info.
It was in no way compromised by the 85 miles, and I'm not the least bit emabarassed to use radio in this way.
Nor am I willing to give up such a useful element of radio "behavior".
When I want to hear Boston, it's right there on 1010 through 1050, as soon as the sun is down, no problem except they are only supposed to be on 1030 with mod products out to 1020 and 1040.
Those must be the stations that many of us know as www.wisn.com and boston.cbslocal.com/tag/wbz-radio
I have never known WBZ to splatter over to adjacent web addresses! ;D
I have never known WBZ to splatter over to adjacent web addresses! ;D
I sure would like to know what radios y'all are using that AM after dark "comes in fine", because for the life of me I've never heard anything like that.
Even before the scourge of AM HD after dark, I could never hold on to a distant signal for more than a few minutes without severe fading. From Birmingham, I'd often try to hear WSB, WBBM, WOAI, WWL, WCCO or WABC/WCBS and only WWL was there with any clarity or regularity.
Whether you want to blame man-made interference or bad radio(s), the fact remains that distant listening is simply not a good way to gather timely information and does not work as well as romantically implied on these boards.
And this is coming from someone who found WWL to be the go-to station at night after Katrina. I don't want to see this skywave destroyed by HD, but I also don't want people to think that skywave is anything other than an unreliable curiosity that cannot be relied upon for long term listenership.
Even before the scourge of AM HD after dark, I could never hold on to a distant signal for more than a few minutes without severe fading. From Birmingham, I'd often try to hear WSB, WBBM, WOAI, WWL, WCCO or WABC/WCBS and only WWL was there with any clarity or regularity.
Whether you want to blame man-made interference or bad radio(s), the fact remains that distant listening is simply not a good way to gather timely information and does not work as well as romantically implied on these boards.
And this is coming from someone who found WWL to be the go-to station at night after Katrina. I don't want to see this skywave destroyed by HD, but I also don't want people to think that skywave is anything other than an unreliable curiosity that cannot be relied upon for long term listenership.
I also listened directly to WWL during Katrina, and to WCCO for new about the bridge collapse, and WBZ when sections of the big dig ceiling fell, etc.
Sure, it's different everyday, but so am I, to some extent. That doesn't make me think I'm not reliable.
Last weekend, I went to a music (old record) appreciation group meeting, and could not stay long, but what was being played
instead of records was an mp3 player, with very low resolution, and reminded me of a typical webstream.
Compared to that, I'll gladly take fades, and appreciate the much better audio.
But I have spent a good deal of time making sure my "very local" AM environment is fairly clean, and stays that way.
My best "comes in just fine" radio is the 1936 Philco 116-X console fed by a 1925 loose-coupled externally-tuned loop.
Cuts a sharp null at them hissers and can pick the needle right out of the haystack.
Sure, it's different everyday, but so am I, to some extent. That doesn't make me think I'm not reliable.
Last weekend, I went to a music (old record) appreciation group meeting, and could not stay long, but what was being played
instead of records was an mp3 player, with very low resolution, and reminded me of a typical webstream.
Compared to that, I'll gladly take fades, and appreciate the much better audio.
But I have spent a good deal of time making sure my "very local" AM environment is fairly clean, and stays that way.
My best "comes in just fine" radio is the 1936 Philco 116-X console fed by a 1925 loose-coupled externally-tuned loop.
Cuts a sharp null at them hissers and can pick the needle right out of the haystack.
ai4i said:
One problem with this: the web streams are not permitted to carry everything that the OTA signals are. Examples include certain sports events, syndicated programs, etc. CBS Radio is the worst about this; try to hear a Patriots game on WBZ-FM and you'll get a generic feed of Fox Sports, try to listen to American Top 40 - The 70s on WODS (as I did Sunday) and you'll be treated to an endless stream of network promos (for 3 hours?) rather than OTA programming. Of course, that happens to AM stations too.
If you're getting it over the radio, you don't have that content filter. Just some food for thought.
Zach said:
During the first several decades of radio broadcasting in the US, most listening to radio was at night and much of that listening was to skywave signals. That reception was generally reliable and clear. There were even national magazines dedicated to such reception back when stations on the air were numbered in the hundreds, not the thousands.
If you were in Indio, CA, or Traverse City, MI, in that era, you got most of your network programming in the pre-TV prime time at night via skywave from LA or Detroit or Chicago in the two examples.
The profusion of new stations, even on the clear channels, has made listening to these stations reliable over lesser distances. But mostly, there is really not much on the radio at night that warrants going out of one's way to hear a station at great distances. The exceptions might be sporting events and, of course, emergencies.
mgpt6 said:
In 1940 production, the most common output tube in "better" radios was a 41 or a 42, both pentodes. Same pin diagram, but more power in a 42.
Less common were the 43 and 47.,
In the late 30's , the octal tubes were introduced, and the 6F6 was an octal version of a 42, 6K6 equiv to a 41, but the 43 came out in octal as a 25A6... ???
The 6L6 is not a pentode per se, but a beam power tube, where grid spacing/shaping formed "beams" of current to the plate, allowing higher power.
In cheap 5-tube table radios it was by and large the 50L6, a 50 volt heater pentode, along with a 35Z5 rectifier,
a 12SA7 mixer, a 12SK7 IF amp, and a 12SQ7 detector/audio amp.
The cheaper brqands relied on older types, as they were less expensive than the newer octal types.
Very few radios into the 1940's used triode output, even in push-pull. The lower output impedance of triodes had a much less "strained" sound to the output than pentodes, because negative feedback hadn't much been implemented yet, and pentodes were a lot
'louder" for the dollar. Few people noticed the much higher harmonic distortion, just as few noticed it when cheap transistor
amplifiers flooded the market in the late 60s and early 70s.
Louder always wins in the consumer world, even if it sounds worse. :
mgpt6 said:
At least in Post-War 1940's, the 6V6 was pretty common. It could be used single ended or in Push-Pull. It even made it into quite a few car radios. Only really "deluxe" sets used push-pull operation. Since price was usually an object, the original "All American Five" radios generally used a single 50L6 with its filament in series with filaments of the other tubes; the sum total added up to 117 volts. Much later, when the 7 pin miniature tubes became popular, it was replaced with a 50C5 which seemed to rule the roost until the transistor era.
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