• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Has anyone ever heard of a small transistor radio with no tuner on it?

Back in the mid 1970's, I won a small pocket transistor radio from my local Top 40 station, KJOY-1280. But it wasn't the usual type of transistor radio you would buy in the store. This one had a small speaker and KJOY logo on it with "NO TUNER"! Yes, No Tuner. It was permanently set on KJOY-1280. You couldn't tune it to any other radio station.It broke down many, many, many years ago and was thrown away but I wished I had it today, probably would get some good money for it on ebay. Anyway, Has any other radio station years ago Coast To Coast ever had done this? Or was it a KJOY First and only idea?
 
AM radio with fixed tuning

> Back in the mid 1970's, I won a small pocket transistor
> radio from my local Top 40 station, KJOY-1280. But it wasn't
> the usual type of transistor radio you would buy in the
> store. This one had a small speaker and KJOY logo on it with
> "NO TUNER"! Yes, No Tuner. It was permanently set on
> KJOY-1280. You couldn't tune it to any other radio
> station.It broke down many, many, many years ago and was
> thrown away but I wished I had it today, probably would get
> some good money for it on ebay. Anyway, Has any other radio
> station years ago Coast To Coast ever had done this? Or was
> it a KJOY First and only idea?

The ultimate crystal-controlled radio!

I've never seen one up close before, but I've seen them
in a catalog of promotional items.

An interesting imprinted promotional item. Probably
minimum of 10K or more.

I have no idea if they still make them.

73s from 954
<P ID="signature">______________
Prairie Home Companion Coming To Miami in Feb! South Florida Radio Pages (since 1995)</P>
 
Just replace the variable capacitor with a regular capacitor. Wham, bam, moneygram...permanent tuning.<P ID="signature">______________
</P>
 
Do Radios Break Down?

Bloomeberg gave away similar ones for their New York City station. I think my former Federal Agency was looking into the use of these single frequency radios to bombard Cuba with truly bad radio, on a truly bad radio.

> Back in the mid 1970's, I won a small pocket transistor
> radio from my local Top 40 station, KJOY-1280. But it wasn't
> the usual type of transistor radio you would buy in the
> store. This one had a small speaker and KJOY logo on it with
> "NO TUNER"! Yes, No Tuner. It was permanently set on
> KJOY-1280. You couldn't tune it to any other radio
> station.It broke down many, many, many years ago and was
> thrown away but I wished I had it today, probably would get
> some good money for it on ebay. Anyway, Has any other radio
> station years ago Coast To Coast ever had done this? Or was
> it a KJOY First and only idea?
>
 
> Back in the mid 1970's, I won a small pocket transistor
> radio from my local Top 40 station, KJOY-1280. But it wasn't
> the usual type of transistor radio you would buy in the
> store. This one had a small speaker and KJOY logo on it with
> "NO TUNER"! Yes, No Tuner. It was permanently set on
> KJOY-1280. You couldn't tune it to any other radio
> station.It broke down many, many, many years ago and was
> thrown away but I wished I had it today, probably would get
> some good money for it on ebay. Anyway, Has any other radio
> station years ago Coast To Coast ever had done this? Or was
> it a KJOY First and only idea?
>
I saw this type of thing advertised in some promotions catalog a couple years ago. They set them to the desired frequency (AM or FM), slap your logo on 'em, and ship 'em out. They were about twice the size of your average pager and came with a cheap set of cheesy earbuds. IIRC the cost was around $3 per, in quantity (1,000?), with a two-color logo (as long as one of the colors was black).

I have one buried somewhere in a box of assorted junk from an FM station in my area. The thing never worked from the day I got it (1990 or so). Years later I talked with someone who worked for that station at the time and they said about one in ten were defective, but by the time they discovered it the company they had ordered them from (I assume that it wasn't the same company whose catalog I mentioned above) had gone out of business.

Peace,
User 11648<P ID="signature">______________

</P>
 
> Back in the mid 1970's, I won a small pocket transistor
> radio from my local Top 40 station, KJOY-1280. But it wasn't
> the usual type of transistor radio you would buy in the
> store. This one had a small speaker and KJOY logo on it with
> "NO TUNER"! Yes, No Tuner. It was permanently set on
> KJOY-1280. You couldn't tune it to any other radio
> station.It broke down many, many, many years ago and was
> thrown away but I wished I had it today, probably would get
> some good money for it on ebay. Anyway, Has any other radio
> station years ago Coast To Coast ever had done this? Or was
> it a KJOY First and only idea?

I read in Billboard years ago about a station that was giving away fixed-tuned radios...the listeners were supposed to call in when they played Ray Parker Jr's "You Can't Change That."

Back in the '60s Sarkes Tarzian of Indianapolis made a fixed-tuned FM table radio called the Auditron that a few stations gave away or sold; in those days relatively few people had FM sets and the stations were trying to expand their listener base.
 
Re: AM radio with fixed tuning

In Philadelphia easy listening "Easy 101" gave away table model radios pre-tuned to 101.1. A competitor gave away instructions on how to re-tune it to their frequency! I still see these radios in stores & doctor's offices 20 some years later playing the latest version of the station, WBEB, B101.
 
Bloomberg AM Radios

I have a Bloomberg AM radio, it only receives that channel, and I think it comes in more clear than if I tuned to the station, and I live over 100 miles away from New York City.

I think these radios must've been given away not too long ago, maybe 5-10 years ago. I'm pretty sure they were free.
 
> Just replace the variable capacitor with a regular
> capacitor. Wham, bam, moneygram...permanent tuning.

TWO capacitors, my friend. Remember that since 99.999% of current radios are of superheterodyne design, two variable capacitors are ganged so that one resonates the tuner while the other resonates the mixing circuit so that the output lands and either 455 kHz (am) or 10.7 MHz (fm).

And if you do the math for a given frequency you'll likely find that the capacitor values are hardly the standard ones you get from Radio Shack, that means more math to figure out what to gang together to get the capacitance value that you need for both circuits.

Matt Smith -- WGSR-TV
 
f<sub>0</sub> = 1 / (2pi * sqrt(LC))

:)<P ID="signature">______________
</P>
 
Check out my post from yesterday

http://www.radio-info.com/mods/board?Post=644075&Board=usa


> I have a Bloomberg AM radio, it only receives that channel,
> and I think it comes in more clear than if I tuned to the
> station, and I live over 100 miles away from New York City.
>
> I think these radios must've been given away not too long
> ago, maybe 5-10 years ago. I'm pretty sure they were free.
>
 
Bloomberg Note

One of those Bloomberg radios where found in the rubble at ground zero in Manhattan, and were in a display case at the New York State museum in Albany at their 9/11 memorial exhibit.
 
Re: AM radio with fixed tuning

I would have liked to use one for listening to WCBS-FM 101.1

> In Philadelphia easy listening "Easy 101" gave away table
> model radios pre-tuned to 101.1. A competitor gave away
> instructions on how to re-tune it to their frequency! I
> still see these radios in stores & doctor's offices 20 some
> years later playing the latest version of the station, WBEB,
> B101.
>
<P ID="signature">______________
[email protected]</P>
 
Re: AM radio with fixed tuning

DXers used to get fixed-tuned radios in exchange for reception reports to former Top 40 WCSC, (1390), Charleston, SC..which got out pretty well for 5kW on the coast.<P ID="signature">______________
Have a Happy New Year!
http://www.thebig8.net/have_a_happy_new_year_with_cklw.mp3</P>
 
Re: AM radio with fixed tuning

I worked at a station in Vermont that had given away radios tuned to the station's frequency that were in the shape of the old RCA 44-style microphones.

These must have been a little pricey so they might have been contest prizes
rather than promo items.
 
Sony "Clip" in Japan

In the early 1990s in Japan, Sony made several one-station radios which looked sort of like a black credit card, only thicker and sturdier. They were called "Sony CLIP" and needed special earphones to be used. Most of them were for FM stations (76-90 MHz, of little use here), but I saw a couple of AM ones for 1242 khz (IIRC) and FEN (Far East Network), 810 in Tokyo.

They also sold small transmitters which broadcast a few yards and connected directly to a radio, CD player or whatever, but usually only on 78-80 MHZ (though I found one that went up to 85.5). I bought a CLIP that was set to a station on 80.0 FM and played CDs with the transmitter so I could hear them on the CLIP.

I also, however, found a couple I could use here in the US, like the FEN one (great for getting KGO here), and one set to Japanese TV channel 1 (sound freq 95.75 MHz), which also picked up stations on 95.5 quite nicely.

What a concept -- to change the station you had to change the radio! Might sell pretty big here, considering the way we Americans switch channels. But then again...
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom