American made vintage radio shootout! (Geek content warning)

[orangecrush]

ANGRY RADIOS GO HEAD TO HEAD!

Both of these were made in hometown America by craftsmen and women!

Zenith in Chicago, General Electric in Western New York.

You can't buy quality like this anymore in our consumer market.

Vote for your winner!

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2 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	I like the Zenith Interoceanic!
	1 (50%)
	I like the General Electric Jetstar!
	1 (50%)
	I hate them both
	0 (0%)
	Can't decide
	0 (0%)
	Orangecrush needs black birth control glasses and a pocket protector
	0 (0%)
	Put down the slide rule and the bong
	0 (0%)
	O.K. Boomer
	0 (0%)
	I want the Scooby Do bobblehead napkin holder
	0 (0%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[mitch96]

1. Back in the day when everything got smaller and smaller we use to call them "boat anchors"..nt

[orangecrush]

2. True

I own a couple!

Thanks for the post!

[jmowreader]

3. Let me throw another fine American-made receiver into the discussion

Made in Gaithersburg, MD, by intelligence officers for intelligence officers.

Let's go through some of the features of this fine radio, which sold for $40,000 new.

The little CRT on the left side is a tuning aid. You could do other things with it, but its primary function is to display a spike for every active emitter within a certain frequency range of what the -8617 is tuned to.

The -8617 is available in many frequency ranges; the unit that ordered it told W-J what they needed and the company inserted the proper tuning cards.

This is a scanner, and it's got two scanning modes, STEP and SCAN. STEP is like a police scanner - you enter the frequencies you want to listen to and it looks for someone who's talking. In SCAN you plug in two frequencies and the receiver searches continuously between them.

The three buttons between the frequency display and the tuning knob are to set tuning range. Let's say you are listening to someone in the 144MHz ham band and you want to tune down to listen to a radio station at 94MHz. Instead of having to crank the radio through the entire 50MHz between the hams and the radio station you can push the MHz button and only the megahertz part of the display will change. This doesn't sound all that straightforward but it makes life on rack REAL nice.

These OCCASIONALLY show up on eBay. The next time I see one I'm grabbing it quick.

[orangecrush]

5. Sweet hot receiver!

The poster of the video rightfully suggests recapping the set if you get one.

I love the red numerical display.

An interesting thing about the Zenith is it was completely hand wired.

This means it was put together by workers who were well paid, as opposed to automation soldering components to a printed circuit board, such as with the G.E..

It's a lost art, and owning an example of it is pretty cool.

[jmowreader]

6. If you like hand-wired radios try one of these

The R-390A receiver was also designed for military intelligence use. This device has special technology in it that was so advanced for its time the National Security Agency classified the radio for several years. When they finally wanted to admit they had this in their inventory, the one they showed to the public had been prepared for its debut by having the covers welded on.

There are a few R-390As on eBay, at over $1000 apiece - which is probably what the military paid for them in the first place.

[orangecrush]

7. Here's my boat anchor

The 390a is a Collins if memory serves.

The stuff ham radio dreams are made of.

Here is my boat anchor, a National NC-183D dual conversion set.

High fidelity sound, push - pull 6V6GT tube audio, with a phono input.

I read there was a rack version of this set on the U.S.S. Pueblo, an intelligence ship that was captured by North Korea in 1968.

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[Keepthesoulalive]

4. I prefer the Transoceanic nice flip cover.

Very big, last time I tested it ,it still worked .

[orangecrush]

8. I had two of them

Excellent radios, built to last through generations.

[Keepthesoulalive]

9. I have 2 plus the Philco knock off.

[orangecrush]

10. Very nice

Philco made some wonderful classics