We asked for pictures, Steve Hemphill answered our call
In this letter to the editor, the author comments on the story “Hey Radio World, how do you tune in?” in which we asked readers to share funny pictures and stories from their own radio collection. Comment on this or another article. Email [email protected].
Hello Elle and Paul,
Thanks for another great RW SmartBrief article! Well, you asked and I’ll try to answer! I thought I’d send you a picture of my partial broadcast receiver collection that sits in my living room at home. I’ll just list what’s in the picture if that’s OK.
On the left, from top to bottom: A 1969 KLH-21 FM-only receiver, one of Henry Koss’s first transistorized FM tabletop radios; a 1987 Sequerra SC-1, originally designed by Dick Sequerra to receive only (1) FM stations – in this case that station was WEAZ-FM in Philadelphia; a 1941 GE JFM-90 FM translator, a pre-WWII adapter for receiving the 42-50 MHz FM broadcast band; a 1946 Zenith 8H034 AM and FM receiver, named “The Major” after Major Edwin Armstrong, the inventor of wideband FM broadcasting; and a 1963 GE T-1000C, General Electric’s very first FM stereo tabletop receiver for home use.
Center, from top: a 1941 Philco 41-220 AM portable receiver; a 1941 Meissner 9-1047A FM receiver, another type of adapter used to receive the pre-WWII 42-50 MHz FM broadcast band; a 1942 Philco 42-350 AM-FM-SW receiver capable of receiving both FM bands (its pre-WWII FM dial has FCC channel numbers, not frequency numbers); a 1949 GE X-415 AM-FM-SW receiver, which uses the famous GE “guillotine” front-end tuner, which uses sliding metal plates and a windlass-scale string mechanism reminiscent of a French guillotine.
And finally, on the right from top: a Sarkes Tarzian 723-501 FM desk receiver from 1960 (Tarzian’s company was known for making the early blue-colored selenium rectifier diode stacks found in many early Zenith radio receivers); a Zenith 8H832 AM-FM receiver from 1948; a Pilot T-301 AM and low-band FM receiver from 1941; a Zenith 7H820-Z Bakelite AM-FM desk receiver from 1949; and another GE T-1000C.
I have fully restored all of these radios and they all work and sound great! They are a testament to the high quality of home radio manufacturing in the USA, which was once simply the best.
Greetings,
Steve Hemphill, Owner, Solid Electronics Labs, Licensee, WA2XMN, Alpine, NJ
(You can find more letters in the Radio World reader forum)
