One of Emerson’s early 1950s personal radios. Fairly hard to find these in good condition, as the plastic cabinet is thin, flimsy and easily broken.
Gotta love that slide-rule dial in the middle.
Runs on a 467 B battery and a D cell.
Duration : 0:1:53
Fairly uncommon, though you see more of them in a broken state. Their cabinets are plastic and are easily broken.
I suspect this radio was designed by Budlong due to its curves.
It’s a four-tube personal portable powered by a 477 B battery and up to three D cells for the filaments. It uses vernier [...]
THE Personal Portable. Sonora’s Candid KG-80, was introduced in April 1940. It is the first portable radio to use miniature tubes, and is the first of the camera-sized “personal” radios.
Cabinet is made of bakelite and uses three D cells for the filaments, one Burgess Z30 45-volt B battery for the high voltage.
This [...]
My rendition of this radio–taken from the June 1950 Popular Mechanics article.
It was a four tube battery superhet designed to fit into a standard lunchbox of the time.
I found the exact vintage lunchbox and built it up using parts from a couple of Emerson and Silvertone portable radios.
Uses a 467 B battery and a couple [...]
RCA’s transistorized version of their Strato World shortwave portable radio.
This model, along with the Zenith Royal 1000 and Philco T-9 Trans World were Consumer Reports’ top picks in 1960.
Not a very common set–cabinet is flimsier than most, and I suspect they didn’t take wear and tear. In fact, this radio is the product [...]
This is Zenith’s postwar version of the Trans-Oceanic–and it’s one of the first radios I bought when I started collecting.
It uses a slew of loktal tubes and a 117-volt rectifier, AM and five electrically bandspread shortwave bands.
I purchased it in Summer 1985, back when Trans-Oceanics were plentiful–and cheap–at hamfests. In fact, I [...]
THE Personal Portable. Sonora’s Candid KG-80, was introduced in April 1940. It is the first portable radio to use miniature tubes, and is the first of the camera-sized “personal” radios.
Cabinet is made of bakelite and uses three D cells for the filaments, one Burgess Z30 45-volt B battery for the high voltage.
This [...]
Here are two personal portables made by Motorola before WW2. One is pristine and unrestored,
the other is a beater and playing–barely.
Duration : 0:3:50
Picked this up at the last radio meet.
Practically identical with the Zenith Universal, except it has an extra shortwave band crammed into it. I believe it’s from 31m to 25m.
Just needed a recapping and rubber-wire replacement.
Running on one of my replica Z-985 batteries.
Still a little touchy, as the radio sometimes goes silent. [...]
Here’s the other personal portable that Marconiphone brought out, the Model 20B.
This one plays AM and LW stations.
Bandswitch is a little flaky, could use a cleaning.
Got this in a trade with Bob Thompson. He has the website roberts-radios.co.uk, and it has reproduction battery covers available for collectors.
Uses a B114 combination battery pack.
Duration : 0:4:35
