Scored a Vista 640 AM/SW/FM Radio/Amp Yesterday

[AlNewman]

Oh I was just wanted to point out that period of time when the pocket size transistor radio kind of exploded and everybodyseemed to be carrying one around. That's about the time I started learning guitar so my interest in playing with my guitar picking buddies kind of overtook listening to the radio to buying records and learning licks

And here you are digging up your old transistor radio again.  Should be easy enough to fix, easier than learning how to play licks anyhow.

[Platefire]

Just fooling around with this radio got me thinking about the Pocket Transistor Radio period. Being raised through the late 40's, 50's and 60's, a lot of changes were taking place. Like the day we got out first TV. I don't ever listen to radio anymore unless I'm trying to get a bit of local news. When I'm home we watch TV, or do internet by PC or phone. Riding in the car usually always listen to a CD. So radio is pretty much a lost art to me. I have been thinking lately I need one of these emergency radios that you can charge with a hand crank.

[shooter]

we got our 1st TV when I was 7, the 1st color job when I was 10. at 12 Dad came out of rehab, went to work at Goodwill, then we had 10 broke TVs and I learned to operate a tube tester, solder, read a Sam's, adjust yokes and i'll NEVER forget what 25kv felt like shooting up my arm 


but the radio was, and always will be my 1st choice, even today with all the new fangled shiny objects.  as a kid, would tape my portable radio to the handlebars and slow roll the neighborhood like I was thumpin 15's from the trunk 
 

[bmccowan]

I grew up (allegedly) in the 50s and 60s. Radio was king. FM came on strong during that period. Boston's BCN was the shits, followed by Portland's BLM. BLMs weatherman was Altitude Lew - he and I later became friends - and their helicopter reporter was Eli Wicked High. I had a tube radio on my bedside table. When I did not want to go to school (often) I would tell my Mom that I felt ill. Her rule was unless you had a fever, you went to school. She would bring in the thermometer and I'd place it under my tongue. As soon as she left the room, I would stick the thermometer through the vent holes and heat her up to about 100F. I can remember shaking it down in a panic when I accidently got it up around 106. She'd come back and say, "look at that, you do have a fever, funny you do not feel hot." I let her in on the ruse when I was about 35, and she wacked me over the head with a dinner plate. It is one of my fondest memories.

[PRR]

AM is still alive. Out here, the hills shadow FM, AM sometimes gets around. WDEA blankets the local hills. At night, WBZ-AM carries across the gulf from Boston, and would be our tune-to in case of troubles. On winter nights we can pull WCBS-AM out of NYC.

> Riding in the car usually always listen to a CD.

New (2023) car has no CD player. Plays from cellphone (BT or USB), thumbdrive, and satellite (if I pay Sirius, which I won't). And FM and even AM (some new cars don't; it is on the chip but the cars are so electrically noisy they don't enable it).

My last (2002) car had cassette AND 6-disc CD changer IN dash! And AM and FM But no USB.

So I have stashes of road-trip CDs I'll never play.

The '79 T-burd had the AM and the FM, and 17 chan AND 23 chan CB. None worked well because there were so many adapters between antennas and radios. Oh, and 8-track from the factory.

[bmccowan]

PRR - you can't get WERU out of Blue Hill in your locale? I used to sea kayak and camp on the islands of Penobscot Bay quite often. Always enjoyed that station.

[PRR]

....WERU out of Blue Hill...

If I cut a mile of trees, I could see WERU's tower.

[bmccowan]

If I cut a mile of trees

Seems like a lot of work.

[ShoemanGB]

WERU is where I first heard Lucinda Williams Car wheels on a gravel road when it was a new release, on my weekly drive to service the paper mill in Bucksport. 
 We have an off grid family camp way down east here, between Eastport and Lubec, and on Saturday nights we sometimes listen to Randy Bachman's radio show out of Canada by firelight. No tv for us when there.  Definitely a brief throwback to the days when radio was king of the entertainment world.  It's fun.

[bmccowan]

My Dad used to service the Bucksport Mill - and all the others in Maine. He was with Albany (Felt) International. ERU has great taste in music IMO. That station caused me to buy a lot of CDs, as has Sarah Willis' show on Maine Public.

[PRR]

...didn't get any clear signal. It may be because there is no AM stations anymore? ...

The 2024 Ford Mustang is the next car to lose AM radio

Ford reverses plan to ditch AM radio after congressional attention

Congress wants AM radio in all new cars—trade groups say that’s a mistake

AM transmitters exist. Car makers want to ditch AM radio.

The End of Terrestrial Radio? Electric Cars and AM Radio

Of course cellphones generally skip AM (too small for an AM antenna... or so they imply).

[AlNewman]

Most am stations will broadcast over the internet.  Still, I'm not sure we should lose that frequency that's been around since time forgotten because manufacturers want to be lazy.  Plus, I personally don't want to be dependent on the internet.

There's something to be said for public mass media.  Good or bad.

[Platefire]

AM Radio was certainly king for many a year. When you had good powerful stations and could get a good signal back in the day, sounded fine to me!

I just recalled a radio program I use to truly enjoy----"Car Talk" on public Radio. It was two brothers that called themselves,"Click and Clack" and were actually two professional mechanics that would take call ins from people with a car problem and they would listen to the symptoms and diagnose the proper fix over the air. They claimed the best car you could buy was a Valvo. Has any of you ever listened to that? We need to start a radio program from Hoffman Forum where people could call in their amp problems and diagnose them on the air PRR and sluckey could call themselves "Screech and Humm"

[PRR]

..."Car Talk" ...."Click and Clack"....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_Talk
https://www.cartalk.com/

[bmccowan]

We often listened to Car Talk. The best episode we ever heard was when they had Martha Stewart on as a guest: "How do you clean a car after Racoons have been living in it."
https://www.npr.org/2013/03/23/175137343/-1312-when-martha-met-click-clack

[acheld]

Car Talk -- best radio show ever!   I listened to it regularly for the two decades it aired, and it had me laughing when not much else seemed to.

I miss those guys . . .

[ShoemanGB]

The tappet brothers if I recall.  Very funny and also educational.  They had a print version, much abbreviated. It used to run here in the local paper.  PRR might remember that in the BDN.

[bmccowan]

It's still out there in the BDN and I imagine several other surviving newspapers.
The last years of the radio show it was touching how the one brother helped the other cope with Alzheimer's.

[Platefire]

Well I decided I would hit several local antique shops today to sell my radio. So the first one I went to we made a deal and I sold it. I told the lady I buy old tube reel to reels and hi-fi's to make guitar amps out of but on this one I thought was to good to part out. So when I was walking out she handed me an old broken down radio and said "For Parts" I haven't looked close at it but pretty sure it's AC/DC one