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A portable radio thread

Tony L

Administrator
In part to emphasise that whilst headphones are clearly the ‘big ticket’ item this room’s scope encompasses all portable audio, so here’s a thread about radios! Everyone likes a nice radio:

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Here’s mine, a mid-80s Roberts R25. Just a classic simple MW/LW/FM radio. Nothing fancy, but very nicely made and pretty easy to service. I’ve also got a rather tatty later-era Roberts Revival in the bathroom which actually gets a lot more use (I want to keep the R25 in this lovely pretty much as-new condition and the bathroom gets too much sun and humidity). Thankfully you can still buy the big square batteries and they last for ages. They are both decent sounding radios.

I never got ‘fancy’ with radios as I’ve always had a proper hi-fi and that sucked all my money. A portable radio was just something for the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom or whatever, so I never ended up with a ghetto-blaster, multi-band world-receiver or anything despite always liking them as their own genre.

Very happy to host anything that can be categorised as portable audio in this room, so everything from my humble R25 mono radio through to beautiful high-end Nagra open reel recorders belong here along with all the headphones as far as I’m concerned. My HMV 102 portable wind-up 78 gramophone does too.

Anyway, anyone got any interesting radios?
 
I grew up with those in the house - my parents got them free for the blind (still do but that model any longer) about once per decade or so. I remember both the 60s - 80s models with the PP9 battery, the wooden base with the finger hole and the plastic swivel thing :) I never saw a valve model though from the 50s, although they had a 50s fridge for a long time (as copied by SMEG et al).

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British Wireless For The Blind Charity
 
Fond memories of my Grundig Yachtboy radio. That was a real classic. Sadly got messed up by other persons in the household..
 
Fond memories of my Grundig Yachtboy radio.

My grandparents had one of those back in the ‘70s, the black and silver variant. A lovely radio. I used to love listening to all the random stuff on the short wave etc as a little kid.
 
I grew up with those in the house - my parents got them free for the blind (still do but that model any longer) about once per decade or so. I remember both the 60s - 80s models with the PP9 battery, the wooden base with the finger hole and the plastic swivel thing :) I never saw a valve model though from the 50s, although they had a 50s fridge for a long time (as copied by SMEG et al).

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When I was growing up my parents always had a red Roberts R300 permanently tuned to R4. It slowly fell to bits until they inherited an almost identical one in the same colour when my Grandad passed away. Great things. I wonder what happened to them.
 
I was absolutely mad about radios as a kid.
Probably have a couple of dozen portables around the place including a valve one (Ever Ready Sky Casket)
 
I was absolutely mad about radios as a kid.
Probably have a couple of dozen portables around the place including a valve one (Ever Ready Sky Casket)
I had an EverReady Sky Baby but its dual voltage battery died many years before I got it. From memory it was 110v/9v or something like that. It was a cute little thing in a cream and red colour scheme.
 
I mentioned in another thread that I had a B&O radio in the late 60s. This was fairly conventional in design with round knobs. Later I got the more modern radio in B&O’s then current ‘slide rule’ stile with sliding cursor style controls. It was a very sharp, rectangular shape and the plastic side panels were removable and available in different colours. It looked good and sounded good too.
 
^^ You pre-empted me...

I had an EverReady Sky Baby but its dual voltage battery died many years before I got it. From memory it was 110v/9v or something like that. It was a cute little thing in a cream and red colour scheme.

Twas a 90 volt DC dry battery, high tension supply, and a 1.5 or 4.5 volt DC dry battery, low tension supply for the valves filament heaters.
 
Here's my Sony ICF-703L, which is what I've listened to first thing in the morning and last thing at night since buying it in the mid-80s (I think);



It just does its thing without creating a fuss, and I can listen to it for hours without thinking about sound quality or anything like that.
 
Buttonfest radio - sounds good though....

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I did last after one of these, but good sense prevailed, and I bought a cheaper Grundig instead. I haven't listened to Short Wave for a long while, but from what I've read it is not as busy as it was back in the day.
 
I'm a fan of internet radio and currently have this https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08NJGZ5M8/?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Excellent, but sadly not available after Amazon sold out. Had a Roberts internet radio before that. And sadly internet radios seem less popular in recent years. No doubt another casualty of the bluetooth/smart speaker/mobile phone takeover.

I also still have a mint Sony SW100. Was too nice to use and risk damage! For me, the coolest radio ever made. The size of a cassette.

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The SW100 was an excellent Sony radio but the battery door was a delicate item and easily broke the tabs off or the case, easily fixed by the use of a cable tie round the case though. Had two of them over the years but both eventually went to the graveyard in the sky, took mine to Zimbabwe/Turkey and India for near enough 24 months and it performed without fail but stupidly left it out on a table in my back garden in the rain. I would’ve bought another one but by 2005 they were rare as hens teeth and priced accordingly out of reach.
 
Yes, prices went nuts. Seem to around £400-ish according to a brief look on eBay. Some joker is trying for £995. :eek: And that is for the mark 1 which has the ribbon cable design fault. There's very little on shortwave these days so not much point in having a shortwave radio now. The Sony 7600GR was my most used radio before the internet took over. That had fabulous build quality (unlike the tiny and rather delicate SW100 and SW07).
 
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There's a 2001D for sale locally, I'm a bit tempted.
@Tony L maybe rename the section portable audio? I for one would put a walkman or boombox in the classic or audio section before the headphone section.
 
@Tony L maybe rename the section portable audio? I for one would put a walkman or boombox in the classic or audio section before the headphone section.

I’ve changed the strap line slightly, now includes ‘radios’ and is hopefully clearer. I want to keep headphones as the main title as it is significant from a search engine perspective given that is arguably the major area in audio at present, but hopefully it will grab a load of other things e.g. portable DACS, ghetto-blasters, Sound Burgers, Nagra and Uher open reels, CD & tape Walkman, Dansettes, mics, etc etc. All most welcome! I’ve shifted my long Walkman Pro thread in from classic.
 


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