Childhood memories of radios.

[Graham G3ZVT]

Lovely idea for a thread Crackle.

Kitchen radios (without doubt the most used location in the house)
The first radio I remember was a well proportioned black Bakelite table set with LW/MW. something like this (it may have had four knobs, the knobs as I remember were quite small.

That was replaced with a transistor set which may well have been mains/battery, but it was stolen in a break-in and I don't remember what it looked like.

My dad replaced it with an Ever Ready Sky Master, which I didn't like the look of because it didn't have a "proper" slide-rule tuning scale, but one Sunday morning I picked up two locals nattering away on Topband, which started a journey in that direction for me.

Sitting room radio
An HMV console radiogram. I can remember it quite well but can't identify it
Similar style to the HMV1608, but without the presets, also similar to the HMV1616a with a single tuning cursor.
There was a deeply recessed knob at the RHS for L-M-G switching.
It complimented its big brother in the corner, an HMV1805 television.
The radiogram was moved upstairs to my parents bedroom at some point.

We then had the inevitable "Stereogram" our first foray into FM (but not stereo) It was a Marconiphone with a recess for your LP collection or in our case my dad's Marconiphone reel to reel recorder so I could tape the Alan Freeman show.

That was replaced with a wonder of polyurethane refinishing, in the guise of the Rigonda Stereo. This one had Short Waves.Not very sensitive, however, one summer's day in 1967 I was tuning around 27Mc/s and received 23 channels of AM mayhem from across the Atlantic They all were teenagers talking to people they knew, from their school, using the kind of language I had never heard on a radio before, and seemed unaware that their signals were even getting out of their town.


First personal transistor portable
A black Emerson 888 Vanguard. It belonged to my Uncle but I was allowed to have it at boarding school for a while. I remember listening to Cliff "The Young Ones" in the playground aged 7 in 1961. That would have neen an expensive piece of kit to entrust to one as young as me.

[martin.m]

Our family radio was an Ekco A144. In the early 1960s, before Radio One or the Pirate stations, I used to listen to pop music from Radio Luxembourg on 208 metres. This was only possible after dark and the signal would fade and then return every few minutes. It was a treat to listen to Alan Freeman's "Pick of the Pops" on the Light programme every Sunday afternoon. The show was followed by "Sing something simple" which my parents enjoyed listening to. There were many more MW and SW stations in those days and very little electrical interference, apart from the whistles on Long Wave caused by TV line timebases. I still have the radio and, after retiring last year, I finally had the time to get it all working again. This was the subject of a thread last May. Happy memories.

[hamid_1]

For me, the first radio I heard was my Mum's Hacker RP17 Mini-Herald transistor portable, with its rather dowdy grey and black Rexine-covered cabinet. This was the only radio in the house. We had no television at home until I was about 5 years old, so I grew up exclusively listening to the Hacker radio, always tuned to Radio 3 or 4. As well as all the programmes my Mum listened to, like Woman's Hour, The World At One and The Archers, I can still remember sitting down with her, hearing "Listen With Mother" and its opening line, "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin."

The first radio of my own was an ELFtone Meridian AM/FM pocket radio, bought in 1979, cost £10.74 including VAT. (I still have it somewhere.) I normally only listened to Radio 1 on 1089 AM but the FM band was interesting as it covered the full range 88-108MHz. This meant emergency services could be received - back then, they used the upper part of the FM band.

My grandfather had a Grundig 3028 '3D Sound' valve radio with sound quality that was streets ahead of my pocket Elftone transistor radio. I wanted a valve radio, but it was a number of years before I got hold of a valve radio that actually worked - a Philips 411A with short wave, which opened up another load of interesting new stations. It was the Cold War, and short wave stations like Radio Moscow were broadcasting different points of view from those in the West. Short wave radio brought in stations from all over the world, each with their own perspective, as well as mysterious amateur CW and RTTY transmissions. This got me even more interested in radio. Sadly these days there is not much on short wave to attract young people.

[Andrew2]

I've just remembered we had a Bush DAC90 (an A I think) in about 1960/61. It used to fascinate me how reception improved when I put my hand on the side of the cabinet. I had to find out why, so off came the back and there was the disc-like frame aerial.
In the mid 60's there was also a red Invicta (I think) portable transistor. It used AFxxx series transistors and pulled in Radio Caroline a treat. I've never been able to find this one anywhere on the net.

[rontech]

My parents were avid radio listeners. My earliest memories from say late 1943 onwards was wartime Tommy Handley "ITMA" programmes; these were almost a precursor to the Goon Show complete with funny voices, bizzare characters an two music slots. Later I was into Paul Temple detective mysteries and also, Dick Barton Special Agent, a blood and thunder spy / crime drama which had a 15min slot each weekday evening about 6 O' Clock. Each episode ended on a cliff hanger.

I was appalled when the BBC scrapped it in 1951! The programme slot was occupied by The Archers which I expect is still going.

['LIVEWIRE?']

I, too, used to listen to Short Wave, though not till the early 60s-didn't have a radio with SW before then, and, besides the stations already mentioned, listened to the likes of HCJB (Quito, Ecuador), TWR (Monaco & Bonaire), R. Australia, R. Canada, etc., plus amateur transmissions, including at least one amateur 'pirate' on a frequency around 45M (6.6Mhz), who had the RSGB logo on his QSL Card. All this on one of two different radios I built from PW designs, the first a two valve TRF called the 'Denette', and the second a Transistor Superhet with a 1.6Mhz I.F., which used plug-in Denco Coils. In both cases only an indoor aerial in my ground floor flat was ever used. Between the two mentioned above, I built a SW converter which I connected to a 'Westminster' (Perdio) Portable Radio, which also worked well.

[TALKINGWITHPYE]

The family radio in our house was a Bush DAC11 which gave me lots of pleasure and with a decent 8" celestion speaker a good sound.

[Mr Moose]

Hello,
To answer Railwayman3's question, his radio could be the GEC 4066 which is the battery version of the GEC 4070 shewn here https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/gec_bc4070.html.
( I can't find a good picture of the 4066 but it appears to have a similar cabinet but without the magic eye)
Yours Richard

[Terry_VK5TM]

The only radio from my (much) younger days at home I have a picture of in my head was a rather large, white, transistorised portable.

I know it dated from the 60's, as we brought it out from England with us when we emigrated to New Zealand in 1965.

Also a vague recollection of a mid size wooden cabineted radio that used to sit on the cupboard next to the fireplace at my grandparents house, possibly an EKCO.

[kevinb]

Growing up in the 50's we had an old HMV push button in the kitchen and a "Falcon" radiogram with a BSR Deck in our lounge, my first radio was a KB Rhapsody mains battey, then a Murphy B485 transistor c 1961 which cost me £23gns by this time I was a Radio & TV apprentice engineer.
I still have a Rhapsody & a B485 (not the originals)

[Viewmaster]

Taking my father's wireless accumulator down to the oil shop each week to get it recharged.
And getting him a packet of five Woodbines for 2d.

[sexton_mallard]

Growing up in the 1970s I recall my grandparents owned a Falcon transistorised stereogram, the exact model of which I have never identified. I recall it had a BSR autochanger deck in dark and light grey and burgundy coloured dial/control panel with ivory knobs with brass brights and vertically slotted speakers, similar to the example pictured below. The attached picture shows what it could be but i have no idea of the model number. My grandparents also had a Fidelity Rad 12 portable transistor radio. I remember listening to the news updates from the Montreal Olympics in 1976 on it.

[electronicskip]

I remember being given our old Kolster Brandes FB10 Toaster radio for my bedroom when I was young and listening to Radio Luxembourg at night time when I should have been sleeping.

I did wonder at the time if the radio was faulty as the station did fade in and out as it did then.
Happy days.(or nights)

['LIVEWIRE?']

Like Albert (Viewmaster), I remember taking the spare accumulator to the local garage to get it recharged in the 1950s & 60s. My Father, whose name coincidentally was also Albert, also smoked Woodbines, but they were a bit more than 2d for 5 by then! 'electronicskip', like most of us I used to listen to '208', plus AFN and Irish Radio.

[LeakyGrid]

My parents owned this Marconiphone 235 through much of my childhood in the 1930s and 40s, and possibly beyond. It was a 2-band trf set with a mains-energised loudspeaker. The knob on the left is the reaction control.

I remember that my sisters were very unhappy when they found that they could not listen to Radio Luxembourg, while most of their friends could (their parents presumably had superhets).

Very much later in life I retained vague memories of this set, and it was correctly identified by G8KBG Tony of this parish after I had posted a description - thanks Tony.

Chip1968 provided corroborative evidence - "It has a simulated mother of pearl dial and a circle of light travels it in an arc for tuning".

Roger

[PaulR]

A McMichael 135 which sat across one alcove in the dining room (the front room was only used very occasionally). My Grandmother bought it for my grandfather when he retired in 1938 so it must have been somewhat NOS then. It fed a speaker in the kitchen. I remember Uncle Mac on a Saturday morning presenting Children's Favourites. They seemed to play the same records very regularly and I was convinced that they were the only records that the BBC owned. There was also Listen With Mother at a quarter to two. "Are you sitting comfortably? Then Daphne Oxenford will read you a story"

In the other alcove was an English Electric 17 inch console TV which my parents bought in 1954

[mark_in_manc]

This thread had me googling for the radio I remember around at home, and I found it - here it is

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/pye_ra...rder_9005.html

I just about remember us buying this - it was the first and only tape player in our lives or those of the rest of the family I think, until Dad got one in a car a bit later (and we travelled around to cheap Bach and Beethoven compilations and the one I liked, Scheherazade). There's probably a 'Mark's first day at school' recording somewhere around at Mum and Dad's .

My strongest memory of it is sitting for days in a tent in the rain in Wales one summer (78?) listening to Barry Manilow's 'Copacabana' on heavy Radio 2 rotation. In our family lore it is the 'sitting in the tent in the rain' song. We might have owned a cassette or two, but there was no way we were going to be using them _on batteries_ - what do you think we are, made of money?

[Sideband]

The very first radio I remember was a Bush...either a DAC90 or DAC90A. I would only have been a few years old and my mother would tune in to 'Listen With Mother'. I also vaguely remember a favourite program of hers.....'Andy McFerson at the Organ'. In the early 60's right through to the 70's we had a Ferguson 383A with FM. My brother put a VHF aerial up and also fitted a record socket to the radio so that we could record 'Pick of the Pops' with Alan Freeman. That was our main set for many years and gave sterling service. We also used to receive good signals from the two main 'pirate' stations Radio Caroline and Radio London on that set.

['LIVEWIRE?']

With respect, sideband, it was 'Sandy Macpherson at the organ (Sunday Mornings, IIRC. There was also 'Semprini Serenade' (Old ones, New ones, etc.).

[The Philpott]

Heavy black LW/MW/SW Ferranti with a cream grill which only required occasional attention. I remember searching all the bands and finding the sinister dot-dot-dot-dash signal that repeatedly indicated that we were not at war with anyone- yet. The amount of crossover and continental interference on this wireless in the early summer evenings vexed me as a kid. I have seen a picture of this 'set in an online wireless museum recently so it is still extant.

Dave