Radio Stuff

Borg Lifetime Radio

The Borg Lifetime by Borg-Johnson Electronics of New York City (‘pacing a centurty of electronics’ – whatever that means!) is a classic rip off of the relatively modern era.  This radio, seemingly from 1958 is a very simple, very plain Jane germanium diode radio.  It was marketed as a scientific wonder (‘scientists have done away with batteries and tubes’ – Marconi?) and this special model (“…but they have done away with the dial also’) had no dial (Woo Hoo!).  ‘The reason…Because laboratory tests have proven that with the audio-phonic fine tuner, rather than merely settle for the ‘so-so’ reception that you were forced to accept on radios of this size up ’til now.”

“Now, in 1959 when we will include this special Fine Tuner on all of our portable radios we will be forced to charge $2 more per radio for this wonderful extra.”  The ‘audio-phonic Fine Tuner’ is nothing more than a broadcast band ferrite bar tuning coil with a screw adjustment.  I guess that is fine tuning of a sort which is especially useful on a highly selective and sensitive piece of receiver science if there ever was one!

Borg-Johnson Radio & Box

The warranty states that you need to include the enclosed serial number with all correspondence.  It further notes that the serial number is stamped on the outside of the shipping carton.  As most people immediately tossed the plain cardboard carton, they were quickly off the hook.  The owner of this radio DID save the carton.  There is no sign of a serial number anywhere.  Ouch!  No warranty.   You can enlarge the thumbnail pictures below to clearly read the letter and warranty.  They are entertaining!

There was a short article chiding this company in Consumer Reports or Consumer Digest.  I do have it but don’t know where.  More importantly, there is a copy of a complaint issued by the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) on line.   Ads for this radio appeared in (and over) the Washington Daily News, the New York Herald Tribune and The Wall Street Journal and a strip of film which appeared on television in Washington over WTTG TV in Washington, D.C.  This radios carton is addressed to a person in Pikesville, MD.   They likely read about this radio or saw it on TV.  This was pretty aggressive advertising for a crystal radio!  The USPS report “concluded that the Respondent is operating a scheme through the United States mails for the obtaining of money by false and fraudulent representations and that an appropriate order will be issued in accordance with 39 U.S. Code 259 and 732.”  What those penalties were, I don’t know.  No names of the companies officers or the one employee that was at the small New York office are noted.

(Click on any thumbnail for a much larger view!)

1952 RCA Prototype Transistor Radio

This is a very interesting RCA prototype transistor radio built by RCA in 1952.  That was at least  a full two years before the collaboration between Texas Instruments and I.D.E.A, Regency Electronics which brought forth the TR-1 using Texas Instruments (TI) transistors on November, 1954¹.  The Regency TR-1 was, of course, the worlds first production transistor radio that was marketed to the public.  RCA, Philco, Sylvania, and Emerson, amongst other major manufacturers were contacted by TI before the Regency deal was struck.  None of these companies was interested².  All did become early contenders within a few months to a year or so but all passed on being the first.  But we digress! 

Seemingly, RCA did understand the power of the transistor and its ability to lure young. talented engineers into the RCA web.  Per an ebay auction that I stumbled upon in December 2009, RCA designed and built at least a few of these radios for a symposium with a strong secondary eye on using them to recruiting new engineers.  There is a passing reference to this radio in a Wikipedia article about the transistor radio³.

Per the ebay auction:  ‘I inherited this radio from my grandfather Les Flory, one of RCA’s top engineers during the 50s.  It was built at RCA laboratories in 1952 to demonstrate applications of transistors at a symposium that fall.  A note inside the radio indicates that Ed Herold carried this radio to Europe.  These trips to Europe were to recruit engineering graduates to come work at RCA.  Herold built RCA’s first functioning transistor.

The second picture shows Loy Barton holding the radio, or one similar to it.  This one is labeled as serial number 5.  In the center of the picture is Charles Mueller, a key player in RCA transistor development and a close personal friend of my grandfather.  On the left is Jacques Pankove.

(This is) a 9-transistor radio, it used TA-153 and SX-160 transistors.‘

Unfortunately, I did not copy the ebay user at the time, so I don’t know how to contact him.  The radio did sell for a very healthy sum that was far from any budget that I have as would be expected.  I won’t quote numbers in deference to the buyer who I also don’t know.  If  I am stepping on any toes already, let me know and I will edit or remove this post.

Indeed RCA Victor did become an early player in the transistor radio business.   Their first model was the 7-BT-9J ‘Transistor Six’ which was introduced nearly a year after the Regency TR-1 in October 1955 nearly simultaneously with the 7-BT-10, a large 7 transistor leather covered set.  This is a very attractive radio and is probably the most nicest and most collectable transistor radio that RCA ever made.  It was probably issued a bit too prematurely and there may have been some problems with the design.  Indeed, it seems to use TI transistors for RF applications as RCA’s own RF transistors weren’t ready until March 1956.  A picture of this radio and one of RCA’s CEO David Sarnoff holding one from Bob McGarrah’s Virtual Transistor Museum & History Web Site are shown below.  His page is also listed under ‘Transistor Radios’ here in the VR links directory.  Information in this paragraph is footnoted as number 4 below and is largely adapted from Mr. McGarrah’s web site.

As a sidebar, while preparing the Vintage Radio (VR) links directory, I ran across an interesting picture of a young lady building one of these radios or, a very similar one at RCA.  That picture is in the gallery below.

References:

1 – Steve Reyer’s 1954-2004 – The TR-1’s Golden Anniversary

2 – Don Pies Regency TR-1 Transistor Radio History (and others)

3 – Wikipedia: Transistor Radios

4 – Bob McGarrah’s Virtual Transistor Museum & History Website

Stromberg-Carlson 515-M AM-FM Console

While on vacation last week (that was a short week!), I ran across exactly one interesting old radio while checking out several antique malls.  And this radio is interesting!  It is a 17 tube 1940 AM-FM Stromberg-Carlson model 515-M.  This radio covers the AM band from 540-1700 kc, SW from 5.8-18 mc, and the then new ‘old’ FM band of 42-50 mc.  As a pre-war model, it certainly must be one of the earlier production radios with the FM band.  Stromberg-Carlson was located in Rochester, New York.

Here are some additional pictures of this unusual radio: