Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Pete Eaton, who writes:
This has nothing to do with QRP or SWL but it’s a real kick to watch!
I really like the Bow Ties 🙂
The SWLing Post
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This is how they made the Regency TR-1,the first transistor radio, in 1955:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKln6zTy4C8&feature=youtu.be
Here is an interview with one of the Regency engineers:
https://ethw.org/Oral-History:Richard_Koch
My grandmother won a TR-1 and leather carry case in 1956 in a contest…
it played for about 3 weeks then died.
It was scrapped for parts several years later when I was an aspiring novice…
today it would bring 700-800 dollars on Ebay.
Oh the humanity!
Such quality control! My late uncle worked at RCA in New Jersey during this era. Do you think the modern day electronics manufacturers in China are doing research and QC like this?
What is amusing is that in reality. TV sets from this period were rubbish. people tend to look at the past with rose coloured glasses. Back in the 50s and 60s. The rate of sets that had to be looked at by technicians was extremely high. Starting in the late 70s and through the 70s. Television manufactures such as RCA, Westinghouse and others started losing market share when SONY and Panasonic entered the market. In the mid to late 70s most of the US television manufactures were years behind SONY and Panasonic, The other part of the problem for the US television manufactures was the didn’t really develop anything new as they were stuck doing only one type of system and they only had a couple of overseas markets like Canada and Mexico. SONY and Panasonic were making NTSC which was terrible, PAL and SECAM which were far superior. One of the same reasons why the UK television manufactures also faded.