Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Gary Wise (W4EEY), who shares the following guest post:
It’s funny how much we radio folks share in common. The recent posts on Arvin radios made me smile because I have an Arvin radio too. An Arvin transistor was my very first radio, and here she is:
This is the Arvin Model 61R35 in Ice Blue (it also came in black). My parents bought it for me in roughly 1962 or 63. It was the first radio that was mine (though we did have an older Crosley tabletop in the living room of our house in Midland, Michigan that we all used). Mine had seven Germanium (!) transistors (as silicon transistors were not yet in wide production in the early 60s).
And Made in America! Arvin was an Indiana company as I recall.
It used a Round 9V battery. They were hard to find even back then, and I expect impossible to find today.
I used to love to put my fingers on the PC board while the radio was on and listen to the buzzes and noise that I could create. Unfortunately, I think this is what killed the radio and required my folks to mail it off to the big city (Flint, Michigan) to have it repaired. No one in my “little” town could fix solid state radios back then.
I was fortunate not to lose this radio in my many moves throughout the years. I display in proudly in my ham shack.
Thanks for the memories!
73,
Gary
W4EEY
And thank you for sharing your memories and the great photos of your Arvin Model 61R35, Gary! What a cute little radio–I’m glad you’ve taken care of it all of these years.
I’ve always had an affinity for pocket transistor radios.
Hi there, I thought I would share some Brazilian shortwave catches with you, obtained using my Sony ICF-2001D receiver and 200 metre experimental longwire. The first is Radio Bandeirantes, Sao Paolo on 9645.4 kHz. This is a station that I’ve only heard once or twice previously, but was received with excellent signal clarity and strength recently, using my deployable longwire antenna. I would rate this station as moderately difficult to receive with reasonable discernibility. The second is Radio Novo Tempo from Campo Grande, on 4894.9 kHz. This station I would rate as difficult to hear with discernible audio. The key is always signal-to-noise, thus moving yourself out of the ubiquitous blanket of QRM most modern environments endure will usually achieve this and of course coupled with sufficient space outdoors to erect a larger antenna will hopefully also improve signal strength. My final video on this post is Radio Nacional Brazilia on 6180 kHz. I would regard this station as quite easy to hear well; their effective TX power towards Europe is around 2 MW, however, outdoors, this station can literally boom in, with what might be perceived as local-AM signal strength. I hope you enjoy watching the videos and seeing/ hearing what’s possible with a modest set-up. As for the Sony ICF-2001D? Well the design is more than 30 years old, but in my opinion at least, still one of the very best portable shortwave receivers ever manufactured. Thanks and 73.
