Tag Archives: Sony

The Sony ICF-SW800: A Most Unusual Sony Radio

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bill Hemphill (WD9EQD), who shares the following guest post:

A Most Unusual Sony Radio

By Bill Hemphill WD9EQD

Over the years, I have owned many of the various Sony shortwave radios. From analog to digital, I would buy the latest and sell my current radio. For the past few years, I have been using mainly Tecsun radios and didn’t own any Sony radios anymore. This changed last year. I got the urge to acquire a few of the Sony’s that I remember so fondly. Over several months I bought off eBay four ICF-2010 (one of which works), two ICF-SW100 (one of which works), four ICF-SW1 (none of which works). After spending way too much money just to acquire two working Sony radios, I started realizing that any Sony radio was probably going to need re-capping – a chore which I am not skilled at. I could have saved money by just paying the high price for a radio that had already been completely re-capped and working.

During the many hours spent watching eBay, I would occasionally come across a Sony radio that I was not familiar with – the Sony ICF-SW800. This is a very unusual radio in that it has only two bands – FM and SW. And the SW band only covers 3.7 to 17.9 MHz It also has these small credit card size pre-programmed memory cards. I ended up buying a couple of the radios just to learn what was going on with the memory cards.

The radio is very plain and simple. Dull black plastic, telescoping antenna, nice flip out tilt stand on the back, very small LCD display that shows time when off or in stand-by and band (FM or SW), frequency and card Preset memory number when card is inserted. Following are photos of front of radio, without and with card inserted:

Removing the battery cover reveals a storage area for the cards when not in use:

The cards are slid into the slot on the right of the radio. There is a plastic cover over the keyboard. This cover is touch sensitive. The plastic has imbedded in it small dots which can detect which part of the screen is being touched. Without a card inserted, you can select the band (SW EXEC or FM EXEC) and directly enter a frequency using the 0-9 keypad. Or you can use the manual +/- tune keys.

I had originally thought that the memory cards must be storing the memories in circuitry within the cards. When I got the first radio and looked at the cards I was really surprised to see that they were just cardboard cards – no circuity. So how was the radio knowing which card was inserted and what was stored in the memory.

The radio comes with four double side cards. Three of the cards are for the memories while the fourth is a card used to set the clock. Following are photos of the “L” series cards:

As you can see some cards are pre-programmed for Radio Stations and some are Free Memories for you to program your own station. But since the memories are NOT stored on the cards, how does the radio know which card is inserted and which memory on the card is selected?

Each card has one or two white tabs on the left of the card. There are three possible tab locations. A review of the service manual and the wiring diagram shows that the locations of these tabs make up a binary code for 1 to 7. (only 7 is needed since the clock card is single sided while the other three cards are double sided) The clock card has all three white tabs and is thus seven (Tab 1 = 1, Tab 2 = 2 and tab 3 =4 for 1+2+4 = 7). Then each of the other cards are 1 thru 6 depending on the tab locations. The radio has infrared leds along with sensors. By shining a LED light onto the card, the radio can sense which card is inserted and then reference the correct ten memory locations in the storage..

The memories are stored in an EEPROM chip soldered into the radio. Depending on where the radio was purchased, a different set of memories would be pre-programmed into the chip in the radio. An associated set of memory cards would be provided with the radio. There were at least the following different set of memories manufactured with associated card sets as follows:

Area 5/AE7 Austria:

(Card Series “I”)
- Card 1: Austrian Radio 1/Austrian Radio 2
- Card 2: Omnibus 1/Omnibus 2
- Card 3: Free Memories 1/Free Memories 2

Area 3/AE7 Swiss:

Card 1: Omnibus 1/Omnibus 2
Card 2: Omnibus 3/Free Memories 1
Card 3: Free Memories 2/Free Memories 3

Area AE6 Germany:

(Card Series “A”)
- Card 1: Deutsche Welle/Omnibus 1
- Card 2: Omnibus 2/Free Memories 1
- Card 3: Free Memories 2/Free Memories 3

Area 2/AE7: Scandinavia:

Card 1: Danmarks Radio/Norsk Rikskringkasting
Card 2: Sveriges Radio/ Yleis Radio
Card 3: BBC/Free Memories

Area 6/AE7 Portugal:

Area 7/AE7 Europe:

(Card Series “N”)
- Card 1: BBC/VOA
- Card 2: Free Memories 1/Free Memories 2
- Card 3: Free Memories 3/Free Memories 4

Area 7/AE7 International Sales Division in Europe:

Card 1: BBC/Omnibus FM
Card 2: Free Memories
Card 3: BBC/Omnibus SW

Area US United States:

(Card Series “L”)
- Card 1: Deutsche Welle/Radio Moscow
- Card 2: Voice of America 1/Voice of America 2
- Card 3: BBC/Free Memories

Area UK United Knigdom:

(Card Series “B”)
- Card 1: BBC (FM)/Omnibus (FM)
- Card 2: BBC World Service/Omnibus (SW)
- Card 3: Free Memories 1/Free Memories 2

It should be noted that even though a memory is preprogrammed (in the chip), you could re-program the memory using the “WRITE” feature on the card. Most of the cards just show memory location 0-9 with no indication of the frequency. Some cards do indicate the radio station but not the frequency. For example, Card Series “A”, Deutsche Welle has DW 0 thru DW 9 on the card:

In the packing material that came with my US version, there is a small fold out piece of paper that lists the Memory Presets for each card along with the preset frequency, broadcast time and coverage area:

There is no way to know from the outside of the radio which memory chip was pre-programmed at the factory. The model number does not differentiate between the regions. If the back cover of the radio is removed, then there is a printed sticker on the circuit board denoting which region the radio is for.

For example, one of my radios has a sticker with “E” on it to denote that it for the Europe market:

At this point, Sony was trying to market to people who just wanted to listen to their favorite station, be it FM or SW. Thus a simple to use. pre-programed radio. Never mind the fact that radio stations may change frequencies, or even disappear entirely. At least the ICF-SW800 allowed the user to re-program all the memories.

Sony also made two other radios that used the cards for memory.

The first was the ICR-SW700. This was a two band receiver covering MW and SW.

The second radio was the ICF-M500 which was made for the Japanese market. This radio was FM/AM two band radio:

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Video: Vintage SONY Japan Manufacturing Plants

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dave Zantow, who writes:

[Check out this] YouTube video :

Vintage SONY JAPAN Manufacturing Plants: TRINITRON TV, Video Recorder, late 1960-1970s

https://youtu.be/OIZ8pYL1B0M

Click here to view on YouTube.

This very interesting near 12 minute video shows Sony manufacturing plants.

At 2:10 you will see the CRF-150 / 160’s being manufactured.

Thank you so much for sharing this, Dave! This is chock-full of Sony nostalgia!

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eBay Find: A “near mint” Sony ICF-6000W PSB/FM/AM band receiver

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who shares a link to this Sony ICF-6000W he found on eBay:

The seller notes that the condition is “near mint” and the radio works perfectly both electronically and mechanically.

I absolutely love the design of this radio. When this was being produced (assuming sometime in the 1980s), Sony and Panasonic’s aesthetic smacked of utility, simplicity, and had a near military-grade feel. Ever function had a switch or knob.

Neither Dan nor I have ever seen this particular model before. If I had money to burn, I’d buy it in a heartbeat. Sony radios of this era tended to have stellar AM/MW performance. I’d love to see how large the ferrite antenna inside might be.

Note that even though this radio may work perfectly–it’s obviously been very well taken care of–you would need to mentally allot funds to have it re-capped at some point soon (Vlado could do this, I’m sure). You wouldn’t want a leaky cap to damage the board or other components inside. With radios pushing 40 years old, you must plan to replace the capacitors.

The price is $399 US with a modest shipping fee. The seller has stellar ratings and there’s a 30 day return window .

Click here to check out this Sony ICF-6000W on eBay.

If you own or have owned an ICF-6000W, we’d love to hear your thoughts about its performance! Please comment!

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Frank seeks guidance to repair his Sony AN-100E antenna

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Frank Sturzaker, who writes:

I am a new SW listener in the UK and am using an elderly Sony ICF SW100E picked up from selling website here in the UK fairly cheaply as a starter. It gets excellent reviews and seems to do what is required very well. A couple of weeks ago I also picked up a non-working Sony AN-100A external antenna at a charity / thrift store here in the UK. Cheap because not working.

The antenna section simply pulled out of the plastic case so I opened it up to have a poke about inside to try to solve the problem.

The antenna has been “ripped” from however it was mounted and has taken the thin metallic shaped piece / strip that somehow connects it to the circuit board and twisted it. I would guess that this has happened when trying to rotate the extended antenna when the extending sections had become too stiff to rotate – the pieces visible from outside the unit would not rotate inside the fixed section that sits in the unit.

Photos

1 – This is what I bought (although the antenna itself was in the correct place in the case):

2 – This is a close up of the base of the antenna when first bought:

3 – The two halves of the case with the antenna in place but about 0.5″ short of where it should be:

4 – A close up of the ‘loose pieces’ from inside the case and the bottom of the antenna – on the right are the pieces that were left on the antenna and on the left is the this metal piece that makes contact with the circuit board from the antenna

5 – Photo of antenna screw hole in rear of case from inside – the broken plastic is obvious round the screw hole:

6 – Photo of underside of circuit board showing the flat metallic area where the metallic strip from the antenna makes contact:

My questions about how it all fits together (as a starter) are:

- Is it ONLY the screw from the outside holds the whole antenna assembly in place or is it fixed with glue etc. when originally shipped? It looks to have been ONLY the screw because there are no traces of any adhesive etc.
- Should the antenna be able to rotate at its lowest section – like on the SW100E?
- Is the thin metal strip fixed to the circuit board by anything (solder??) or does it just ‘brush against’ the metallic surface?
- If I simply fix the antenna in place with epoxy or similar and run a connector between the bottom of the antenna and the circuit board will this work or are there other things that should be done or done in a specific way?

If someone can help then great. I repeat, I am not an electronics wizard – a master with a soldering wand I am not!!!

I could go at this like a bull at a gate but advice would be appreciated if there is any out there.

Post readers: if you can offer Frank some advice, please comment. Also, if you own an AN-100E and could share some internal photos, that might help him sort out how it was originally attached inside.

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Zack’s Sony ICF-S5W

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In reply to our Caveat Emptor post, many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Zack (N8FNR), who writes:

Attached is a copy of the Sony brochure for the ICF-S5W, a photo of the front and also the inside. This is a fairly old rare radio and some of your readers might enjoy the following.

I just wrote to Dr. Vlado asking if he can restore my fairly rare Sony ICF-S5W. Luckily I have three of them, two of which are dead so I could send all three and he could possibly cannibalize them to make one good working rig. I also have an original copy of the manual.

Few people have heard of the ICF-S5W as it was only made from 1980-81. One of the interesting features of the radio is that the Sony engineers put the 16cm ferrite antenna at an angle as they claimed it improved incoming signals.

Many reviewers at the time claimed that it was better than the GE Superradio of that vintage.

If you would like to know more about this radio below are a few reviews.

Thank you for sharing this, Zack. I was not familiar with the Sony ICF-S5W. I love the simplicity of this radio–and that nearly diagonal ferrite bar? I can’t think of any other radio I’ve seen with that!

And having spare “parts” radios is a solid plan if you have a particular radio you love and want to keep it in working order over the long term.

Any other ICF-S5W owners out there? Please comment!

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Would a Sony ICF-SW07 outperform a modern DSP radio?

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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, William, who asks:

Hello,

Firstly thank you for the blog – I have been reading occasionally for several years – it’s really interesting.

I live in the UK. I own (was given as a gift many years ago) a Sony ICF-SW07 and have been playing with it for the first time in the while.

I’m wondering if you remember it or ever used it, and if you can give me a rough idea if a new radio, such as the latest Tecsun, have considerably better sensitivity – for SW and MW – or not?

Many thanks.
William

Thank you for your question, William!

To my knowledge, I’ve only used a Sony ICF-SW07 once and it was from a hotel room at a radio convention, so not ideal for really gauging anything other than economics and superficial qualities. I do know that my friend held it in high regard. My inclination would be to say that the ICF-SW07 should hold its own and potentially even outperform many modern (late-model) portable receivers.

I do know this, William: in good condition, that ‘SW07 will fetch top dollar. I’m not sure I’d ever let go of it!

Sony ICF-SW07 owner comments and feedback?

SWLing Post readers: If you own the ‘SW07 and would like to share your thoughts with William, please comment!

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The Sony FX-300 Jackal: A Holy Grail technological marvel of the late 70s

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I’m a child of the 1970s and I’m glad I never knew about the Sony FX-300 “Jackal 300.” It would have been the ultimate unobtainable machine of my dreams…this, even despite the lack of shortwave.

I was browsing eBay yesterday when I saw one of these pop up in the search results.

Somehow, this radio made it past my RADAR. How? I’m guessing it’s because this model was primarily sold in Japan–?

The FX-300 sports:

A mini CRT television screen (to watch Voyagers!, Space 1999, G-Force, and Ultraman)
Precision analog tuning
Top-Mounted cassette player/recorder
AM/FM reception
Built-in speaker
Earphone/Mic external ports
And let’s face it: a killer design that smacks of the Apollo era

Other than the Panny RF-2200, I’m not sure if a radio could possibly satisfy more of my design cravings. Here are a few images I’ve unashamedly swiped from eBay:

What a Holy Grail machine, indeed! I love the tactile mechanical switches, analog dials, speaker grills, selection switches, and even (especially) the metal stand off bar at the top to protect those brilliant cassette controls.

I’m very curious if any SWLing Post readers have ever owned (or still own) a Sony FX-300. (Kei Niigata, I’ll be terribly disappointed if I learn you’ve never owned one!)

Please comment!

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