I love being an influencer. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Sokol-RP-210-210-Russian-Portable-Radio-Tested-And-Working/293594873390?hash=item445b9e3e2e:g:3eAAAOSw8dVez3CS
Many major-market AM stations are now using Modulation Dependent Carrier Level (MDCL) which reduces the transmitter power during pauses in the audio. With a talk format in which there are many pauses between words and sentences, this can reduce the transmitter's energy consumption by up to 40% without affecting signal coverage. A bigger issue for many AM stations these days is when the value of the land the transmitter site is on exceeds the value of the station. Many stations are selling the land and then sharing the towers of a co-owned station in a less valuable area, often necessitating a power reduction, especially at night. For example, 1510 WMEX in Boston used to be 50,000 watts full-time, but since they're now sharing the towers of another AM station, they're now only 10,000 watts daytime and a mere 100 watts at night!
From the Washington Post, November 4, 2020. “When the four orange and white steel towers first soared over Bethesda in 1941, they stood in a field surrounded by sparse suburbs emerging just north of where the Capital Beltway didn’t yet exist. Reaching 400 feet, they beamed the voices of WMAL 630 AM talk radio across the nation’s capital for 77 years. As the area grew, the 75 acres of open land surrounding the towers became a de facto park for runners, dog owners and generations of teenagers who recall sneaking smokes and beer at “field parties.” Shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday, the towers came down in four quick controlled explosions to make way for a new subdivision of 309 homes, taking with them a remarkably large piece of privately owned - but publicly accessible - green space. “
@@shango066 WSB (AM) in Atlanta, is not even given credit by Cox Radio...only at the legal ID at the top of the hour is it acknowledged. The FM station at 95.5 MHz is the locomotive, the nearly 100 year old AM signal is the caboose. The AM tower is in the middle of a strip plaza. The tower has been there since 1939, the plaza far less than that.
The currently licensed WMEX (AM) does not use the same site, nor the DA system the original station used. This is why it runs the lower power levels now. You are correct about AM station transmitter sites often having land worth more than the station!
@VWestlife Depending on the mode, power actually reduces during modulation, not during pauses. This maintains the psycho-acoustic masking principle, as noise is harder to notice when other modulation is present. I have noticed degraded coverage and susceptibility to fading on the locals here that are running MDCL, in addition to much higher audio distortion.
The thing about energy usage is that most people don't realize how much crap runs 24/7 that we never had before. How many don't realize that there are multiple cell phone companies serving the same areas with their separate towers one block away from each other running all the time. How many computers and servers are out there that run 24/4 including the one you use to watch this video? Decades ago we didn't have all this stuff. You had your incandescent light bulbs in a few lamps in your house, the toaster and your 19 inch TV. Now there are phantom loads galore everywhere. Yes your old gas hog car got 10 mpg, but you only drove it a few thousand miles a year. So now you get 30 but you're driving 20k a year or worse yet you bought an SUV that gets 15 mpg. A small car today weighs as much as a full size car from the 60's. The car is stiffer and safer today but it all adds weight. Plus there is the quality/repairability. Old stuff could be fixed reasonably cheaply in the day. Today it costs more to fix than a new one to buy so there is huge waste throwing stuff away. Yes it's cheaper to buy many products now (usually) thanks to making everything in China or you get more features, but it's not the same. How many people had the neighbors over when they got their first color TV? Now you buy a 84 inch flatscreen from Wallyworld and who cares? I would hate to see AM go away, though most stations today are talk radio crap. I don't want everything digital. I like being able to make a radio with a coil of wire and a rusty razor blade. When TV went digital they touted how great the picture would be. That's great if you aren't in a fringe area using an antenna. Before, you might get snow and a bad picture, but at least it came in. Now you get pixelated picture or nothing at all.
I just cant imagine that AM radio uses that much power to be of much concern compared to all the lights, heating and cooling we use in this country.I think we have bigger things to worry about, but who know what's coming down the pipes for this country.THAT is a COOL radio!
well, does it use more power than digital transmission? there you go. it probably does. so you're getting more noise that uses more power: why use it? i mean why use am at all, it's been dead around the world for 50 years now, if it ever was alive....
While AM needs lots of power, all the compute, storage and networking for streaming audio/music also needs power, and may be more in terms kwh/listener.
Was gonna say something similar. Streaming has a pretty big energy footprint compared to regular TV broadcasting, for larger audiences. (For smaller audiences it can be better than broadcast, though, hence internet proliferation of niche technology channels :) )
AM compared to FM however is a difference. FM requires a lot less power and less land than AM. I think the land usage may be more of an argument financially than the power usage.
AM Radio dies because of power savings? And yet nobody in the dry and sunny State of California knows how laundry can dry without using a 3kw tumbler... And if somebody experiments with a clothesline, the city will complain.
Dryers in so cal run on natural gas. MUCH cheaper than electricity. I wouldn't mind running a 3kW dryer for an entire day every week but not before I get freaking solar panels on my roof.
One of UK and western Europe's most popular CHR / Top 40 stations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, _Atlantic 252,_ went off the air after only 5 years because operating the 1.3 Megawatt transmitter on 252 kHz LW was at a loss, even with a listening market of tens of millions. Must admit, it was pretty amazing to be able to receive this station broadcasting from Ireland in northeastern Canada in the early 1990s. LW band was quiet enough to get BBC at 198 kHz and Atlantic 252 kHz on many occasions, and that was long before LED / CFL / switching power supply noise wiped out LW DXing.
For anyone interested... Video tour of the massive transmitter, feed line, matching array and antenna from the 1.3 Megawatt beast: th-cam.com/video/BdeFTOjkpzY/w-d-xo.html
Ive said it once and i'll say it again, im glad to live in a country with a AM band thats still well used. I just counted 12 stations. mostly talkback, 60/70/80/90s oldies, sport and other language stations. the thing that ruins it is that because other country's are turning off their AM bands, electronics products seem to care less about RF interference in the AM band these days
Trouble today is everything is going wireless , phones TV, Radio, putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea...especially if we ever do get hit with a solar flare ... people will be wishing we had back-ups...
Thank you ! Just got one of thease new old stock made 1992. Batterries in for the first time and off she went no problem. Have 2 selinas both great radios.
Wow great looking little radio, I would love to find one of those but as little as I listen to AM radio any more, it would be a waste of money for me now days, ah but I can remember the old days when AM was king and KOMA was the station to listen to after the sun went down. Blasting up from the Mexico border to Canada, Oklahoma City and the KOMA Good Guys spun the platters with all the latest rock and roll hits, more babies were made to the sounds of KMOA then any other station world wide, from the back seats of the old 50's cars to my customized 1950 Ford with front seats stolen from a Rambler Station Wagon, why I could make my whole car into a bed and it was very comfortable and ever so satisfying
I love this channel because you repair things and keep them going, though it seems not many people of this generation have much interest in an AM radio, but it's still cool to see it work again either way.
These radios (and not only radios - as a kid I remember having a kit for building a mechanical clock) were also sold as DIY kits in the USSR. I still have an unbuilt КИЕВ-4 (KIEV-4) AM receiver kit. In the EU, AM stations are almost non-existent (in Poland we have one global, and 7 local AM stations left, while on FM we have over 1100 stations).
Romanian here. I had a юность (Young) radio kit that was quite well made (with some questionable design choices though). Had to wound the ferrite, fun stuff. I used that radio quite a lot. The radio had this comics-style manual which was quite remarkable: a bratty child is given this kit to build and in the process, becomes very responsible and he even gets a girlfriend (he takes the radio on dates)
I find that a lot of DIY kits are going away, and end up being replaced by raspberry pi or arduino stuff. even 10 years ago, there was a lot more kits. i remember putting together a VHF TV transmitter a few years ago. it taught things like tuning the transmitter. all this is lost on today's electronics hobbyists with their upload and run this code kits that teach nothing.
@@devicemodder New technology is too complicated for kits, but people seem to not be interested in building primitive devices. It is like in universities, where students are angry that we are teaching them about Z80 or 6502 architecture instead of some modern x86/64 or ARM CPUs, and in the same time they can barely understand the principles of work of these primitive CPUs. People would like to do "wow things", without willing to learn the basics, and/or they don't understand that it is easier to learn the idea from the primitive devices, than from overcomplicated modern ones, that have thousands of different functions.
Thanks for your interesting videos! In Russia, powerful broadcasting in the AM bands was turned off in 2014. And many people lost the opportunity to listen to the radio, especially residents of remote areas, tourists, fishermen, hunters. This problem has been discussed for 6 years already, but it is clear that there will be no return to the old. Sorry for the bad English.
here in canada they turned off analog TV in 2009. and it makes me unhappy, because i collect TV sets from the 80's that get signal from antenna and now i can't take my portable set to the park and watch TV.
For what it's worth, I would like to offer festive wishes to you from here in the UK and to thank you for continuing to make these videos. They are much appreciated by so many of us. Cheers, Ian E
They can say wasting energy all they want, but once the power go out, turn on the radio. I live in New Orleans, where Hurricanes are prominent in the summer! I have a ION Tailgater, and it did well when Hurricane Zeta came, and snapped utility poles. The power was out for a week or two in most places in the New Orleans area. The AM radio was beneficial for me once the power was out.
Do you use solar and inverters or rely on portable generators? I convinced my sister moving back from Kalifornia, to Houston, to invest in a natural gas Gen. The past two hurricanes they and the neighbors were glad they did. Merry Christmas.
My main radio isa Tecsun PL-330 AM/FM/Shortwave/Longwave radio. It charges from USB, so if the power goes out for a long time, i can hook it up to my solar panel and charge it up.
@@devicemodder I wish my Bluetooth speaker can do that. It has a lead acid battery in it. It can charge my phone. Plus, my speaker have a microphone too
Local am radio is pretty much dead already here in the Scotland 🏴! What a sturdy wee radio! I worked all my days in a coal fired power station and you're right that things are changing big time. Great for the environment but be prepared to make your sacrifices!
@@rasoirwolfyes we still have some but not nearly as many as we used to. Many are now totally internet based with no real transmission over the ‘airwaves’!!
IDK about that, Delilah is the most listened to woman in America and she's syndicated - although, she's mostly on FM. The Conservative Talking Head Stations seem to be doing well too.
In socal when there's a widespread power outage most of the local AM stations go offline as well. One of the news channels goes offline whenever there's a fire hazard in the area. No budget for generators anymore.
I can't see AM disappearing completely. In times of national emergency, AM is the most dependable broadcast medium. That doesn't mean however, you will have the kind of music playing on it, that you like.
There's a problem with that though. None of stations on MW that matter during an emergency are staffed. Most of them air network programming at night. If they have a live daypart during the day, the host isn't going to know what's going on.
In the Netherlands, in the last 2 years about 40 new medium wave stations have popped up. The licenses are very limited. You can get a 1 watt ERP and a 100 watt ERP license for about 500 resp. 750 euro per year. But the low power means that a private owner can run it just fine, electricity wise, and that every frequency can be re-used in different places. The 100w transmitters typically have a range of 20km, though one has an exceptionally good location (on a high roof, at the shore of the big lake) and is almost listenable 100km away. The 1w licenses are only useful to cover a village or very small city. The high power transmitters all left the medium wave by themselves, except for the two huge religious ones. I'm absolutely not missing those, but i do miss being able to run crystal receivers. The 300kw transmitters enabled me to have quiet background music with a high efficiency speaker, throughout the room. I live 40km away from their old location. In europe there is no power limit for medium wave transmitters, so there are still a few 200kw and higher transmitters around. A few times per year i can hear the megawatt transmitters from north african and middle eastern countries.
Wonder if there are any transmitter stations that run on Solar / Wind? You could feasibly get 50KW through wind / solar, only problem would be energy storage for night time use and /or there is no wind.
Those red thin ceramic capacitors are called " Arbeiterflagge" in Germany. I have 3 old GDR Radiorecorders. The first ones made in GDR. These capacitors create a very annoying sound in the background. They often short so I am replace all of them, when I restore a unit. But it's a very nice radio. Its a shame that there are no Medium-Wave channels left in Germany
I bought this exact radio in 1993 for about £2 it worked fine but like a fool I gave it away to a friend. But I still have the box , (now full of 'N' gauge railway train stuff).
Most full-power AM transmitters aren’t really running 50KW as we think of it. They’re using class C or D switching amplifiers, which are far more efficient. Digital radio would be even more efficient, though. It can use a much lower SNR.
I love vintage radios i have a collection. Almost every one ive had to play with the IFs and variable capacitor on. I have no equipment i just tune the IFs by ear any tips?
Here in the UK , am radio is almost extinct . Only about 4 stations left . They just transmit either boring sport or pop music that sounds about as good as white noise ! I listen to mainly 30s music played through a 30s valve radio via an MP3 player . As for cars , I love my V8 Granada and nothing will get me out of it . Love the sound and feel of it . Had it 26 years . Most people would have got through many new cars in that time so what could be greener ? The green agenda is a scam . We are fed so much garbage by the media these days and sadly many soak it up like s sponge . The public are become like sheep ...
I find it interesting that Cold War Soviet-Era medium wave and longwave receivers would have such good gain/sensitivity. That would quite possibly allow a Soviet citizen to listen to prohibited broadcasts from western Europe, including VOA and RFE programming on those bands.
The soviet's also had the ability to jam broadcasts, like Cuba did and does for USA radio coming out of Florida. So they didn't worry too much about highly sensitive radios.
@@waltschannel7465 I've heard that in many instances, jamming during the Cold War in eastern Europe wasn't very effective; as some Western broadcasters would change times and frequencies, especially in West Germany.
They'd try to jam it in the Soviet Bloc, but the Western Broadcasters were way ahead of them - they'd move around in the day and around the dial and even with jamming, were powerful enough to be heard through the jamming. And some Soviets would pay off someone to slip a special crystal in there for the 19m band, Soviet Radios really only go up to the 25m band, cuz that's the highest band the Soviets ever used - so there was no jamming on 19m, so the BBC, VOA etc. would come in unhindered.
@@waltschannel7465 They jam the AM signal I know, but last I read, they don't jam Radio Marti on Shortwave, and it doesn't sound jammed at all when I pick it up on SW.
my favorite soviet AM radio is a 'Junost KP-101' that I made from a kit, it's a 4 transistor PNP reflex radio that works better than my chinese superhet, I suspect because it has an enormous bar antenna with litz wire.
Man I love these old Russian radios, have a cheap one here that is hot as hell on reception. I can't see am going away fully as its low tech that is accessible to everyone but I can see it being scaled back / phased out down to just a handful of stations, unless there is some new investment on more effective transmission equipment, some stations still use mercury vapour rectifier tubes
What about HD Radio? Isn't that more efficient on AM? Digital is always more "green" than analog, 80% power savings on DAB, don't know about our system though, Xperi is so dang secretive about every bit of HD.
Вау! Сколько станций на СВ диапазоне радио! В моем детстве (~ 1970г) было всего 2 (две!) станции! Wow! How many stations on the MW radio band! In my childhood (~ 1970) there were only 2 (two!) Stations!
Electric cars are a function of the bubble. 7 year car loans at virtually zero interest is now a thing. EVs are a lot of money and is heavily reliant on favorable interest rates. Before the money bubble, 10 percent plus was not that uncommon for vehicle financing and 7 years was absolutely unheard of. ALL bubbles end. When this bubble ends the destruction is going to be enormous and 7 year car loans at 2% interest will be a thing of the past.
@shango066 you're right that it's back together wrong, you have the dial on backwards, the log scale goes to the "timing marks" and the freq. to the outer pointer... That really is a cool little radio though & nice fix, a lot of folk would've jumped in and filled the thing with tape to try and stop the "short" from that little shield. I want one of these now, works great and looks cool, nearly as cool as the avocado Philco.
Shango been in California too long. I am thinking Plato's Allegory of the Cave applies. There is a lot of country between the Radical Coasts. We will not stand for their attempts to transform our lives.
I got one of these in a "mock auction" about 30 years ago. A mock auction is a scam in England resembling a real auction but the crowd is worked up bidding increasingly expensive garbage. Anyway I knew that when they were warming up the crowd they'd give actual stuff away even if it wasn't great. So I shot my hand up for an early bid and they gave me a trash bag with some electronic stuff in it. Most of the electronics was garbage - returned faulty stuff (did I mention it was a scam?). But this radio was in there too and I still have it, boxed much like yours. I like it since it's kind of cool and maybe one day I'll sell it to a collector or something & maybe get £50 for it.
The holiday tv show the peanuts was on free tv for 50 years. This is the first year and be now forever they be on Apple tv. They just slowly take stuff off the free radio and tv and make you pay for it.
Based on an average industrial cost of power in LA which is 8.16 cents per kilowatt-hour, to run an 50000 watt radio station, based on a .8 power factor, you are looking at about $122.40 worth of electricity to run it in a 24 hour period. A 100 kW FM transmitter would be substantially cheaper to run because an FM transmitter puts out much less power and the antenna adds gain to give you the ERP or effective radiated power which is much higher than the actual DC power which is fed into the transmitter. If the FM antenna has a gain of 5, the transmitter is only putting out 1/5 of 100,000 watts or 20,000 watts. An AM transmitter's antenna usually has a gain of 1. An AM radio transmitter's antenna also takes up a number of acres of land because of the radials that go out for a few hundred feet around the tower in all directions.
I live in LA and yes it's residential but it's around $0.25 akw and that's not even in the highest tier. And residential doesn't pay for power factor so I think it's way more
@@shango066 You are welcome! Don't know what do you thinking about Russia, but there is wonderful. Sometimes not easy, like everywhere else, but I'm quite happy to live here. If you have opportunity, you can visit us- I promise, we will not bite you!
I want a radio like that. Maybe one day. Yes, I agree that electric rate will jump WAY up once the majority of people have EV's. I've been saying this for a long time.
Oh man, i hate it when things stop working again when you put them back together. My 360 gave me 2 red rings after i replaced the thermal paste, tested it, and put it together again. That _really_ pissed me off!
That's a great little set, looks to be very solid and well designed (as I believe were many things from the USSR even if they weren't always at the leading edge of technology). AM radio is pretty much done here in the UK. I can only recieve a handful of stations, most of which are sports or talk. I replaced the AM only receiver in my 1982 Volvo with an AM / FM cassette deck for this reason. Not that FM is much better - local radio stations have all been gobbled up by a couple of conglomerates which network the same shows from London and broadcast them nationwide. Most music radio has become very MOR - either contemporary pop or 'oldies', but with a very limited playlist that quickly becomes repetitive.
Even the "no repeat workday" merchants pretty much just shuffle the same hundred or so playlisted tunes throughout the week, maybe dropping in a couple of wildcards here & there if you can get through the ad/music ratio... DX not too bad though recently if you're into that sort of thing.
Don't want to get political but where I live the giant Carrier Heating and Cooling factory that orange man bad talked Carrier out of moving to Mexico announced it is s now planning once again to close the plant and move production to Mexico next year. During Obama our city lost the Navistar engine foundry and assembly plant, Chrysler engine casting and assembly plant, GM truck and bus metal stamping plant, GM guide lamp, Detroit Diesel Allison plant, Ford steering manufacturing plant, Jenn Air, Phillips manufacturing and many more.
FM transmitters use power just as AM transmitters do.I have worked on and repaired MANY AM, FM ,TV(analog), and yes-short wave transmitters.250 and 500Kw.SW and AM is getting more efficient with solid state pulse step modulators.In the SW you still have tubes in the RF power out amps and the driver stage.Digital Radio Modial can help-you broadcast digital material over SW and you can use less power.IE at the VOA Greenville SW transmitter site they run a Continental Electronics 50Kw AM-Sideband SW transmitter with DRM at 5Kw.The 15hp blower requires more power than the RF.When that Tx plays at 50Kw the final tube runs class A hence the HUGE noisy blower.Blows directly on the base of the PA tube socket!Digital TV uses less power than analog and these transmitters are SS.So ANYTIME broadcast is involved you are going to use electric power.And---Solar adn wind CANNOT replace base coal,natural gas,and Hydro electric power.The ONLY alternative power generation that works is hydro power!Gravity ALWAYS works-Wind doesn't blow constantly and solar is USELESS at night.Rant over.
Intermittent faults can be the hardest pain to find - I've had some! A lot of vehicle pollution also comes from tyres and moving gear. Something that's not of common knowledge is that if any energy is used - entropy goes up from order to more disorder. This is an arrow moving in just one direction - manifesting itself in greater heat. So, energy usage needs to be very carefully managed to keep the earth from further warming. If not already, this is going to be a profound taskmaster (with a thumping great big stick), controlling our behaviour :)
Another thing for AM-FM broadcast transmitters-these are now solid state-no more tubes-that allows them to require less power.For both digital broadcasting also would require less power.Don't be surprized if the stations have to ditch analog and go digital.
With the companies locking down there hardware and software "Apple" for instance electric cars are going to be a nightmare in the used car market how long do battery packs last? 5 to 8 years? and at $5,000 and we still have to account for inflation as time goes on. a 5,000 used car will be 10,000 used car easy. I like electric cars too but I think its going to be a problem.
They should have pushed for hydrogen. Except for the tank and fuel system there is little to modify. It is also a lot cleaner than making electric batteries.
There's a coulple of old photos of New York traffic I've seen - one taken about 1900 and the other around 1910 And it's *all* horses in the first and *all* internal combustion in the second. But we've had reasonably good EVs for more than 10 years and they haven't replaced the petrol engine because they still not quite as 'good'. And unless someone comes up with a better battery, I don't think they will be - they can't compete on the range, the 'recharge' time and certaily not the price.
Correct, hydrogen is the answer. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe but it tends to "stick" to other elements, thus making its extraction very difficult and costly. The byproduct of burning hydrogen is water. Nothing cleaner than that. Top Gear made a very good episode about hydrogen a few years ago.
@@spu77 Hydrogen cars only make sense when you have a good clean source of H2 because hydrogen engines are inefficient. Most hydrogen today is made from 'steam reforming' of natural gas which requires energy and also produces CO2. If you make hydrogen from water using clean electricity you still end up burning it in an inefficient engine, so it is much worse from an efficiency standpoint than battery electric vehicles. You can refer to this Engineering Explaned video: th-cam.com/video/1Ajq46qHp0c/w-d-xo.html
It’s funny you mentioned going green in the future but the DAB and streaming radios use ten times the power of a traditional transistor radio. Bump! that’s doubled the price of these Russian gems. But so it goes.
About all you will find in the US are non directional beacons. You may hear some LowFER between 160kHz and 190kHz but they are only 1 watt with a small antenna.
The wholesale price of gasoline/petrol is the same in Europe as it is in the U.S. It's just that the *governments* of European nations tax it substantially more at the pump.
Talking about fuel prices. Here in the UK, if i convert it to US Dollars we are about 6.80 a Gallon at the moment. Its gone down a fair bit compared to what fuel prices were 2yrs ago. But i guess thats still expensive compared to US prices. Thats why we have to drive cars that do 60 to 70mpg.
btw, Radio dismal could go away completely and it would not hurt my feelings at all. but that is not the same as my feelings about AM radio, I love AM broadcast, there is still nothing more versatile than AM BTW, I already saw a huge jump in gas prices in Indy.
In europe gasoline is already quite expensive at around 5$/galon or so. However "regular" 87 american is equivalent to nonexistent 91 european (well, almost, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine etc. still have it but they are not EU), If you want to compare prices, you have to look at 90-91 "premium" US gasoline which is equivalent to common european "regular" 95 (lowest possible gasoline rating). The octane ratings are different across the world. Higher quality gasoline does mean that the engines can have higher compression and use turbochargers. And for one, I don't really understand, other than having bigger cars, why US cars have such powerful engines when speed limits (and people abusing those speed limits) are rather slow compared to europe. Also the US electricity cost (on average) is around the same as my country, Poland, which has far lower average wage than the US and the kWh cost is already one of the cheapest ones in EU. With western countries the electricity is quite a lot more expensive than the US, at similar wage levels. So in fact, the US has a lot of room to "catch up" with the living costs. Not saying that you should, but many countries are much worse, when it comes to those costs.
Our speed limits in my state on the interstate highways average 75 miles per hour, some areas are at 85. Our cost per kilowatt hours is around $.10. But no, we prefer not having to catch up in that regard. But if the leftist take over and pick up where they left off, the US will be strapped into that 'money glut' 'tax hiking fraud', 'job robbing' and 'economy killing' of a carbon tax so called climate accord. And NO ONE but the Communist Chinese and the politicians of this SCAM will become filthy rich because of it, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE WILL CHANGE OR IMPROVE BECAUSE OF IT. But I digress and wish you a Merry Christmas 🎅 nonetheless.
I agree with the going greener and that most AM stations are wasting too much energy and simply just staying in existence with advertising revenue. The old saying about electric cars "It's the batteries, Stupid" still holds true in 2020 but, in 5 or 10 years technology should be there along with the infrastructure needed (FAST Charging stations). Cool radio with the Cyrillic band markings. Any reception on the other band?
I love being an influencer. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-Sokol-RP-210-210-Russian-Portable-Radio-Tested-And-Working/293594873390?hash=item445b9e3e2e:g:3eAAAOSw8dVez3CS
Yep.
Does it work for decreasing sales? You still have not killed dead the bumble bee capacitor craze, can you give that another swing?
That's out of London UK?
@@DrewskisBrews That's FUNNY!! 🤣
Many major-market AM stations are now using Modulation Dependent Carrier Level (MDCL) which reduces the transmitter power during pauses in the audio. With a talk format in which there are many pauses between words and sentences, this can reduce the transmitter's energy consumption by up to 40% without affecting signal coverage.
A bigger issue for many AM stations these days is when the value of the land the transmitter site is on exceeds the value of the station. Many stations are selling the land and then sharing the towers of a co-owned station in a less valuable area, often necessitating a power reduction, especially at night. For example, 1510 WMEX in Boston used to be 50,000 watts full-time, but since they're now sharing the towers of another AM station, they're now only 10,000 watts daytime and a mere 100 watts at night!
KNX is in a public park where kids play soccer. Or used to play soccer
From the Washington Post, November 4, 2020.
“When the four orange and white steel towers first soared over Bethesda in 1941, they stood in a field surrounded by sparse suburbs emerging just north of where the Capital Beltway didn’t yet exist. Reaching 400 feet, they beamed the voices of WMAL 630 AM talk radio across the nation’s capital for 77 years.
As the area grew, the 75 acres of open land surrounding the towers became a de facto park for runners, dog owners and generations of teenagers who recall sneaking smokes and beer at “field parties.”
Shortly after 9 a.m. Wednesday, the towers came down in four quick controlled explosions to make way for a new subdivision of 309 homes, taking with them a remarkably large piece of privately owned - but publicly accessible - green space. “
@@shango066 WSB (AM) in Atlanta, is not even given credit by Cox Radio...only at the legal ID at the top of the hour is it acknowledged. The FM station at 95.5 MHz is the locomotive, the nearly 100 year old AM signal is the caboose. The AM tower is in the middle of a strip plaza. The tower has been there since 1939, the plaza far less than that.
The currently licensed WMEX (AM) does not use the same site, nor the DA system the original station used. This is why it runs the lower power levels now. You are correct about AM station transmitter sites often having land worth more than the station!
@VWestlife Depending on the mode, power actually reduces during modulation, not during pauses. This maintains the psycho-acoustic masking principle, as noise is harder to notice when other modulation is present. I have noticed degraded coverage and susceptibility to fading on the locals here that are running MDCL, in addition to much higher audio distortion.
The thing about energy usage is that most people don't realize how much crap runs 24/7 that we never had before. How many don't realize that there are multiple cell phone companies serving the same areas with their separate towers one block away from each other running all the time. How many computers and servers are out there that run 24/4 including the one you use to watch this video? Decades ago we didn't have all this stuff. You had your incandescent light bulbs in a few lamps in your house, the toaster and your 19 inch TV. Now there are phantom loads galore everywhere. Yes your old gas hog car got 10 mpg, but you only drove it a few thousand miles a year. So now you get 30 but you're driving 20k a year or worse yet you bought an SUV that gets 15 mpg. A small car today weighs as much as a full size car from the 60's. The car is stiffer and safer today but it all adds weight. Plus there is the quality/repairability. Old stuff could be fixed reasonably cheaply in the day. Today it costs more to fix than a new one to buy so there is huge waste throwing stuff away. Yes it's cheaper to buy many products now (usually) thanks to making everything in China or you get more features, but it's not the same. How many people had the neighbors over when they got their first color TV? Now you buy a 84 inch flatscreen from Wallyworld and who cares? I would hate to see AM go away, though most stations today are talk radio crap. I don't want everything digital. I like being able to make a radio with a coil of wire and a rusty razor blade. When TV went digital they touted how great the picture would be. That's great if you aren't in a fringe area using an antenna. Before, you might get snow and a bad picture, but at least it came in. Now you get pixelated picture or nothing at all.
Sound like your a Ham radio operator 👍😉🤣 73s from a Dutch Radio amateur
Dead on about everything!!! Greetings from North Bay, Canada
You speak the truth.
Cellular transmitters run at VERY low power-they don't draw as much as broadcast does.
Amen Brother!
Listening to spanish music, on a soviet radio, in the good old US of A.
Reminds me of mario, an italian created by japanese people, to be played in america
I just cant imagine that AM radio uses that much power to be of much concern compared to all the lights, heating and cooling we use in this country.I think we have bigger things to worry about, but who know what's coming down the pipes for this country.THAT is a COOL radio!
It comes down the the economics of "who is willing pay for it" rather than the % of total consumption (which is negligible, as you point out)
well, does it use more power than digital transmission? there you go. it probably does. so you're getting more noise that uses more power: why use it? i mean why use am at all, it's been dead around the world for 50 years now, if it ever was alive....
AM radio is DOOMED in "special" states and places but not in the rest of the country, Here we just put up a new AM station that plays oldies
While AM needs lots of power, all the compute, storage and networking for streaming audio/music also needs power, and may be more in terms kwh/listener.
Was gonna say something similar. Streaming has a pretty big energy footprint compared to regular TV broadcasting, for larger audiences. (For smaller audiences it can be better than broadcast, though, hence internet proliferation of niche technology channels :) )
AM compared to FM however is a difference. FM requires a lot less power and less land than AM. I think the land usage may be more of an argument financially than the power usage.
@@EsotericArctos At night AM can reach a huge area that would really reduce the kwh/listener
AM Radio dies because of power savings? And yet nobody in the dry and sunny State of California knows how laundry can dry without using a 3kw tumbler... And if somebody experiments with a clothesline, the city will complain.
Mmm, smog-infused laundry, hanging on the line. Welcome to flavor country, indeed.
@@ModMokkaMatti Hahahaha!!!! I used to want to live in Socal until I spent two weeks there. The brown air is truly creepy.
Or your homeowner's association will fine you
Decades ago, when I was growing up, that's all we had. Dryers were for people who could *afford* them.
Dryers in so cal run on natural gas. MUCH cheaper than electricity. I wouldn't mind running a 3kW dryer for an entire day every week but not before I get freaking solar panels on my roof.
One of UK and western Europe's most popular CHR / Top 40 stations in the late 1980s and early 1990s, _Atlantic 252,_ went off the air after only 5 years because operating the 1.3 Megawatt transmitter on 252 kHz LW was at a loss, even with a listening market of tens of millions. Must admit, it was pretty amazing to be able to receive this station broadcasting from Ireland in northeastern Canada in the early 1990s. LW band was quiet enough to get BBC at 198 kHz and Atlantic 252 kHz on many occasions, and that was long before LED / CFL / switching power supply noise wiped out LW DXing.
For anyone interested... Video tour of the massive transmitter, feed line, matching array and antenna from the 1.3 Megawatt beast:
th-cam.com/video/BdeFTOjkpzY/w-d-xo.html
Nicely constructed CCCP radio thank you for sharing!
Ive said it once and i'll say it again, im glad to live in a country with a AM band thats still well used. I just counted 12 stations. mostly talkback, 60/70/80/90s oldies, sport and other language stations. the thing that ruins it is that because other country's are turning off their AM bands, electronics products seem to care less about RF interference in the AM band these days
Trouble today is everything is going wireless , phones TV, Radio, putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea...especially if we ever do get hit with a solar flare ... people will be wishing we had back-ups...
Wouldn't that also fry active transmitters, if we had a Carrington-level solar flare?
After that lecture, there goes your electric car, you know, the one you have to plug into the "non-existent" power grid....
Great feeling when you positively identify an "intermittent " ....cheers.
Thank you ! Just got one of thease new old stock made 1992.
Batterries in for the first time and off she went no problem.
Have 2 selinas both great radios.
Wow great looking little radio, I would love to find one of those but as little as I listen to AM radio any more, it would be a waste of money for me now days, ah but I can remember the old days when AM was king and KOMA was the station to listen to after the sun went down. Blasting up from the Mexico border to Canada, Oklahoma City and the KOMA Good Guys spun the platters with all the latest rock and roll hits, more babies were made to the sounds of KMOA then any other station world wide, from the back seats of the old 50's cars to my customized 1950 Ford with front seats stolen from a Rambler Station Wagon, why I could make my whole car into a bed and it was very comfortable and ever so satisfying
The only top 40 station we could get at night in far from Oklahoma City, Bisbee AZ, back in the 1960's
I love this channel because you repair things and keep them going, though it seems not many people of this generation have much interest in an AM radio, but it's still cool to see it work again either way.
These radios (and not only radios - as a kid I remember having a kit for building a mechanical clock) were also sold as DIY kits in the USSR. I still have an unbuilt КИЕВ-4 (KIEV-4) AM receiver kit.
In the EU, AM stations are almost non-existent (in Poland we have one global, and 7 local AM stations left, while on FM we have over 1100 stations).
Romanian here. I had a юность (Young) radio kit that was quite well made (with some questionable design choices though). Had to wound the ferrite, fun stuff. I used that radio quite a lot. The radio had this comics-style manual which was quite remarkable: a bratty child is given this kit to build and in the process, becomes very responsible and he even gets a girlfriend (he takes the radio on dates)
I find that a lot of DIY kits are going away, and end up being replaced by raspberry pi or arduino stuff. even 10 years ago, there was a lot more kits. i remember putting together a VHF TV transmitter a few years ago. it taught things like tuning the transmitter. all this is lost on today's electronics hobbyists with their upload and run this code kits that teach nothing.
@@devicemodder New technology is too complicated for kits, but people seem to not be interested in building primitive devices. It is like in universities, where students are angry that we are teaching them about Z80 or 6502 architecture instead of some modern x86/64 or ARM CPUs, and in the same time they can barely understand the principles of work of these primitive CPUs. People would like to do "wow things", without willing to learn the basics, and/or they don't understand that it is easier to learn the idea from the primitive devices, than from overcomplicated modern ones, that have thousands of different functions.
How's DAB take up in Poland?
@@rasoirwolf Most popular radio stations broadcast simultaneously in DAB and UHF, but DAB receivers are not very popular.
Thanks for your interesting videos! In Russia, powerful broadcasting in the AM bands was turned off in 2014. And many people lost the opportunity to listen to the radio, especially residents of remote areas, tourists, fishermen, hunters. This problem has been discussed for 6 years already, but it is clear that there will be no return to the old. Sorry for the bad English.
here in canada they turned off analog TV in 2009. and it makes me unhappy, because i collect TV sets from the 80's that get signal from antenna and now i can't take my portable set to the park and watch TV.
@@devicemodder I understand your feelings well.
For what it's worth, I would like to offer festive wishes to you from here in the UK and to thank you for continuing to make these videos. They are much appreciated by so many of us. Cheers, Ian E
My Transoceanic is so sensitive it picks up stations that aren't even on the air yet!
Ha! I'll buy one if it is so sensitive it picks up stations that went off the air years ago... reflections off a distant planet?
What energy source are you going to use to make all of this so called "green tech"?
They can say wasting energy all they want, but once the power go out, turn on the radio. I live in New Orleans, where Hurricanes are prominent in the summer! I have a ION Tailgater, and it did well when Hurricane Zeta came, and snapped utility poles. The power was out for a week or two in most places in the New Orleans area. The AM radio was beneficial for me once the power was out.
Do you use solar and inverters or rely on portable generators? I convinced my sister moving back from Kalifornia, to Houston, to invest in a natural gas Gen. The past two hurricanes they and the neighbors were glad they did. Merry Christmas.
My main radio isa Tecsun PL-330 AM/FM/Shortwave/Longwave radio. It charges from USB, so if the power goes out for a long time, i can hook it up to my solar panel and charge it up.
@@Rev22-21 I can't use a generator,because I live in a apartment on the 3rd floor. A solar power inverter sounds like a great idea.
@@devicemodder I wish my Bluetooth speaker can do that. It has a lead acid battery in it. It can charge my phone. Plus, my speaker have a microphone too
@@devicemodder The job I used to work at gave it to me as a gift.
You're so right...i can see how super sensitive the tuning is the second you started looking for stations....what a difference from other radios
What was the whispery weak station at the end? How far away was it?
You should take it into the desert for the DX and see what it will do.
Nice antenna. Beautiful build.
This radio reminds me of my ex, the second you touch it, it turns off!
Or screaming
Local am radio is pretty much dead already here in the Scotland 🏴! What a sturdy wee radio! I worked all my days in a coal fired power station and you're right that things are changing big time. Great for the environment but be prepared to make your sacrifices!
Isn't Radio Scotland still on 810 MW? And Virgin on 1215 MW?
@@rasoirwolfyes we still have some but not nearly as many as we used to. Many are now totally internet based with no real transmission over the ‘airwaves’!!
Very nice crisp sound.
I've got a few of those Soviet radios and they're the shizzy.
In Soviet Union radio listens to you
Even walls do listen to you... spooky
Just like your I phone..
Have your own low power transmitter - Take the Gold Station off a subcarrier, mono it and radiate it low power for your AM sets?
Big Wall Street companies are killing AM radio consolidating stations, almost nobody want´s to hear non local content.
IDK about that, Delilah is the most listened to woman in America and she's syndicated - although, she's mostly on FM. The Conservative Talking Head Stations seem to be doing well too.
In socal when there's a widespread power outage most of the local AM stations go offline as well. One of the news channels goes offline whenever there's a fire hazard in the area. No budget for generators anymore.
there will be cell serives and FM radio
Radio is basically unaffected by power outages here - cell towers and landlines also still work, WCCO is the big station for weather.
I can't see AM disappearing completely. In times of national emergency, AM is the most dependable broadcast medium. That doesn't mean however, you will have the kind of music playing on it, that you like.
Exactly, especially when something go wrong.
There's a problem with that though. None of stations on MW that matter during an emergency are staffed. Most of them air network programming at night. If they have a live daypart during the day, the host isn't going to know what's going on.
People forget that the big 50kW stations are often the Primary Entry Point for EAS in their area.
In the Netherlands, in the last 2 years about 40 new medium wave stations have popped up.
The licenses are very limited. You can get a 1 watt ERP and a 100 watt ERP license for about 500 resp. 750 euro per year. But the low power means that a private owner can run it just fine, electricity wise, and that every frequency can be re-used in different places. The 100w transmitters typically have a range of 20km, though one has an exceptionally good location (on a high roof, at the shore of the big lake) and is almost listenable 100km away.
The 1w licenses are only useful to cover a village or very small city.
The high power transmitters all left the medium wave by themselves, except for the two huge religious ones. I'm absolutely not missing those, but i do miss being able to run crystal receivers. The 300kw transmitters enabled me to have quiet background music with a high efficiency speaker, throughout the room. I live 40km away from their old location.
In europe there is no power limit for medium wave transmitters, so there are still a few 200kw and higher transmitters around. A few times per year i can hear the megawatt transmitters from north african and middle eastern countries.
Yes AM transmitters are power hungry, but are there any DAB radios that will last for months on a couple of AA batteries?
Hi my frand are yuo good thank for ths video merry christmas i wish you good luck the new year
Abdul. Iraq bagdhad. 🎄🎄🎄 2021
Hi Q i.f stages as sharp as a razor, that radio makes others look like crap.
Wonder if there are any transmitter stations that run on Solar / Wind? You could feasibly get 50KW through wind / solar, only problem would be energy storage for night time use and /or there is no wind.
Those red thin ceramic capacitors are called " Arbeiterflagge" in Germany. I have 3 old GDR Radiorecorders. The first ones made in GDR. These capacitors create a very annoying sound in the background. They often short so I am replace all of them, when I restore a unit.
But it's a very nice radio. Its a shame that there are no Medium-Wave channels left in Germany
Beautiful build. Too bad there hasn’t been anything on AM for decades around here, loooong gone!
The numbers on the dial are upside down. I think it was meant to be mounted the other way around.
The real vintage repair style
I bought this exact radio in 1993 for about £2 it worked fine but like a fool I gave it away to a friend.
But I still have the box , (now full of 'N' gauge railway train stuff).
AM station's real estate worth more than the license and Ad revenue.
I knew of some AM stations that sold their transmitter site land to get the money for the land!Same with drive in movie theatersA
Hooray it's the purple beast from Russia, my favourite! :D
of course it's selective, it has a 4 pole narrow ceramic IF filter in it.
Moreover at higher frequency 465 kHz instead of 455 kHz of western standart.
Most full-power AM transmitters aren’t really running 50KW as we think of it. They’re using class C or D switching amplifiers, which are far more efficient. Digital radio would be even more efficient, though. It can use a much lower SNR.
A lecture on the Green New Deal...............didn't want to hear that.
Hummm . . . Perhaps that is an example of Shango's sardonic, gallows humor.
I love vintage radios i have a collection. Almost every one ive had to play with the IFs and variable capacitor on. I have no equipment i just tune the IFs by ear any tips?
I'm referring only to AM radios. FM radios are nearly impossible to align without the proper equipment, especially the detector section.
@@jrs0007 i see. Im usually dealing with am fm stuff from the 80s and 90s. I have a collection. Sometimes it takes hours to get one happy
Here in the UK , am radio is almost extinct .
Only about 4 stations left . They just transmit either boring sport or pop music that sounds about as good as white noise ! I listen to mainly 30s music played through a 30s valve radio via an MP3 player .
As for cars , I love my V8 Granada and nothing will get me out of it . Love the sound and feel of it . Had it 26 years . Most people would have got through many new cars in that time so what could be greener ? The green agenda is a scam . We are fed so much garbage by the media these days and sadly many soak it up like s sponge . The public are become like sheep ...
V8 Granada? The European Granada, the US Granada, or the South African Granada Perena (the European one with a factory V8)?
Круто что у вас много станций на ам диапазоне!!!! Ссср Рулит))))
СэСэСэР гавно, даже по этому приемнику видно.
I find it interesting that Cold War Soviet-Era medium wave and longwave receivers would have such good gain/sensitivity. That would quite possibly allow a Soviet citizen to listen to prohibited broadcasts from western Europe, including VOA and RFE programming on those bands.
The soviet's also had the ability to jam broadcasts, like Cuba did and does for USA radio coming out of Florida. So they didn't worry too much about highly sensitive radios.
@@waltschannel7465 I've heard that in many instances, jamming during the Cold War in eastern Europe wasn't very effective; as some Western broadcasters would change times and frequencies, especially in West Germany.
They'd try to jam it in the Soviet Bloc, but the Western Broadcasters were way ahead of them - they'd move around in the day and around the dial and even with jamming, were powerful enough to be heard through the jamming. And some Soviets would pay off someone to slip a special crystal in there for the 19m band, Soviet Radios really only go up to the 25m band, cuz that's the highest band the Soviets ever used - so there was no jamming on 19m, so the BBC, VOA etc. would come in unhindered.
@@waltschannel7465 They jam the AM signal I know, but last I read, they don't jam Radio Marti on Shortwave, and it doesn't sound jammed at all when I pick it up on SW.
@@chetpomeroy1399 Didn't West Germany use odd frequencies too? Harder to block?
my favorite soviet AM radio is a 'Junost KP-101' that I made from a kit, it's a 4 transistor PNP reflex radio that works better than my chinese superhet, I suspect because it has an enormous bar antenna with litz wire.
Just looked it up, I would love to find one of those. Beautiful kit
What makes that radio so sensitive? Could you mod other, common radios to be as good?
That Soviet radio is sure BETTER than the Chinese made ones-where can I get one of those??Are they available in SW,too?
Imagine how prophetic that introduction is now.
It was fairly obvious to me at least.
@@shango066 Same. I could really use a mean tweet and $1200 more a month in my pocket about now.
Man I love these old Russian radios, have a cheap one here that is hot as hell on reception. I can't see am going away fully as its low tech that is accessible to everyone but I can see it being scaled back / phased out down to just a handful of stations, unless there is some new investment on more effective transmission equipment, some stations still use mercury vapour rectifier tubes
What about HD Radio? Isn't that more efficient on AM? Digital is always more "green" than analog, 80% power savings on DAB, don't know about our system though, Xperi is so dang secretive about every bit of HD.
Вау! Сколько станций на СВ диапазоне радио! В моем детстве (~ 1970г) было всего 2 (две!) станции!
Wow! How many stations on the MW radio band! In my childhood (~ 1970) there were only 2 (two!) Stations!
Electric cars are a function of the bubble. 7 year car loans at virtually zero interest is now a thing. EVs are a lot of money and is heavily reliant on favorable interest rates. Before the money bubble, 10 percent plus was not that uncommon for vehicle financing and 7 years was absolutely unheard of. ALL bubbles end. When this bubble ends the destruction is going to be enormous and 7 year car loans at 2% interest will be a thing of the past.
@shango066 you're right that it's back together wrong, you have the dial on backwards, the log scale goes to the "timing marks" and the freq. to the outer pointer... That really is a cool little radio though & nice fix, a lot of folk would've jumped in and filled the thing with tape to try and stop the "short" from that little shield. I want one of these now, works great and looks cool, nearly as cool as the avocado Philco.
I have magazine articles from the 50's predicting the end of petroleum. Still waiting on that.
They were probably betting on nuclear energy replacing fossil fuels. But then there's that "radioactivity"...
@@jrs0007 It still could, and it we don't want our planet to turn Venusian, we'll HAVE to go nuclear, it's the only other option we really have.
Shango been in California too long. I am thinking Plato's Allegory of the Cave applies. There is a lot of country between the Radical Coasts. We will not stand for their attempts to transform our lives.
just watch ♥
Have to give credit years ago Rush Limbaugh revived AM Radio. But now I guess it dying. Here in L.A. we have KFI a,very popular talk show station.
Conservative talk will regain some strength during a liberal Administration.
I’d love to see some of these hot ass receivers do some DX’ing, I bet these Soviet receivers go crazy deep
I got one of these in a "mock auction" about 30 years ago. A mock auction is a scam in England resembling a real auction but the crowd is worked up bidding increasingly expensive garbage. Anyway I knew that when they were warming up the crowd they'd give actual stuff away even if it wasn't great. So I shot my hand up for an early bid and they gave me a trash bag with some electronic stuff in it. Most of the electronics was garbage - returned faulty stuff (did I mention it was a scam?). But this radio was in there too and I still have it, boxed much like yours. I like it since it's kind of cool and maybe one day I'll sell it to a collector or something & maybe get £50 for it.
Love that tuning dial, none of this thumb rubbish.
Is the Russian AM band the same as the US AM Band?
Yes. And the LW band. But their original FM band was lower, 65 to 73 MHz. Now they are also 88 - 108.
Был у меня такой в детстве :)
The holiday tv show the peanuts was on free tv for 50 years. This is the first year and be now forever they be on Apple tv. They just slowly take stuff off the free radio and tv and make you pay for it.
They made some sort of deal to show them on PBS. I think they realized that the “optics” of the situation were pretty bad.
Those orange transistors are KT315 and/or KT361.
I love a good sensitive selective radio.
if your in the market for shortwave, i recommend the Tecsun PL-330.
I do have a Tecsun pl-600. They are good receivers.
Based on an average industrial cost of power in LA which is 8.16 cents per kilowatt-hour, to run an 50000 watt radio station, based on a .8 power factor, you are looking at about $122.40 worth of electricity to run it in a 24 hour period. A 100 kW FM transmitter would be substantially cheaper to run because an FM transmitter puts out much less power and the antenna adds gain to give you the ERP or effective radiated power which is much higher than the actual DC power which is fed into the transmitter. If the FM antenna has a gain of 5, the transmitter is only putting out 1/5 of 100,000 watts or 20,000 watts. An AM transmitter's antenna usually has a gain of 1. An AM radio transmitter's antenna also takes up a number of acres of land because of the radials that go out for a few hundred feet around the tower in all directions.
I live in LA and yes it's residential but it's around $0.25 akw and that's not even in the highest tier. And residential doesn't pay for power factor so I think it's way more
3:01 Shango is shaking for $8 for a gallon of gas? They have been paying that price in Europe for quite a while now!
As it probably should be but our Fleet and economy are not configured for that
Hello from Moscow, Shango!
Adopt ME!
@@shango066 You are welcome!
Don't know what do you thinking about Russia, but there is wonderful. Sometimes not easy, like everywhere else, but I'm quite happy to live here. If you have opportunity, you can visit us- I promise, we will not bite you!
@@RZ296 yes I know I get it. We are constantly fed lies about everything to perpetuate our fake exceptionalism
I want a radio like that. Maybe one day.
Yes, I agree that electric rate will jump WAY up once the majority of people have EV's. I've been saying this for a long time.
В начале видео вы правильно произнесли название приёмника без акцента! У вас прекрасное произношение русского языка ! :)))
Oh man, i hate it when things stop working again when you put them back together.
My 360 gave me 2 red rings after i replaced the thermal paste, tested it, and put it together again. That _really_ pissed me off!
That's a great little set, looks to be very solid and well designed (as I believe were many things from the USSR even if they weren't always at the leading edge of technology).
AM radio is pretty much done here in the UK. I can only recieve a handful of stations, most of which are sports or talk. I replaced the AM only receiver in my 1982 Volvo with an AM / FM cassette deck for this reason.
Not that FM is much better - local radio stations have all been gobbled up by a couple of conglomerates which network the same shows from London and broadcast them nationwide.
Most music radio has become very MOR - either contemporary pop or 'oldies', but with a very limited playlist that quickly becomes repetitive.
Even the "no repeat workday" merchants pretty much just shuffle the same hundred or so playlisted tunes throughout the week, maybe dropping in a couple of wildcards here & there if you can get through the ad/music ratio... DX not too bad though recently if you're into that sort of thing.
Don't want to get political but where I live the giant Carrier Heating and Cooling factory that orange man bad talked Carrier out of moving to Mexico announced it is s now planning once again to close the plant and move production to Mexico next year. During Obama our city lost the Navistar engine foundry and assembly plant, Chrysler engine casting and assembly plant, GM truck and bus metal stamping plant, GM guide lamp, Detroit Diesel Allison plant, Ford steering manufacturing plant, Jenn Air, Phillips manufacturing and many more.
Sounds to me like "Orange Man" knew how to keep jobs in the country and people employed...
It isn't over yet, and orange man is still in office. But what comes after 2024 is concerning.
Some cities around Boston, MA have banned oil and gas equipment in new construction as well. Long live A1A and A3E.
FM transmitters use power just as AM transmitters do.I have worked on and repaired MANY AM, FM ,TV(analog), and yes-short wave transmitters.250 and 500Kw.SW and AM is getting more efficient with solid state pulse step modulators.In the SW you still have tubes in the RF power out amps and the driver stage.Digital Radio Modial can help-you broadcast digital material over SW and you can use less power.IE at the VOA Greenville SW transmitter site they run a Continental Electronics 50Kw AM-Sideband SW transmitter with DRM at 5Kw.The 15hp blower requires more power than the RF.When that Tx plays at 50Kw the final tube runs class A hence the HUGE noisy blower.Blows directly on the base of the PA tube socket!Digital TV uses less power than analog and these transmitters are SS.So ANYTIME broadcast is involved you are going to use electric power.And---Solar adn wind CANNOT replace base coal,natural gas,and Hydro electric power.The ONLY alternative power generation that works is hydro power!Gravity ALWAYS works-Wind doesn't blow constantly and solar is USELESS at night.Rant over.
Intermittent faults can be the hardest pain to find - I've had some! A lot of vehicle pollution also comes from tyres and moving gear. Something that's not of common knowledge is that if any energy is used - entropy goes up from order to more disorder. This is an arrow moving in just one direction - manifesting itself in greater heat. So, energy usage needs to be very carefully managed to keep the earth from further warming. If not already, this is going to be a profound taskmaster (with a thumping great big stick), controlling our behaviour :)
Another thing for AM-FM broadcast transmitters-these are now solid state-no more tubes-that allows them to require less power.For both digital broadcasting also would require less power.Don't be surprized if the stations have to ditch analog and go digital.
Now that you have convinced us these are the bomb, I'm thinking the eBay price is about to spike.
With the companies locking down there hardware and software "Apple" for instance electric cars are going to be a nightmare in the used car market how long do battery packs last? 5 to 8 years? and at $5,000 and we still have to account for inflation as time goes on.
a 5,000 used car will be 10,000 used car easy. I like electric cars too but I think its going to be a problem.
They should have pushed for hydrogen. Except for the tank and fuel system there is little to modify. It is also a lot cleaner than making electric batteries.
There's a coulple of old photos of New York traffic I've seen - one taken about 1900 and the other around 1910
And it's *all* horses in the first and *all* internal combustion in the second.
But we've had reasonably good EVs for more than 10 years and they haven't replaced the petrol engine because they still not quite as 'good'.
And unless someone comes up with a better battery, I don't think they will be - they can't compete on the range, the 'recharge' time and certaily not the price.
Correct, hydrogen is the answer. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe but it tends to "stick" to other elements, thus making its extraction very difficult and costly. The byproduct of burning hydrogen is water. Nothing cleaner than that. Top Gear made a very good episode about hydrogen a few years ago.
Apple batteries will be made by slave labor in India
@@spu77 Hydrogen cars only make sense when you have a good clean source of H2 because hydrogen engines are inefficient. Most hydrogen today is made from 'steam reforming' of natural gas which requires energy and also produces CO2.
If you make hydrogen from water using clean electricity you still end up burning it in an inefficient engine, so it is much worse from an efficiency standpoint than battery electric vehicles.
You can refer to this Engineering Explaned video: th-cam.com/video/1Ajq46qHp0c/w-d-xo.html
It’s funny you mentioned going green in the future but the DAB and streaming radios use ten times the power of a traditional transistor radio. Bump! that’s doubled the price of these Russian gems. But so it goes.
That radio is so kool. Now that you have tested it and given the Shango stamp of approval the prices will double!
Dang it now I want a black-and-purple Sokol RP-210 just like this one and there ain't none anywhere.
Stop making me want things.
They are a lot more compact than the earlier style Germanium transistors.
The future is bleak and generic but that radio is unique and will last longer.
How about some LW band scanning at night with this amazing radio?
About all you will find in the US are non directional beacons.
You may hear some LowFER between 160kHz and 190kHz but they are only 1 watt with a small antenna.
Interesting, thanks for the info. In northern Greece where I live, I can pick up stations from Balkan and African countries on LW.
$8.00 a gallon? Europe has paid about twice the US price for decades.
The wholesale price of gasoline/petrol is the same in Europe as it is in the U.S. It's just that the *governments* of European nations tax it substantially more at the pump.
Talking about fuel prices. Here in the UK, if i convert it to US Dollars we are about 6.80 a Gallon at the moment. Its gone down a fair bit compared to what fuel prices were 2yrs ago. But i guess thats still expensive compared to US prices. Thats why we have to drive cars that do 60 to 70mpg.
In soviet Russia, you don't play radio, radio plays you!
btw, Radio dismal could go away completely and it would not hurt my feelings at all. but that is not the same as my feelings about AM radio, I love AM broadcast, there is still nothing more versatile than AM
BTW, I already saw a huge jump in gas prices in Indy.
In europe gasoline is already quite expensive at around 5$/galon or so. However "regular" 87 american is equivalent to nonexistent 91 european (well, almost, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine etc. still have it but they are not EU), If you want to compare prices, you have to look at 90-91 "premium" US gasoline which is equivalent to common european "regular" 95 (lowest possible gasoline rating). The octane ratings are different across the world. Higher quality gasoline does mean that the engines can have higher compression and use turbochargers. And for one, I don't really understand, other than having bigger cars, why US cars have such powerful engines when speed limits (and people abusing those speed limits) are rather slow compared to europe. Also the US electricity cost (on average) is around the same as my country, Poland, which has far lower average wage than the US and the kWh cost is already one of the cheapest ones in EU. With western countries the electricity is quite a lot more expensive than the US, at similar wage levels. So in fact, the US has a lot of room to "catch up" with the living costs. Not saying that you should, but many countries are much worse, when it comes to those costs.
Our speed limits in my state on the interstate highways average 75 miles per hour, some areas are at 85. Our cost per kilowatt hours is around $.10. But no, we prefer not having to catch up in that regard. But if the leftist take over and pick up where they left off, the US will be strapped into that 'money glut' 'tax hiking fraud', 'job robbing' and 'economy killing' of a carbon tax so called climate accord. And NO ONE but the Communist Chinese and the politicians of this SCAM will become filthy rich because of it, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE WILL CHANGE OR IMPROVE BECAUSE OF IT. But I digress and wish you a Merry Christmas 🎅 nonetheless.
I agree with the going greener and that most AM stations are wasting too much energy and simply just staying in existence with advertising revenue. The old saying about electric cars "It's the batteries, Stupid" still holds true in 2020 but, in 5 or 10 years technology should be there along with the infrastructure needed (FAST Charging stations). Cool radio with the Cyrillic band markings. Any reception on the other band?
Beautiful 💓. I have also