![]() ![]() The same basic circuit was used in many inexpensive transistor AM radios. Over the years, the price of transistor portables came down dramatically. The radio shown here, for example, is a 4-tube portable from the 1955 Allied Radio Catalog. While they were still bigger in size, the performance of a tube portable would be dramatically better, and the cost would be much lower. A review of the radio in Consumer Reports recommended against purchase.įor 1955 listeners who needed a portable radio, a tube set was still the best option. Also, it lacked sensitivity, making it suitable only for receiving strong local stations. In particular, the single audio amplifier transistor provided meager volume to the small speaker. The original TI prototype had included 6 transistors, which was reduced to keep costs down. The radio was a generally poor performer. Still, the radio sold about 100,000 units in its first year on the market. Today, that would represent about a thousand dollars. To put that price in perspective, coinage of the day was still silver, meaning that the radio could be yours in exchange for 50 silver dollars. The radio originally retailed for $49.95. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. “ Regency TR-1 opened front Deutsches Museum” by Theoprakt – Own work. It was put on the market in November 1954. The major names in radio weren’t interested, but an Indiana company named Industrial Development Engineering Associates (I.D.E.A.) jumped at the opportunity. Texas Instruments produced a prototype transistor radio in 1954, and began shopping around for a radio manufacturer interested in producing it. While somewhat expensive to operate, this was an improvement over tube portable radios, which would typically operate for a few hours on a change of batteries. (The battery, incidentally, is still available, but it’s now a very specialized item and very expensive.) The radio drew about 4 milliamps, meaning that a battery would last about 20-30 hours. To function at RF frequencies, the transistors required a fairly high voltage, which was supplied by a 22.5 volt battery. It was a superheterodyne, with one transistor as the mixer-oscillator, two for IF amplification, and one as an audio amplifier. It was first produced in 1954, and featured here in Popular Mechanics, January 1955.Īs shown in the schematic diagram below, the radio used four NPN transistors from Texas Instruments. Shown here is the first commercially manufactured transistor radio, the Regency TR-1. Shipping just $3.95 worldwide! That’s right, shipping to anyw in the world is just $3.95.Sixty years ago, a new phrase entered the American lexicon: transistor radio.
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