Talk:Transistor radio
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An event mentioned in this article is an October 18 selected anniversary.
The article currently says of the early transistor radio:
- "These radios, of course, were monaural and limited to the FM band."
If memory serves, this is a typo for AM, no? Opus33 03:23, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
- Oh, my goodness gracious. <blush> Yes, of course. How could I have ever said that? Those early transistors were just barely capable of handling signals in the 550-1600 kilocycle broadcast band and couldn't have done squat at 88 megacycles. (Note period reference to "cycles."). Dpbsmith 13:43, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Kilocycles
Transistor radios could not have possibly received the "530-1600 kilohertz AM broadcast band" in 1954, as there was no such thing as a hertz in 1954. It is like saying that Captain Cook landed in the State of Hawaii.
After correcting the detail that the low end was 540, not 530, I see only four basic ways to phrase this accurately.
- the 540-1600 kilocycle AM broadcast band, i.e. don't explain kilocycles at all;
- the 540-1600 "kilocycle" AM broadcast band, i.e. hint at an explanation
- the 540-1600 kilocycle (as the kilohertz was then called) AM broadcast band, i.e. explain what a kilocycle was;
- the broadcast band, the range of frequencies now designated 540-1600 kilohertz i.e. avoid the obsolete term but make it clear that the modern term was not used.
We can't use a phrasing like "what is now known as the 540-1600 kilohertz broadcast band," because it now extends up to 1700 kHz.
I'm trying the simplest alternative (no explanation). Dpbsmith (talk) 23:34, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- I tried a compromise - keeping User:Dpbsmiths version while adding a footnote. —QuantumEleven | (talk) 18:02, August 29, 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Battery Used
After reading the article I got the impression that the TR-1 used a standard 9V battery. It actually used a special 22-1/2 volt battery (and in the advertisment you can see it mention the battery). Upon rereading the article it isn't clear whether it is talking about the TR-1 or transistor radios in general when discussing the type of battery used. Perhaps this could be made clearer.ЬṛḶ
[edit] Vagueness in History section
The History section, while very informative and good contains a number of statements that are quite vague and need to be clarified:
- Texas Instruments was behind the Regency transistor radio.
What does 'behind' mean? Produced, marketed?
- In Japan, big firms like Matsushita and Toshiba who might have been expected to push forward with a transistor radio acted more like their big American counterparts.
Do we really need a sentence on something that didn't happen?
- It was Sony, then a small, aggressive concern, who produced Japan's first transistor radio,
What does 'aggressive' actually mean in this context?
- Most radios also had earphone jacks and came with single earphones affording middling quality sound reproduction.
While the sound wasn't great, how would we Verify this? Was the sound quality poor for the era?
- Teenagers, with an earphone plugged into one ear, immersed in a private musical world, became a familiar sight, and one that made Ray Bradbury's description of "seashell radios" in his 1953 Fahrenheit 451 seem prescient.
Hate to be a party pooper, but bring up Bradbury out of the blue doesn't seem very encyclopediac and verges on OR.
- To consumers familiar with the earphone listening experience of the transistor radio, the first Sony Walkman cassette player, with a pair of high-fidelity stereo earphones, would come as a revelation.
What does 'revelation' mean in this context and is talk of a cassette player relevant to the article? Ashmoo 01:56, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
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- I edited the section to make it more formal PipOC 03:05, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
