Since we're big radio fans at The Bag, we like to have radios almost everywhere in our daily lives. One of us recently discovered the need to have a portable radio to drag around the yard or garage for projects. The need was simple, a cheap, light, easy to carry AM/FM radio with no bells and whistles that takes minimal batteries. So it was off to the local major chain stores. Should take about five minutes right?
Not so simple. There are all kinds of mutations on the shelves, even a model or two still with cassette and/or cd but nothing plain and simple. That made us flash on a mental image of hand held transistor radios. These were the standard device that so many radio people grew up listening to under the pillow immediately after their parents called lights out. With only 9volts of power and one band (AM of course) you could listen to stations skipping off the atmosphere from hundreds of miles away. The web kinda does that for you now but, it's not quite the same in the garage. You don't want your laptop out there since you'll be flinging paint, oil and hot snowboard wax around. That seven dollar transistor radio, however, took a beating, went everywhere and seemed to last forever.
Those radios of old are literally still going as we discovered with a couple of cool websites. Check out http://www.transistor.org/ (Sarah's Transistor Radios) or http://www.8-track-shack.com/ . The vintage radios there are a total gas. When is someone going to make a laptop for 7 dollars that lasts forever?
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