Classicsat wrote:

Quote
Well into the 1970s direct line powered radios were sold. Sometime in the 1960s they made them solid state (Have an RCA one somewhere).

Be careful, however. The "hot chassis" solid-state sets are not for plugging into DC supplies!!!

In fact, some of those radios had big labels in the back that said "Caution, Do NOT plug into DC"

Also, while the RADIO section of these transformerless sets could operate on DC, a lot of them came with clocks.

You guessed it. Those clocks could only run on +/- 120 volts AC, 60 cycle. The label on the back or bottom would say 120 volts AC only, 60 cycles (or 60 c/s).

I think General Electric kept making those solid-state hot-chassis sets well into the early 1980s. I have a bunch of radios like that here.

There is a big 3-inch cement-encased dropper resistor in the circuit that gets pretty hot to the touch, although not as hot as the droppers inside the 220-volt AC/DC radios used to get (those used to sometimes burn off the cardboard back covers on the radios!! [Linked Image] ).

I HATE those radios with resistance flexes -- I will never buy one of them. No matter how cute they look.

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 09-17-2003).]

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 09-17-2003).]