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I'd like to see some old sonar radios, Robin or was it Robyn radios, Sears and Roebuck, JCPenney and a few of the other oddball radios. What were those scanners again that Bob Grove made, it's on the tip of my tongue, I'll remember.
You are making me feel old; with your mention of SONAR Radios.
I have three Sonar radios.
1) A Sonar FR101 Low Vhf with Slide rule tuning.
It's bigger than a shoe box, it kept me warm in the winter, because it uses tubes.
Two all solid state radios:
2) A Sonar FR103S HI Vhf 3 crystals, tuneable AM
3) A Sonar FR 106SA Low Vhf 3crystals, tuneable AM
ALL were bought new in the 70s at Lafayette Electronics in Cincinnati, and I still have them!
At the time the FR series (Xtal controlled) were the latest OOH! AAH! thing in scanners, because they were small enough that you could easily pick them up, and walk around with them.
None of the FR Series actually scanned.
The Vhf channel you were listening to was selected by a slide switch on the side of the case, and the AM frequency was selected by turning a dial.
The selectivity was very poor.
The band width was wider than a barn door.
The FR101 tended to drift, and had to be retuned about once a week or so,
I used the FR 101 until a few years ago, when one of the tubes gave out.
Any body have a 6BG7?
In the mid 70's I bought a"scanning radio" thru the Sears and Roebuck catalog.
The catalog showed a Sears branded radio in the picture, but what I got was a BearCat 220.
You can see on the front there is a raised area where different brand labels can be applied.
At the time, I didn't know about the BearCat brand, and I was concerned that it might not be "Sears Quality".
Anyway, Can I post pictures on here?