Portable Radios

A transistor radio is a small transistor-based radio receiver. Historically, the term "transistor radio" refers to a radio that is monoaural and typically receives only the 540–1600 kilocycle AM broadcast band. more...

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History

In 1952 Intermetall unveiled what was probably the first transistorized portable radio on the Düsseldorf Radio fair.

The first commercial transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, was announced on October 18, 1954 by the Regency Division of Industrial Development Engineering Associates of Indianapolis, Indiana and put on sale in November of 1954. It cost $49.95 (the equivalent of roughly $364 in year-2005 dollars) and sold about 150,000 units. Raytheon and Zenith Electronics transistor radios soon followed and were priced even higher. Even the first Japanese imports (in 1957) were priced at $30 and above. Transistor radios did not achieve mass popularity until the early 1960s when prices of some models fell below $20, then below $10 as markets became flooded with radios from Hong Kong by the mid to late 1960s.

Texas Instruments was behind the Regency transistor radio. In May 1954, they had designed and built a prototype and were looking for an established radio manufacturer to develop and market a radio using their transistors. None of the major radio makers were interested. RCA had demonstrated a prototype transistor radio as early as 1952 and it is likely that they and the other radio makers were planning transistor radios of their own. But Texas Instruments and Regency were the first to put forth a production model. Sony, at the time still a small company named Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, Ltd., (aka "Totsuko"), followed soon after by releasing the Sony TR-55 in August 1955 as Japan's first commercially produced transistor radio. With its release, Sony also became the first company to manufacture a radio from the transistors on up, and to utilize all miniature components. Sony's first official import to the U.S.A. was the "pocketable" TR-63 released in March 1957, a model which proved highly successful in that market. In January 1958, the company changed its name to Sony, a name that had previously been the reserve of its radio brand. The Sony TR-610 was released some months later, marking another resounding success and taking its place as the first transistor radio to sell more than a half-million units.

The use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes as the amplifier elements meant that the device was much smaller and required far less power to operate than a tubed radio. It also ensured that the audio reception was available instantly, since there were no filaments concerned which could have taken considerable time to heat up. The typical portable radio of the fifties was about the size and weight of a lunchbox, and contained several heavy (and non-rechargeable) batteries: one or more so-called "A" batteries just to heat the tube filaments and a large 45- to 90-volt "B" battery to power the Cathode and rest of the circuitry. By comparison, the "transistor" could fit in a pocket and weighed half a pound or less and was powered by standard flashlight batteries or a single compact 9-volt battery. (The now-familiar 9-volt battery was introduced specifically for powering transistor radios.)

Read more at Wikipedia.org