I do not remember my first radio, but do remember my first record player. It was inside of a pink case. I was delighted to get for my BD. I received a stuffed skunk from a blind man that was a friend of my grand fathers. For some reason I really liked the little skunk. It carried a little bouquet of flowers in paws.
That little rocket radio is the one that I had , too. We had one radio station in my little town and it went off of the air at 10PM, after playing the Star Spangled Banner. The rocket radio only picked up that one station that was close by , so it was hard to listen very long at night, but I remember enjoying it anyway. Eventually. My mom bought me a transistor radio, and it got both AM and FM, and the antenna was in the handle. It had much better reception, and late at night, it would pick up all kinds of stations , as far away as Canada and one giant station in Chicago. Not all the time, bot when the air was just right, it did, something like “skip” on a CB radio does.
Sounds like a transistor as they were replacing the 5 tube table radios during the early 60s. They were nice as a clock radio because they came on instantly with no warm-up time as required with tubes.
I don't know anything about electronics. It was just an electric radio that plugged into the wall. I thought transistor radios were battery operated and portable...???
I look at transistor radios as the beginning of the outside world having access to children without the parent's oversight. But I won't derail this thread...
My dad was a boating/fishing enthusiast and we always had some kind of boat when I was growing up. Dad would spend his spare time tinkering with The Evinrude. We'd take the boat to the lake during the summer and several times I attempted to learn how to water ski, but I never got the hang of it.
I can't tell you the number of failed attempts I had at trying to water ski. When I hit my late 30s, I treated myself to a Club Med vacation on the island of Martinique. Just for grins I decided to try it again. As I sat on the pier with the ski rope in hand, their instructions told me exactly what to do. They pulled on the rope to simulate the boat's tug, and pointed out what I was doing wrong. I got up on them the very first time. Now, if I could only find someone like that to teach me how to swim and tread water...
Those small-town AM radio stations were the best. They were my favorite to work at. 1000 watts from 6 AM to 6 PM and 250 watts from 6 PM till 10 PM when they shut down. All live announcers and no automation. Sadly like drive-in movies, that part of America has almost disappeared.
They are but also the table radios were changed from tubes to transistors and later led to the integrated circuit and now computer chip. The transistor changed electronics forever. It is sometimes referred to as solid-state on the old radios meaning they are transistors instead of tubes.
Life preserver. I have an odd problem: I can propel myself through the water (and underwater) fine, I just can't coordinate the top-water breathing (and I can't tread water.) Gimme a snorkel and I can be in the water all day long. It's funny, when I got in line to ski, I didn't even think about not being able to swim. Stupid American.
I did the same thing on a vacation trip to Canada as a teenager. My father was driving the boat. I'm surprised he let me even try it. Couldn't swim. Wore life preserver. One try and it scared me too much to try again. He kept telling me to make sure and let go of the rope when you fail. Ha Ha It was also a lot of trouble to get set up. I realized there wasn't enough hours in a week to learn it. There must be some special way (speed, etc) to handle the boat, and I doubt he knew.