[Arran]

Hi All;
Here is a question that just popped into my head but it's something I have been wondering about for a while now. Why didn't Philco make a multiband or all wave portable like the Zenith Transoceanic? From what I have discovered over the years RCA had their own version of a T.O, so did Hallicrafters, Stromberg Carlson, FADA, and even Silvertone, G.E had a wetcell portable that was close to a T.O, but not Philco. Was it something that they had no interest in? Was it something that they were developing but abandoned for whatever reason? It's something that I think is odd.
Regards
Arran

[Ron Ramirez]

They did - the all-transistor T-9 "Trans-World":

http://www.philcoradio.com/gallery/1958.htm#ak

Of course, as so often happened with Philco, they came along with one late in the game.

They also built at least one "Tropic" portable (built for the export market) with two SW bands as well as AM. I have one, a 1952 model with a leather case. I need to get a photo of it put into the Gallery.

Frankly, I think Philco became so preoccupied with being "all things to all people"; i.e. washers, dryers, ranges, freezers, military electronics as well as consumer TV and radio, that they no longer produced well-designed products in any category after awhile. You know the old saying about having one's hands in too many pots. Or pies, if you prefer.

[Jayce]

One has to wonder how things might have worked out if Philco had just concentrated on radio and television instead of everything? I'd never thought about Philco not building an 'all wave' portable before this. Not like they didn't have tube portables, so a T.O. clone shouldn't have been that far-fetched.

[Ron Ramirez]

Not like they didn't have tube portables...

Exactly. Philco's 46-350 was a rousing success, which is why eBay is saturated with them now. And for the next fourteen years, Philco produced lots of portable models for the USA market...all of which were AM only save for the T-9 "Trans-World" and a few models with the "Special Services" band - the same band that was called the "police" band in the 1930s (1.5 to 3 mc).

What about FM? Philco did not build a single AM-FM table model radio in the 1955 and 1956 seasons. By this time they were not only building several different portable models, but lots of different clock radios as well. Imagine what might have happened if they had built an AM-FM portable in the 1950s!

Yes, there is a valid argument that not many people really cared about FM until the 1970s, but I think that if they had built AM-FM portables and AM-FM clock radios, they would certainly have been ahead of the curve.

Take a look through this site's Gallery sometime, concentrating on the years of the 1950s. You will see a trend towards dull, uninspired products with virtually no style. Almost as if they didn't care about radio by 1959-60.

[Chuck Schwark]

Reflecting the Cold-War Era's "doom & gloom" maybe?


Chuck