I remember my father listening to the Dodgers games with Vin Scully announcing the play by play action. "It's a swing and a miss...." or KNX radio news. He would listen to KNX news radio every day as well.
It's funny the old 70's jingles on the radio are still in my memory. During the 70's, Travel Lodge motels were still a big chain at the time.
"Look for a Travel Lodge, get a good night sleep and the price won't keep, you awaayyyy....".
In Ventura County Oxnard we had a Ford Dealership which had a jingle I can't seem to forget.
"Eleven Eleven Oxnard Boulevard, Tom Coward Ford is the place to be, Tom Coward Ford is Oxnard's 'little Detroit'...
Sears! Sears! Sears! Where America Shops!
As the years went by, I remember when my parents were at work I would listen to the radio tuned to Los Angeles KTNQ 1020 "The New Ten Q."
It's funny back then I was not very technically minded, I remember seeing notches with a grease pencil on the radio dial. My father had his favorites as we had ours too. The notches were there because we never knew how to operate a radio and what all those numbers meant. We must have frustrated my father. The grease notch for KNX stayed on that dial for along time. When I would tune the radio, I would start from one end of the dial to the other till I heard the station I was looking for. That took some time. I was only 6 so give me some slack.
The very first radio I had the privilege to briefly own was a nice "dumpster dive" find. I didn't know the term "dumpster diving" until I was in my 30s. My friend who lived outside of the neighborhood I lived in had a mother who dumpster dived frequently. I was always impressed by how she would find so much and furnished their apartment.
Anyways, I remember after finding it and bringing it home I held that radio as the big kids held their boomboxes. I thought I could be cool like the neighborhood kids around who carried Boomboxes back then. I remember how it was kosher to hold the boom box a certain way. You had to hold the boombox at the very end with one corner of the radio hanging downward. I look back at it and it seems strange.
Needless to say, I didn't have the radio but for a few days. My parents found out where I got it, and demanded I put it back where I found it. This has scarred me almost to this day. Whenever I speak of this I get rattled up. To throw away a radio is a SIN.
A few years later for my 13th birthday my parents decided to treat me with shopping for a present. I picked out a GE Transistor Radio very similar to Model 7-25820 AM/FM. The model I got did not have a belt clip, it only had a hand strap This radio was my companion for quite some time.
I think when I got this radio, the world of broadcast radio really caught my idol worship. It was a nice radio. I began to see my world through this radio. I learn about the world around me through this radio. It played the soundtrack to many of my pre-adolescent days. It's funny, I went through so many earphones listening to this radio. I was blessed that the Navy Exchange at that time had a generous return policy. I also went through some batteries as well. I would have to beg and plead to my parents for money to buy a battery. I remember they would only give me enough for a cheap heavy duty battery. Those were just over a dollar. The batteries didn't last very long especially when listening to FM. AM listening would help the battery last much longer. I didn't notice that in the beginning since I listened to AM only at first. I think at that time, XEAK-AM "the Might 690" top 40 radio station was the thing. During that time top 40 music on AM was very common and still profitable.
This is all for now. This is a brief start of my idol worship of broadcast radio and my interest in broadcast receiver radios. I want to thank the people who are selling these radios on ebay. These radios are up for auction on ebay.
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