A not so old radio

 

 A few years ago there was a craze to buy nostalgic radios and some are quite tricky to distinguish from original. This one though is easy because the dial shows a figure of "102" and is obviously an FM frequency. Around the back is a small switch carrying the markings "LW", "MW" and "FM". A tiny black wire emerging from the cover is for FM reception and the lack of an aerial socket for LW and MW reception means there's a ferrite rod inside the case.

 

 

 Here's the rear cover which shows a very unusual manufacturing country (at least for those found in the UK).. Romania.

But when was it made? I'll reveal this in a close-up picture of its loudspeaker at the bottom of the page.

 

 It uses transistors as valves would be rather inconvenient. You'll note the small mains transformer bottom right and of course the modern plastic mains cable.

 

 Here's a view of the rear of the loudspeaker which carries some interesting details.

The model is P-21495 B

The rating is 3VA Max and what looks like 3 ohms which is an unusual way of expressing the rating.

Then there's NID 2207-83 and finally 26-85 which I assume is the manufacturing date (week 26 of 1985).

Romania was under Soviet rule until 1989 so this radio belongs to the Iron Curtain regime together with a couple of other radios in my collection.

The other marking is probably that of the QA department tasked with testing and checking for appearance.

 

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