My parents had one of these units on the side table in the dining room. My father put up an FM antenna outside on the roof so he could listen to more stations. In the early 1960s, there were not as many around as there are today. Our house was on the wrong side of a hill for the NYC stations, although Peekskill seemed to come in just fine. What is fascinating to me is the timing and cost. These stereos were made in 1963, not long after the Zenith/General Electric FM stereo system was adopted and first broadcast on WGFM (now WRVE) in Schenectady, NY (June 1, 1961). Not every FM station rushed out to install the new system.
For a bit of a reference, $180.00 in 1963 is worth $1,868.65 in 2025. At that time, my father was an installer/repairman for New York Telephone. My mother was not working and six of us lived under one roof. That was quite a bit of money for an AM/FM radio.
The radio was normally tuned to 100.7 WHUD, which initially went stereo in 1972. Other stations that could be received: WGFM, WROW-FM, WSPK, WEOK-FM (now WPDH), and WGFH (later WINE-FM now WRKI).
I purchased this one on eBay for $70.00. It turns on (in fact, it did not turn off), there is a hum, the pots are scratchy, etc. However, if I tune it to one of the local AM stations, I can hear music under the loud 60-cycle hum. In other words, it works! So, I spent time fixing all the defects and enjoyed some nostalgia. According to this date stamp, the wood enclosure was made in January 1963. I would think the rest of the unit was made about the same time, which means this is one of the first radios in this model. This may have been manufactured in Bridgeport, CT, or Syracuse, NY. The serial number is missing from the back of the chassis.
The main source of the hum appears to be this capacitor, which clearly has seen better days.
The on/off problem was the selector switch, which stuck in the on position because it was gunked up with dried-up lubricating oil and dust. I cleaned it with denatured alcohol and DeOxit.
The parts list included about $15 worth of capacitors, $1 for a new rectifier diode, a $7 telescoping FM antenna from Amazon, and $6.32 for two PLT 12 6.3 volt miniature lamps for dial light.
All of the tubes look to be the original GE units. After the recap, I turned it on and there was nice sounding AM, but no FM. The FM RF section has a triple triode (V2) which is the AFC, 10.7 MHz Oscillator, and mixer. This tube was loose in its socket and needed to be reseated. After that, everything worked.
All of the pots were scratchy. I cleaned them with DeOxit and worked them back and forth many times. After a while, they all are working.
I found a Sam’s Photofact (basic service manual) on this set. What is very interesting is the schematic for the multiplex receiver. This section decodes the L+R/L-R signals and produces the stereo audio. Unlike modern FM stereo receivers, in which the broadband multiplex signal is fed into one side of a chip and the discrete L/R signal comes out of the other side, the signal path through the various processing stages can be followed.
The broadband MPX signal comes from the IF stage via wire #27. The signal is amplified by V6. The L+R (20 Hz to 15 KHz) or mono signal goes through a low-pass filter L17/C40; the 3dB cutoff should be around 16-17 KHz. The L-R and 19 KHz pilot goes to wire 34, thence through a high-pass filter C37/L16/C38; the cutoff should be 20 KHz or so. The L-R and 19 KHz pilot are Amplitude Modulated subcarriers on the FM signal. Wire 38 routes the MPX signal to V6 which recreates the 38 KHz subcarrier by doubling the 19 KHz pilot. This is filtered by a bandpass filter C13/L14. The L-R and the 38 KHz subcarrier are sent to the product detector.
Diode product detectors X4 and X5 (1N541) demodulate the lower sideband (23 – 37.98 KHz) and the upper side band (38.02 – 53 KHz) respectively. Those signals are summed in the matrix subassembly K4 with the L+R. Mathematically, the results are:
The Left and Right audio is then sent to the first audio stage V7 through a deemphasis network. If no 19 KHz pilot is detected, no 38 KHz carrier is recreated and this stage remains silent. In other words, you have to find an FM station in mono first, then flip it to stereo to see if there is enough signal to decode the L-R. One of the limitations of the first generation of FM stereo receivers. Newer versions of this set have a stereo light, or “Stereo Eye” so the listener knows when stereo reception is possible.
The front of the cabinet is covered with glass, which I cleaned with soapy water. The glass has part of the gold leaf trim rubbed off. I think this radio got a lot of use.
I let the knobs soak in soapy water overnight then cleaned them off with an old toothbrush. I believe that this radio was once in a smoking environment, based on the amount of yellow, gooey substance covering everything. I ended up disassembling the entire unit to clean it. I used a paintbrush and the shop vac to get all of the dust out of the cabinet.
The speakers and speaker cones are in good condition. The speaker cabinets needed a little work; in both cabinets, the fronts (the part that is seen when both speakers are “closed”) were popping off. I had to glue a bit of wood back together and fix the metal holding brackets. The cloth on the speaker side is a little faded.
The wood finish is in good shape with a few scratches and dings. I decided to use Howard Restore-A-Finish. This is not the same as stripping and refinishing but rather repairing the existing finish. There was a water ring on top of the cabinet, which was removed with the Restore-A-Finish and light use of steel wool.
Reassembly went about as expected. I glued these tie bases to hold up the new capacitors.
The receiver is fairly sensitive and the dial is accurate. There is an alignment procedure in the repair manual, but I think everything is working as it should. I have spent enough time trying to fix things that are already working to know that for a 1963 tube receiver, this is good enough. Perfection, as they say, is the enemy of everything else.
So, how does it sound? Pretty darn good, as it turns out. I am working on a brief YouTube video with some religious music (I’ll post it when it is done). On the FM side, I can get WAMK, WBPM, WKXP, WJUX, WDST, WPDH, WFSO, and WPDA clearly with the whip antenna on the radio. AM, I hear WGHQ and WJIP.
I can hear the old man now, humming along to his favorite tune…
Wow! Impressive.
That’s very cool. Thanks for sharing.
Excellent. It’s always satisfying to bring a set like that back from the dead. And the Sam’s back then listed the manufacturers address…1001 Broad St, Utica. I didn’t know GE had something there. Knew about Kent St. and that other plant. Have to go look that one up.
“Thick yellow goo…” Yep, the mark of a smoker. Especially bad in color TV HV compartments. One RCA was so bad, I almost couldn’t see the flyback “tire” for the goop and dust. Took half a can of “Blue Shower” tuner wash to flush the stuff out. I hated working on RCA CTC-38’s because of the tiny HV compartment, and the high propensity for ciggie tar encrustations!
This was a fun project. One thing to note is that the FM Stereo needs a lot of signal to decode. I found listening to stations in FM mode and leaving the stereo off is better. Also, the AFC works well once the radio is warmed up. Working on an outdoor FM antenna.
I came across this guy recently at my folks’ house. I know that as of maybe 15 years ago it worked, but it’s a bit rough looking cosmetically and I’m not going to power it up until I’ve had a look inside (honestly, tube stuff scares me a bit, also have an old Fender Champ that needs help).
I remember it used to sound pretty decent, but no stereo. The band selector dial is interesting – you have AM, FM and “FM AFC”. Not sure why AFC was optional?
Anyhow, have a look:
https://i.imgur.com/iUrUwr4.jpeg (front)
https://i.imgur.com/m8UJAQa.jpeg (back)
That is a nice looking table top radio. I’d guess it is from the late 60s or early 70s. AFC stands for Automatic Frequency Control, which was needed in some of the older radios to prevent drift. With gear like that, the first thing to do is look at the power supply capacitors. If they are the cardboard version (Like the GE), replace them. After that, if there are any issues, re-seat the tubes, look for broken wires, etc. Normally, these units are still functional.
Nice story, Paul — it brought back good memories.
An elementary school classmate offered my first demonstration of FM stereo in 1968 on his dad’s T-1000. At that time, the only local stations broadcasting stereo in the Syracuse market were WONO 107.9 (with a classical format) and WSYR-FM 94.5 during evening hours when it broke away from the AM 570 simulcast. (WDDS 93.1 was transmitting Muzak® on a 41 kHz SCA, which sounded weird when the T-1000 was switched to stereo, since it uses the pilot only for demodulation of the 38 kHz sub rather than an automatic mono/stereo switch.)
About three years later at a garage sale, I found a T-1000 and its matching turntable stand in good condition for $15, then told my dad, and he bought it for me as a birthday present. We lived in Baldwinsville less than two miles south of WSEN-FM 92.1, which transmitted from the studio/WSEN AM 1050 site. (It’s now WOLF-FM and has been relocated to the WFBL AM site.)
After connecting an external antenna, I began hearing WSEN rather than hiss in “dead spots” on the dial. Apparently, WMHR 102.9 was strong enough at our home to mix with 92.1 in the poorly-filtered front end, generating a 10.8 MHz product that passed into the IF stage regardless of local oscillator frequency. But after midnight when WSEN signed off, the problem went away and I could enjoy DX-ing. A 9-element yagi mounted atop an 80 foot spruce pulled in most of the Rochester stations under normal conditions, although stereo was slightly noisy. WHFM 98.9 (now WBZA) was one of my favorites, but I often heard interference from commercial airline pilots calling Syracuse tower on 120.3, the image frequency. On summer nights, I got a pretty good signal from WGFM 99.5 Schenectady which had recently introduced TM’s “Stereo Rock” format, and on occasion I’d hear WAAF in full stereo quieting. WOUR 96.9 was fine all the time, except for westbound pilots calling Rochester tower on 118.3.
After starting college in September 75 at a school in WNY, the T-1000 kept me entertained, but good income from a summer relief engineering job at Channel 9 in Syracuse allowed me to upgrade to a Kenwood KT-7500 tuner the following year and retire the GE. I got rid of it about 45 years ago after the glass front panel had cracked. I’m happy that you found one to restore, since that model may have been the very first FM stereo receiver offered to the public. After touring Beth Mann’s excellent radio museum at WKDZ in Cadiz KY, I suggested that she look for one to display, due to its historical significance.
Note the T-1000 in this photo of Hungarian immigrant Antal “Tony” Csicsatka, GE’s engineer who held the company’s FM stereo patent. Perhaps the “T” stands for Tony: https://images.app.goo.gl/fLNA7z116Qez9S2J6
Thank you for the very interesting comment, Mark. Your observations are spot on. I have not heard of any aircraft, but I do not live near any large airports. The front end is pretty “open” however. I will look into Beth Mann’s radio museum, that sounds interesting too.
CSS said “Not sure why AFC was optional?”
regarding AFC, it would be advisable to tune in the desired station with AFC OFF, and then switch AFC ON (otherwise you could have the tuning on the very edge of the AFC frequency pulling range and possibly loose reception later when there is slight drift in the opposite direction).
Also if attempting to hear a weak station adjacent to a strong one, it is likely necessary to leave the AFC OFF (and contend with fine tuning it from time-to-time) as otherwise the AFC will probably pull-in on the adjacent strong signal
CSS, that radio looks like a Zenith G730. It dates from around 1960. I own a Zenith C835H that is of the same vintage and was my “daily driver” for many years. Its circuit design is very similar to the G730. When aligned correctly, the FM reception on those radios is quite remarkable. And they sound pretty nice too.
If you’re so inclined, I recommend replacing all of the ceramic disc and paper/wax capacitors. I had several of them fail at different times before I decided to quit playing “whack-a-mole” and to just replace all of them. But leave the other caps alone.
The other parts that are likely to cause problems are the IF transformers. Inside each IF can, there is a capacitor across each coil. Those caps are just tiny sheets of mica coated with silver. The problem is that eventually the silver tarnishes or flakes off. The failure symptom is a crackling sound on AM (like listening during a thunderstorm) or loud white noise on FM. The good news is that it’s not too difficult to disassemble the IF can and to retrofit with modern silver-mica caps. (The values are around 100 pF, so modern replacements will actually fit inside the can.) It is not so easy, unfortunately, to remove the can from the chassis.
If you google “zenith G730” you’ll find an antique radio forum where someone else has explained his restoration process for that radio – with photos.
Good luck, and enjoy that radio!