Herculodge

Dear Herculodge: Help! My Radio Obsession Has Gotten the Best of Me!

 

As I write this, I have 13 radios throughout the house that I actually try to use on a regular basis in order that I might extract some joy out of them and justify the money I have spent on bringing them into my radio world. This count doesn’t include the three radios I keep at work, a place where, depending on where I’m doing my duties, I have not one but two offices at opposite perimeters of my jobsite. So to be accurate, I really own and use 16 radios.

 

Now having this many radios, while being a source of comfort and wellbeing for me, also creates a host of anxieties and problems, which I would like to describe to you.

 

Number one, I am not one of those radio lovers who buys radios just to collect them and show them off to my friends. Having a top-of-the-line radio sit on my shelf like a useless trophy, its powers atrophying and going to waste, sends me into misery and despair. I feel like I need to use it, especially my glory radios of old, like my Panasonic RF-2200 and my Sony ICF-5900.

 

But wanting to use my vintage radios raises the question: How much use is too much? After all, there are only so many treads on these radio tires. Do I want to use up their limited wear or just keep them preserved in glass bubbles like well-polished souvenirs?

 

Another source of anxiety is battery maintenance. Of the 16 radios that I use, 11 have batteries. Of the 11 battery-filled radios, only 2 are rechargeable. That means I have 9 radios filled with non-rechargeable batteries. What this means is that I have to be diligent about replacing those batteries or else they will leak acid into the radio compartment and disseminate throughout the circuitry rendering my radio utterly ruined. Often I find myself waking up in the middle of the night soaked in sweat for fear that a neglected radio was disintegrating during my sleep!

 

I could go on with the anxieties my radios cause me, like which one I should take with me on a road trip. If I take my Grundig G4000 along with me, am I “betraying” my C.Crane CSW and in doing so will the CSW “act out” during my return, suddenly afflicting itself with unduly background noise or allowing its LCD screen to go bonkers?

 

Herculodge, without delving more deeply into my sick mind, I think you get the picture. I think I have given you enough material to grasp the utter horror and despair that lies behind my pathology. What advice, if any, can you give a tormented soul like myself?

 

 

Dear Reader, 

Rest assured, I am experienced with the concerns you have mentioned in your earnest, heart-felt epistle and I want to let you know, first and foremost, that you are not alone—though I will say your description of a radio feeling “betrayed” is a first for me, but I suppose there must be a first time for everything. 

My second point is that you are a man and men are hard-wired toward technological obsessions while women are, to their great fortune, free from them. Man is biologically programmed to possess technological mastery in order for him to feel in control of Mother Nature and your drive for control has translated into a radio obsession. It is men, not women, who are afflicted with radio fetishes. 

Regarding the playing of your vintage radios, I suggest you do play and enjoy them but with moderation. Don’t play them all night or play them in your house all day when you’re gone to fool the would-be burglars into believing someone is home. Instead, play a more expendable radio for long hours. 

Your battery concern is a very real one. I recommend you go to Amazon’s website and if you don’t already have an account, establish one. Once you have an account, you can create a Reminder on a day of the annual calendar.  Perhaps during daylight savings in April, you can create a reminder to do a battery check of all your radios. Buy a $12 Juicemeter Portable Battery Tester and make sure all your batteries are in good shape. This annual practice should bring some calm to your otherwise tumultuous sleeping hours. 

As far as your feelings of “betrayal” for taking one radio over another on a road trip, I am afraid that is probably a pharmaceutical issue—one that is beyond my expertise. However, I have addressed 75% of your concerns and have at least given you that much more sanity to your life. And for that I feel deeply gratified. Best to you in your radio obsession and may you continue with it responsibly and remember be grateful that you have the time and resources to have a hobby. Appreciate what you have and look away from your frets and concerns once in a while. You’ll feel the better for it.

 

 

One Reader's Woeful Experience with His C.Crane Radio

Responding to my C.Crane report of frequent bugs, one reader David writes of many woes with his C.Crane Radio:

My Ccrane was purchased in 2000 and recently returned from its third trip from Ca. The first when I bought it and the second for the lcd repair. Finally this week the high maintenance radio with noisy preselects returned from a speaker problem repair and I find the battery box (I hope this is the problem) is not working. I have not recommended this radio for many years and this year have bought a standby radio that is so far good. It is the Sangean PR-D5.

Too bad I paid so much for the CCrane and two repairs. If I return it one more time it will be a $400 radio!

How Did We Get Duped Into Paying for Bottled Tap Water?

Today on KCRW's Evan Kleiman show Good Food, she interviewed consumer tap water advocate Eric Yaverbaum who is crusading to get people to see the error of their bottled-water ways. He argued convincingly that tap water represents a huge burden to our global well being, citing the amount of resources and waste resulting from our consumption of bottled tap water. Most bottled water is, he pointed out, from the tap.

We should stop buying bottled water and put filters on our home tap water faucets. He has a website Tappening that will give you a water analysis of your tap. Simply type in your zip code and you'll see how safe your tap water is. 

eBay Radio Sighting: Panasonic RF-2200

Paul recommends a trusty eBay seller who is featuring the Panasonic RF-2200:

If anybody is looking for a great Panasonic RF-2200 I strongly suggest looking at item 140262225089 on ebay. The only reason I am saying "great" is that the seller is Guy Atkins, very well known and highly regarded in the shortwave/AM DX community and all around swell guy. If he is selling an RF-2200 you can be assured you are getting a great unit, he may even have aligned it and according to the description he has at least cleaned and lubricated the switches and controls. You will definitely get a great unit, save for the minor issues he mentions.

Reception Test of the Panasonic RF-888

A day after receiving the Panasonic RF-888 I did an outside reception test. My first impressions were positive inside my office, so I wasn't surprised to find that AM and FM was superb, as superior as my testing of the Sony 5900 and the Panasonic RF-2200.

On FM, weak stations such as 89.3, and especially 88.9, came in crystal clear with no background noise.

On AM, the weakest station, 710, came in with no birdy noise.

 

The speaker is huge and will blast your ears so from close range I had to barely turn up the volume. My RF-888 will easily fill the living room, and it will probably grace the side coffee table for some time.

As a living room radio, the 888 will need an adapter and a regular reader Paul, who also sent me the owner's manual on PDF, was kind enough to recommend the Regulated and Filtered 6VDC 300mA Adapter from Radio Shack. 

3,000 Calories a Day Is Not About Dieting—It’s About Growing Up

 

It’s true diets don’t work. The data shows that most of dieters fail to keep their weight off and most gain even more weight after six months. Worse, dieting, especially the kind that starves the body, short-circuits metabolisms so that they’re slower than before resulting in weight gain. 

My quest to embrace 3,000 Calories a Day therefore should not be looked upon as a diet. For one it does not involve the deprivation one associates with a diet. Deprivation is a relative term. A man who eats 4-5,000 calories a day may feel deprived if he must cut down his intake by 30-40%, but he is simply raging against the loss of indulging his infantile appetites. In fact, 3,000 calories is a generous allotment of food. Most diets are less than 2,000 calories and feel punitive. 

Secondly, exercising control over one’s desires is not some futile activity, but normal, healthy human behavior. As we grow from childhood to adulthood, our maturity is defined by our ability to put aside our short-term gratification and excess for our long-term goals. Our parents teach us this lesson by giving us a weekly allowance. We’re given a certain amount of money and we spend it little by little or all at once. We spend it recklessly or we save it and spend it on things we’ve decided we really want or need or both. We learn how to achieve a goal or indulge our whims and whine when we have no money left to go to the movies with friends. 

A lot of diets employ this type of responsibility exercise. People get a deck of cards worth a certain amount of points and every time they eat they are spending money, so to speak. A big-ticket item would be a slice of pecan pie, which is around 500 calories while a celery stalk is about two. 

Eating sensibly requires the same responsibility of budgeting wisely. No one says it’s impossible to learn to budget one’s money in a responsible manner. Therefore, no one should claim that responsible eating, represented by my limiting myself to 3,000 calories a day, is an impossibility.

 

Usually, people who are responsible in one area are responsible in other areas as well since the character trait of responsibility isn’t something one can usually compartmentalize. Rather, it is a personality trait that pervades all of one’s activities.

 

The inverse is also true. People who spend recklessly eat recklessly.

 

However, irresponsible people often play tricks in which they reward good behavior by trading it for bad behavior. Some people, for example, diet severely and compensate by spending too much. Other people spend too much and being surrounding by their consumer goods curbs their appetite for food. Finding escape in one indulgence in order to act responsibly in another is not what I’m trying to achieve by keeping my boundary at 3,000 calories. Exercising restraint in the matter of food intake should strengthen me to exercise restraint in all of my behavior.  This is my goal in pursuing my 3,000-Calorie Quest. 

 

 

It’s true diets don’t work. The data shows that most of dieters fail to keep their weight off and most gain even more weight after six months. Worse, dieting, especially the kind that starves the body, short-circuits metabolisms so that they’re slower than before resulting in weight gain. 

My quest to embrace 3,000 Calories a Day therefore should not be looked upon as a diet. For one it does not involve the deprivation one associates with a diet. Deprivation is a relative term. A man who eats 4-5,000 calories a day may feel deprived if he must cut down his intake by 30-40%, but he is simply raging against the loss of indulging his infantile appetites. In fact, 3,000 calories is a generous allotment of food. Most diets are less than 2,000 calories and feel punitive. 

Secondly, exercising control over one’s desires is not some futile activity, but normal, healthy human behavior. As we grow from childhood to adulthood, our maturity is defined by our ability to put aside our short-term gratification and excess for our long-term goals. Our parents teach us this lesson by giving us a weekly allowance. We’re given a certain amount of money and we spend it little by little or all at once. We spend it recklessly or we save it and spend it on things we’ve decided we really want or need or both. We learn how to achieve a goal or indulge our whims and whine when we have no money left to go to the movies with friends. 

A lot of diets employ this type of responsibility exercise. People get a deck of cards worth a certain amount of points and every time they eat they are spending money, so to speak. A big-ticket item would be a slice of pecan pie, which is around 500 calories while a celery stalk is about two. 

Eating sensibly requires the same responsibility of budgeting wisely. No one says it’s impossible to learn to budget one’s money in a responsible manner. Therefore, no one should claim that responsible eating, represented by my limiting myself to 3,000 calories a day, is an impossibility.

 

Usually, people who are responsible in one area are responsible in other areas as well since the character trait of responsibility isn’t something one can usually compartmentalize. Rather, it is a personality trait that pervades all of one’s activities.

 

The inverse is also true. People who spend recklessly eat recklessly.

 

However, irresponsible people often play tricks in which they reward good behavior by trading it for bad behavior. Some people, for example, diet severely and compensate by spending too much. Other people spend too much and being surrounding by their consumer goods curbs their appetite for food. Finding escape in one indulgence in order to act responsibly in another is not what I’m trying to achieve by keeping my boundary at 3,000 calories. Exercising restraint in the matter of food intake should strengthen me to exercise restraint in all of my behavior.  This is my goal in pursuing my 3,000-Calorie Quest. 

 

Comparing AM on the Tivoli Model One and the Sangean WR-1

Two analog high-end radios with full, rich speakers deserve a comparison and Scooby has been kind enough to provide one:

I have the Sangean WR-1, and its AM is quite prone to interference. If you get it in an interference free environment, it does fairly well (though not as well as the Tivoli Model One with an external antenna). The FM is outstanding. I have it connected to my directional yagi antenna, and it never overloads on the strong local stations. It does quite well at separating weak signals from second adjacent strong channels. I had better success with the WR-1 than with the WR-2 on FM.

If the FM on the WR-11 is as good as on the WR-1, it is worth the money.

Comparing the WR-1 and the Model One:

The Model One's superior AM comes with the external loop antenna. When plugged in, it disconnects the internal loop (not a ferrite rod to be found in the Model One). The external loop is nice for getting the antenna away from the transformer in the radio, as well as being able to null out unwanted signals without turning the radio. Even without the external loop, the my Model One is less affected or compromised by interference than the WR-1.

Neither one of these table radios outperforms the S350DL on AM.

As far as FM on the WR-1 and WR-2, I get cleaner sound from the WR-1 than what I got from the WR-2 with weak signals. I have to tune the WR-1 carefully to find that sweet spot, but the tuning indicator makes that easy. Once I find the sweet spot, it has very little of that weak signal noise (I don't know what to call it).

I do wish they would've added an AUX position to the band selector like the newer Model One has. Even my Recepter has switched AUX input so you can leave a cable plugged in. I don't like having to turn the radio around and disconnect the cable when I want to listen to the radio again, even if the sound of the Sangean is so much better than the Tivoli.

First Look--the Panasonic RF-888 PSB/AM/FM Radio

Released in 1973 and rare enough to fetch $202 on eBay, the Panasonic RF-888 arrived in mint condition today and is a spectacular radio worthy of sending shivers up the spine of any radio lover. The sound is big, bigger than my Sony ICF-5900. AM and FM reception on the two radios is equal, which is to say outstanding. I prefer the louder, in-your-face sound of the 888. 

Also my 888, unlike my 5900, has an accurate tuning dial. While I love the look of both radios, I prefer the big speaker on the 888. It reminds of of a mag wheel that would go on a sports car. 

If you don't need SW and want a strong performer, you will definitely enjoy the powerful Panasonic RF-888. 

A New Offering from Sangean--the WR-11

What I like about Sangean is that, unlike most radios that are built cheaply, Sangean offers high build quality, especially its Sangean WR-2. Now Sangean is offering another table top radio, the WR-11. Unlike the digital WR-2, the WR-11 is analog and should offer strong competition to the Tivoli Model One.  

You can buy the WR-11 as a pre-order for $89.99 on J&R. It should be available in mid-September. 

My thanks to Tom for the update. 

A Warped Physical Ideal Born from a Misguided Imagination

 

 

My quest for 3,000 Calories a Day is about accountability for what I eat and for maintaining moderation. I tend toward the extreme in everything I do and I’ve learned that obsession skews rational judgment. We tend to live in an extreme, either/or culture where we look upon ourselves as winners or losers, rich or poor, home-owners or renters, skinny beautiful people or fat ugly ones.  The irony is that when often pursue what think is the right side of the ledger with such intensity that the image we assume is desirable is often grotesque. I’m reminded of a story I once heard in the gym. I was in the middle of an earnest six-mile treadmill run at the gym when Laura, my former composition student who works as a personal trainer, came up to me and said she had a story she knew I’d like. I slowed down the treadmill considerably so that I could fully listen. 

The story happened a few days earlier in the women’s locker room.  Laura saw a seventy-five-year-old, artificially-tanned, bleach-blonde woman stripping out of her gym tights, and as she did, she revealed her spectacular, smooth, milky white silicone breast implants. Laura said that about ten other breast-augmented women, mostly in their early twenties, had their eyes fixed on the seventy-five-year-old’s nude body and all at once their jaws dropped. 

It wasn’t the upward-pointing, massive artificial breasts that made the old woman such a remarkable and frightening sight. It was the stark contrast of those missile-like breasts, the appendages of a nineteen-year-old, with the woman’s nicotine-coated, wrinkled, leathery body, her skin’s creases and grooves reminiscent of an aged elephant’s sun-cracked hide. Laura said there was this moment of collective terror, evinced by the shared glances of the young women, because they knew in that instant that they were, thanks to their chain smoking, their breast-enlargements, and their frequent trips to the tanning booths, on the same path as the old woman. They had in that instant, I inferred from Laura’s story, access to a sort of nicotine-stained crystal ball that afforded them a snapshot of themselves a half century later, and what they saw inside that crystal ball made them gasp and shudder with horror. 

I suspect most of us for whom moderation is not part of our vocabulary have some variation of a nicotine-stained, silicone-breasted figure, some lugubrious, repellant doppelganger that we are molding ourselves into. Perhaps that is the ultimate quest of fitness fanatics. To become their very own worst nightmare.