Brandon's Panasonic RF-935

 

After months of searching for the "perfect" portable radio on ebay, one model I had never seen before caught my eye - the Panasonic RF-935.  The seller didn't say much about it except that it was in great cosmetic condition and that it worked great.  The seller had no feedback and in the picture the radio looked a little dirty, so I was hoping maybe I could get this on the cheap side.  I ended up getting it for a bargain - $35 shipped.

I like the overall design of this radio - a bass, treble, and volume knob, signal meter, AFC switch, and a nice-sized tuning knob on the side.  I also like the circular tuning dial.

So today it arrived.  Out of the box, the AM section did not work at all - when I would push the AM button, the FM button would pop out but it would stay on FM.  So I took it apart and it turned out to be an easy fix - the exterior button moved a slider-type switch inside and the plastic piece connecting the two together was broken.  I ended up fixing it with a half of a twistie tie.

Then I spent probably 3 hours cleaning every corner and crevice, including each and every hole in the speaker grill, then shining the whole thing up with Pledge.  When I got done, this thing looked 1000 percent better, almost looks new.  I didn't have a good camera to take a picture so I set it on my scanner and took a scanned image - unfortunately the scanner exaggerates each and every cosmetic flaw, this thing really looks awesome.  Build quality is solid and the interior was surprisingly clean for its age.

Anyways, now for testing.  First, it has a 3.5" speaker which sounds great for its size.  The bass and treble controls work great, I would miss having them.  The signal meter and the light both work. 

As for reception, I was truly amazed.  I've never owned an older Panasonic portable before for comparison, but I've read nothing about good things about their reception and low noise floor - well, this model is no different.  The noise floor, especially on the FM side, is incredibly quiet, and overall FM sensitivity is simply outstanding - it zeros in on really weak signals and I only need the signal meter to go up about a 2 before it is a solid sounding signal.  There are even a few stations about 65 miles away that can be kinda tricky to get on other portable radios - they peg the signal meter to a 10+ on this radio.  Selectivity is also really good as well - I'm able to tune in a few distant stations which are adjacent to local stations with minimal interference.  I dare say that the overall reception quality rivals that of my Sony car stereo.  And I love the tuning dial as well - its moves as smooth as silk in both directions and is really easy to zero-in on the sweet spo

 t.

On the AM side, it seems to be a solid performer as well, though I need to do a little more daytime testing with all my computer and TV stuff turned off to fully form an opinion.  In conjunction with my Terk passive AM antenna, it works great, and like on FM, the noise floor seems pretty quiet.  The bandwidth seems about right - wide enough to produce a nice bright sound but narrow enough to reject adjacent interference pretty well.  I fed the sound into my computer and analyzed it - seems solid up to 5khz then slowly falls off to a cutoff of about 8khz - almost identical to my old Kaito KA2100  in wide mode (which sadly broke after 2 years of use).

Comments

[Angelo]

I love the round tuning dial and I have a feeling this thing is going to outlive quite a few more Kaitos in the coming years. Great purchase.

[Brian (Scooby214)]

I like the military style round tuning dial. I don't yet have a radio with that style of tuning dial. It is similar to the airline dials on early tube radios, though with a completely different appearance at the same time.

Thanks for the review.

[brandon]

There is no wobble whatsoever to that dial when turning it either way, I've never used an analog dial quite that tight before. I ended up listening (from Michigan) to AM 750 WSB (Atlanta) for a solid hour last night, reception was unbelievably rock-solid, sounded like a local station for the entire hour with not one fade. With all my in-house electronics turned off, this works quite well on the AM side.

I actually have a second radio on the way - a Kenwood T2 - its a component-type AM/FM radio, quite rare, and the reason I bought it is because it has a 6-stage AM bandwidth slider switch. Its rare to see 3 settings, let alone 6. I'll post a review on that later this week.

[Angelo]

Brandon: Looking forward to hearing about the Kenwood. I have seen these component style Kenwoods, including Shortwave, and wonder how good they are.

[Godfather367]

Hi Brandon, I'm new here, but always loved vintage radios, especially Panasonic. I have an RF-888 and a RF-935 in absolutely beautiful condition and an RE-784 Tube radio. There's something about the sound of those old radios, they sound "warm"! I just have a question, if I may ask, exactly how rare is the RF-935, I really can't find any information about it other than this site. Thank you!
Anthony

[brandon]

Anthony - Its quite rare, I've seen maybe 4 or 5 of them on ebay since the time I wrote this review several years ago, 2 of which just ended in the past week. Before those ones, I hadn't seen one in probably over a year.

You're right about the sound - for just AM/FM radios, I own both an RF-935 and an RF-940 (the 940 is just as rare as the 935) and both sound great for their size and both have wider bandwidth on AM than most portables that size making them very pleasant to listen to on AM. I actually modded my 935 internally by adding some soft padding in various places to absorb some of the plastic echo sound.

[Fred N.]

Brandon

Just wondering...Do you have the owner's manual for the Panasonic RF 935? If so, would it be possible to get a scanned copy? I need to know how the battery check meter functions. The only function I understand is the signal strength.

Thanks

Fred

[Brandon]

Fred - I do not have an owner's manual, and I have not figured out how to get the battery check meter to work either. I actually wonder if there is no such function, if it just happens to be a meter that they used in more than one model of radio - others of which do have that function.