Transistors

We are turning one of the three bedrooms in our MCM into an office. It will still have a trundle bed for guests, but basically an office. We want to give it as much MC flair as possible and are off to a good start with an old mid-century, metal desk. Stacy has claim on the bedroom so think of this as good as a man-cave can get for a mid-century modern abode. That will explain the distinct masculine flair when the before and after picture get posted in the future. 

But for now we need to think of how to give it that MCM ambiance, and in doing so will introduce the first item acquired to go into that room: a Jade 2215 transistor radio. 

The date of manufacture is unknown, but I did find a picture of a kid listening to one in 1968 and many seem to think that 1969 was the date they were sold. Not exactly spot on mid-century but not too much of a stretch. We hope to find a more appropriate radio for the room someday, but this gem was $1.50 at an estate sale so it was worth taking a chance. 

Transistors were a big deal during the day. They replaced tubes which were large, produced lots of heat and had a high failure rate. Transistors "miniaturized" electronics and reduced power requirements. Plus, they last pretty much forever. Tom spent years working on tube-powered radars for the Navy so knows how much trouble they can be. Anything transistorized is known as "solid state." Tubes had gas in them and were far from being solid. Transistors are a hallmark of the late MCM period. They appeared in the 50s but were really mainstream by the mid-sixties. While they were much smaller than tubes, they still were visible and models of radios liked to tout how many were in the radio itself. 

Today, we use integrated circuits, or ICs, on microchips. One microchip might have hundreds of transistors on it that you cannot see with the naked eye. We have come a long way in electronics. The bad news is ICs make it hard to repair electronics at home.

While our Jade 2215 is an AM/FM radio, only the AM works. I think the selector switch is broken but AM only gives if more MCM flair. The volume control is sketchy as well and does not transition smoothly along the volume range. Tom suspects a dirty potentiometer but it is not really worth trying to hunt down the part to fix it. 

In the meantime, until we can find a really atomic-looking radio, AM played a little too loud will reverberate throughout our MCM pad.