If you cultivate an interest in building radios it’s likely that you’ll at some point make a simple receiver. Perhaps a regenerative receiver, or maybe a direct conversion design, it’ll take a couple ...

Cellphones are a big deal, but to some of us the transistor was an even bigger deal. I was disobeying my parents staying up ...

This piece by Steve Greenberg is part of a series of essays to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' first American television appearance on CBS's "The Ed Sullivan Show." It culminates with CBS ...

Today pocket transistor radios manufactured in the 1950s are very collectable. Some models are highly sought after by collectors and regularly sell for hundreds of dollars. It is not uncommon to find ...

Two years ago was the 50th anniversary of the 1964 British Invasion spearheaded by the Beatles, and 1965 marked the rise of the Rolling Stones and Motown, among other notables. Both summers featured ...

Ernie Baum of Hasbrouck Heights was 13 years old when tragedy struck. “I went with my family to visit my father’s aunt in Manhattan, and someone broke into our car and stole my transistor radio,” he ...

They were the Walkmans of the 1950s-the coolest things ever to fit into Ban-Lon shirt pockets: snazzy transistor radios. Now these vintage examples of midcentury technology, which typically cost $30 ...

A handheld AM or FM radio. All handheld radios, as well as desktop radios, use transistors, both discrete as well as contained in chips. The transistor radio was one of the first consumer devices that ...

Had Capitol Records stuck to its original launch plan for the Beatles' "I Want to Hold your Hand," the insanity which gripped American teens could never have happened in time for the Ed Sullivan ...

Growing up is daunting. All those “rites of passage” through which we must travel. The first day of school, exams, dating, awkward holidays with distant relatives. Speaking to young people I find that ...

Transistors have come a long way. Like everything else electronic, they’ve become both better and cheaper. According to a recent IEEE article, a transistor cost about $8 in today’s money back in the ...