Radios I Have Known

The Unix walkman-style AM/FM radio

'UNIX' portable walkman-style radio from South Korea

On eBay in 2009, I bought a portable walkman-style radio with the "UNIX" brand. Yes, it's a UNIX radio!

It was made in Korea. The date of manufacture isn't known, but I suspect it was during the 1980s. It's an AM/FM radio with a 3.5mm headphone jack. That has been the standard size for "walkman"-type radios and, these days, it's the standard for just about anything that connects to a headphone, such as MP3 players.

It runs on 3 "AA" batteries, which might also indicate that it's from the earlier years of the 1980s. Later headphone radios tended to get by on 2 "AA" batteries.

The construction is very simple: the case forms a clamshell around the circuit board, which can easily be angled out of the enclosure once the two halves of the case are separated. A single screw holds the case together.

Top of 'UNIX' radio

It receives FM stereo, but with a twist that needs to be explained. FM stations boost their high-frequency sounds upon transmission. It's a simple form of noise control. To compensate, an FM receiver has to apply a compensating reduction in high frequencies whenever getting a signal. The United States and North America uses one standard; the rest of the world uses another. The technical terms for this function are pre-emphasis (by the transmitter) and de-emphasis (at the receiver). I noticed that FM stations on the UNIX radio sound shrill and tinny. I believe that this radio is either using the "rest of the world" value for de-emphasis ... or it has no de-emphasis at all!

The AM side is a fairly ordinary, bandwidth-limited radio.

One other unusual thing about this radio is that it has separate volume controls for the left and right channels. A few FM headphone radios have them -- some early Sonys had separate left and right controls, as did the legendary Proton 100 -- but it was a surprise to see it on something as downmarket as this radio.

Posted May 17, 2011