Question about a small item in my novel!

It's for bits of basic research like this that Wikipedia can come in handy.

The first transistor radio was made in the 40's but your friend was half right. They became widely popular in the 60's when the price became affordable for the average consumer but they were first sold commercially in the mid 50's.

Kind of like how the cell phone came about. They've been around since the 80's in bulky expensive form but only really hit their stride almost 20 years later. Now everyone and the neighbour's dog (he's got Bone Thugs and Harmony as a ring tone...I heard it ) had got one.

the first pocket sized transistor radio was introduced Oct 18th, 1954. Obviously they had radios before then, but I dont know if they were portable because I think they couldnt be light enough to be portable before they were all-transistor. At least that's what I'm thinking from what I could find.

http://history.acusd.edu/gen/recording/transistor.html

I had a pocket-sized transistor radio, and I think I got it in either 1959 or 1960--a birthday present from my father. It was a General Electric, I believe. Two-toned in white and light blue, I can still remember the smell of the white leather case. To me, it was the smell of amazing technology. The ear phone was a bulky, round plug that didn't fit in my ear very well.

The first "pocket" transistor radio's came out in 1953 (according to Texas Instruments which I worked for in the 1970s and heard incessant propoganda for, and which claimed to have invented the transistor radio) or 1954 (according to the above post, which may be right). "Portable" radios (heavy, with expensive batteries that didn't last long) were commercially available from at least Motorola in the mid 1950's (my parents owned one). "Walkie-Talkie's" date from WWII.

Side note: nearly all radio stations in the 1950's were AM.

I had two. Both came with an ear peice for quite listening. The first was a German made Grundig. The second was a Chanel (sp?). The Chanel had a removable leather case with holes punched arounfdthe speaker.

bell labs

Maddwriter said:

The first transistor radio was made in the 40's but your friend was half right. They became widely popular in the 60's when the price became affordable for the average consumer but they were first sold commercially in the mid 50's.

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The transistor was invented in Bell Labs, IIRC, in 1948 or 1949.

The "pocket" transistor radio of the 1954, 55, 56 timeframe I remember as selling for about $5, or about a day's minimum wage at the time. My memory may be faulty on the exact time of $5, but a big issue was made of it at the time.

Portables, though not transistor, were around shortly after WWII. We had a small (cigar box sized) Motorola portable in 1947. It was not unique -- others owned them too. And we were not well off. And we lived in the South.

The transistor was developed at Bell Labs in 1948. In 1954, Texas Instruments introduced the first practical silicon transistor. Both facts come from James Trager, The People's Chronology (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), a useful book for such information (serfdom abolished in Bohemia and Hungary, 1780; sliced bread introduced, 1930). Unfortunately, the book doesn't have an index entry for transistor radios.

From what I'm understanding on this board, portables would have been around, but not readily available to just anyone. Most likely, only those who could afford them. This would have been a transitional time when the price was just beginning to drop. You could probably equate this to someone having cable TV in the late 70's, a CD player in 1981, or a home computer in the very early 80's. They were around, but not a staple in every home, and if someone did have these things--well, they were a real hot shot, as my granddaddy used to say. Someone all the neighborhood kids would probably be envious of.

So in considering your story, I guess the real issue would be if your character who is going to be using the portable radio would be that type of someone, or would know someone like that. If you can make that a credible issue, most readers, I'm sure, would buy it.

Also, it might pay to consider the geographic region of your story. I've lived in the South and been a Southerner all my life, and it's no insult, only honest fact, that we generally tend to be a couple of paces behind the times, at least when it comes to new innovations, fashion trends, etc.
So even if a lot of people may have been carrying portables on the West or East coast, the trend may not have trickled Southward, or been very widespread, until 2-3 years later. I don't know where your story is set, but that's something to consider as well.

radios

I think you have to make a real distinction between portable radios, and transistor radios. Even my grandparents had portable, battery operated radios.

We were as poor as you can get, but we had a couple of transistor radios in the fifties, though they weren't pocket models. And as dirt poor as we were, by '62 I had my own pocket transistor pocket radio that was cheap enough to buy with money I made mowing yards. I think it cost somewhere around fifteen bucks. A lot of money, but not for something you had to have.

Everyone wanted a transistor radio, rich and poor alike, and darned near everyone found a way to buy one.

There was even a three ounce wrist radio invented in 1947 that used tiny vacuum tubes.

I was 17 years old in 1959 and small transistor radios were almost unheard of. No one in the crowd I ran with had them. Even large transistor radios were expensive and uncommon. It wasn't until a year or two later that they became inexpensive enough for kids to own.

When we partied where plug-in power was not available, we would crank up the volume on a car radio, but the old tube-type radios would run down a battery pretty fast, so you had to start the car often to charge it.

Gary said:

I was 17 years old in 1959 and small transistor radios were almost unheard of. No one in the crowd I ran with had them. Even large transistor radios were expensive and uncommon. It wasn't until a year or two later that they became inexpensive enough for kids to own.

When we partied where plug-in power was not available, we would crank up the volume on a car radio, but the old tube-type radios would run down a battery pretty fast, so you had to start the car often to charge it.

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I wonder if it had something to do with where you lived? I can't imagine a family being much poorer than we were, but we had a very nice transistor radio, not a pocket model, but still nice and pretty small, in the fifties. I didn't know anyone who owned one of the Regency pocket models, but by '59, several other models were on the market, and several of my friends owned them.

It was '62 before I could afford a pocket model of my own, but by then it seemed everyone I knew had one.

Small transistor radios were common in the sixties. The bigger ones, the kind with a carrying handle, had better sound. Manufacturers' websites might show pictures of early models.

Jamesaritchie said:

I wonder if it had something to do with where you lived? I can't imagine a family being much poorer than we were, but we had a very nice transistor radio, not a pocket model, but still nice and pretty small, in the fifties. I didn't know anyone who owned one of the Regency pocket models, but by '59, several other models were on the market, and several of my friends owned them.

It was '62 before I could afford a pocket model of my own, but by then it seemed everyone I knew had one.

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I'm sure the area had something to do with it, but they weren't cheap when they first came out.

Two of my uncles ran a small general store in North Dakota and one of them was a nut for electronics. He had a television two years before the local station began transmitting. He also had the first microwave oven in the county, so he was cutting edge when it came to new technology.

I remember him showing me a transistor radio about 1957 or 1958. It was the size of a cigar box and powered by several D-cell batteries and if I remember correctly, it cost around $75. I do recall it was far too expensive for me to buy. At the $1.15 per hour going wage in the area, that was an expensive radio. He sold Arvin and Zenith brand appliances and electronics in his store, so they were the better brands and probably more expensive than some others that might have been available.

I think they started appearing in cars about 1960, or 1961. When I got out of the Air Force in 1963, transistor radios were a glut, and they were cheap.

Gary said:

I'm sure the area had something to do with it, but they weren't cheap when they first came out.

Two of my uncles ran a small general store in North Dakota and one of them was a nut for electronics. He had a television two years before the local station began transmitting. He also had the first microwave oven in the county, so he was cutting edge when it came to new technology.

I remember him showing me a transistor radio about 1957 or 1958. It was the size of a cigar box and powered by several D-cell batteries and if I remember correctly, it cost around $75. I do recall it was far too expensive for me to buy. At the $1.15 per hour going wage in the area, that was an expensive radio. He sold Arvin and Zenith brand appliances and electronics in his store, so they were the better brands and probably more expensive than some others that might have been available.

I think they started appearing in cars about 1960, or 1961. When I got out of the Air Force in 1963, transistor radios were a glut, and they were cheap.

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I wish I could remember what brand ours was, but I can't. I do know my granpa was a miracle worker. What he couldn't buy, which was pretty much anything, he always seemed to find some other way of obtaining. . .usually by making a few trades, and sometimes doing odd jobs, until he gained what he wanted. His skill likely had something to do with that transistor radio.

I know he once started with a cheap wristwatch and a pocket knife and eventually swapped and traded until he had a Gibson guitar, which he gave me for my birthday.