6 Transistor Candle

This transistor radio bears both the "candle" branded and 6 Transistor branding. The ad above is from 1964, which is interesting as 10-trnsistor models had been on the market since at least 1962. The price dropped from about $12 in 1960 to around $6 by 1964. Of course the fancy Motorola-branded one was still $17 in 1962. Minimum wage in 1962 was $1.15 so you can imagine why the no-name brand transistor radios are still ubiquitous at flea markets today.

However, it's worth noting that the design was quite rugged. The ceramic disc capacitor last decades longer than the modern paper caps. So all I had to do here was clean one battery contact and insert a fresh 9v battery and it came to life and could easily tune my local stations. The only difficulty is rotating that tiny wheel to dial in the sweet spot.

* Please note that schematic is not the 6 transistor. It is the "typical" transistor radio diagram from the marvelous Peter Vis site.