Radiophile.com - Realtone Globepacer

Realtone Globepacer, ca. 1965

Approximately 13 inches / 33 cm wide.

An unbelievable 19 transistors (and nine diodes!), not one of them a dummy. This radio is a superb performer. Excellent sensitivity across all eleven bands. Here's a list:

150 - 400 kc. longwave
550 - 1600 kc. AM
2.0 - 4.0 mc. shortwave
4.0 - 9.0 mc. shortwave
5.92 - 6.2 mc. 49 meter shortwave broadcast band
9.0 - 12.0 mc. shortwave
9.5 - 9.7 mc. 31 meter shortwave broadcast band
11.7 - 11.9 mc. 25 meter shortwave broadcast band
15.0 - 15.5 mc. 19 meter shortwave broadcast band
17.7 - 17.98 mc. 16 meter shortwave broadcast band
88 - 108 mc. FM

Note that many of the shortwave bands are bandspread bands—they cover only a small frequency range so the tuning is spread out and easy, like the AM broadcast band. The Globepacer also has switchable selectivity: narrow for shortwave DXing; wide for "ultra high fidelity" AM reception that sounds almost as good as FM. That thirteen-section telescopic antenna extends to a length of 67-1/2 inches (171 cm) above the top of the radio. Quite a whopper, that one.

When I was a child, aged about 12 if I recall correctly, I spent many hours drooling over this radio in Lafayette (or was it Allied?) electronics catalogs. Now, finally, I can have one. It was worth the wait.

Nestled within the radio's back is this "Dial-O-Map," shown here pulled out and tilted back for use. There's a world map with time zones indicated, plus a rotating world-time calculator. Just the thing for the shortwave traveler.

This is the radio's rear view.

This is the rear of the radio with its back open. The black plastic battery holder (six C cells) is visible at the lower right.


This is the incredibly complex bare chassis, removed from the radio for our mutual viewing pleasure. Rear view on the left, front at right. If you noticed that the chassis shown here is not the same chassis shown in the next picture up of the radio with the back open (there are subtle differences between the two chassis that give it away) you win a prize for being almost as, um, detail-oriented as I am. (As with my Truetone D941, I had to buy several examples of this radio to get enough perfect parts from which to fashion this excellent example.)


For completeness (I've pictured just about every other aspect of this fine radio), here are yet more pictures. At the left above is a rear view of the cabinet with the chassis removed. At right is a closeup of the speaker, which was supplied by Japanese company Pioneer. Note the Pioneer logo stamped on the back of the magnet assembly. I believe Pioneer Electronics no longer uses the neat logo shown here, a clever combination of the Greek letter Omega (the symbol for ohms, the unit of electrical resistance) and a tuning fork. A synergy of music and electronics is what this old logo always elegantly communicated to me. The company's new logo (just the word Pioneer in a boring modern typeface) says nothing.