Frank Dresser wrote:

"lsmyer" wrote in message
...

Since the mid-1960s, I have searched far and wide to find a radio that had
such good reception as the one on Gilligan's Island.


There were at least three radios on Gilligan's Island. The Packard Bell
tabletop (with the add on handle and telescopic antenna), the Hallicrafters
S-40B the Skipper converted into a transmitter and Gilligan's filling, which
somehow turned into a radio receiver.

There were a few radios which came with the several visitors to the island.



That incredible DX powerhouse of a radio could regularly pick up US

mainland

broadcasters -- KDKA comes to mind -- from its location on a tiny island
located thousands of miles from the US mainland deep in the South Pacific.
Not just at night, mind you, but right in the middle of the day.


I'm sure we have all figured out the real reason the castaways never got off
the island. It's because they didn't really want to. They were already in
paradise. And good DX is one of the more obscure, yet important, parts of
paradise.



Also, this radio contained some amazing self-generating batteries. They
never ran low, despite the fact that there was no AC plug available for
charging purposes, nor did it have any type of crank-based charging
mechanism. It's possible that the batteries might have been the product of

a

secret military cold-war era attempt at attaining a self-sustaining,
zero-point energy equilibrium.


Ah, that's the easy part. Those 60s transistor radios didn't use much
current. I've got an old Silvertone from that era, and it draws less than
15 mils at low volume settings. It's powered with six D cells, and alkaline
cells would run the radio for two to four hours a day for over a year. Half
an hour a week for a couple of years? Piece o' cake.

Wonder how they powered that S40B with all the tubes?