Ross Micro Eight (RE-815)

Some people collect tiny transistor radios. I don’t have enough of them to call it a collection but I guess I’m working on it.

The Ross Electronics Corporation imported transistor radios from Japan from 1955 to about 1970. They were located at 589 East Illinois Street and later (I think) 2834 South Lock Street, Chicago. As far as I can tell, there’s no relation to the Ross Radio Company of Youngstown, Ohio.

Here’s a better image of the schematic on the inside of the back cover (yes, there was a time when radios came with schematics).

It would be a mistake to expect good performance from a 1965-ish design running on one 1.5V cell, but the performance of my one is beyond mediocre. But then again, I didn’t really buy it to use it.

Mike has a nicer one, in a box nogal.