Introducing Selena - from christmas of the past

This week we're going forward into the past here by looking at something I had for Christmas but in nineteen seventy-nine instead which as anyone who lived through that time knows also was turbulent politically.

The cold war was very much still on but for all of that trade with what was the U.S.S.R was fairly common place and ownership of soviet era cars, cameras and electrical goods was popular partially down to price compared with West European and Japanese models but also because being in production for longer they did appeal to traditionalists.

The Vega Selena B212 was unlike anything made by Panasonic, Grundig or Sony in a number of ways such as it featured a wooden cabinet which was unheard off aiding the sound.

You just didn't get that then anywhere else.

An unusually feature was the use of a mechanical rotating Turret that had been a common fixture of televisions featuring VHF reception to change the wavebands which again was unusual for a domestic rather than one designed for radio operators in that it had five short wave bands that typically were used for international broadcasting as  the signals could travel thousands of miles.

The one criticism that could be made was the tuning scale was only marked in a fairly rudimentary way but in terms of sensitivity it was surprisingly good and it did feature a signal strength indicator that could be illuminated.

Frequencies are marked in metres except for FM where they use megahertz.

The waveband in use was indicated directly through a cut out on the tuning scale.

That was major appeal to me as listening to short wave transmissions is something I did from an early age so to have it on fairly portable radio - weighing four kilos it is fairly portable and not as light as most of competition was an advantage.

This is the 'gubbins' of it - the main assembly where on the bottom right you can see the turret with its coil packs, on the top  the old school but still good silver hatted transistors because no integrated circuits were used, plus on the far left mains cord connector, D.I.N. connector for monaural record and replay from tape recorders and a earphone socket.

 As well on the turret is the AM antenna and ground connectors although for AM there is a ferrite rod and for FM and shortwave a telescopic antenna built in on the top of the case.

It was relatively inexpensive too so to have something that performed well, looked like a piece of furniture and portable was great.

It was the radio I listened to the Abba concert from Wembley on that Christmas and one reason why I fondly remember having it.