Phonoland

Hello, we just inherited a beautiful Zenith j1086rz cobra matic phonograph and are in need of a new needle. I found tube schematics but no info on the needle model number. Can anyone help, as well where I might look to purchase one also. Cheers!

If you had posted this in the "electric Phono's" section, you would have found a "list" of where to purchase needles--
Check that out-- Ron Rich

And the old Cobra cartridges are high dollar too. Wurlitzer Jukeboxes in the mono era used a lot of them. Don't be shocked at $60-$80 prices for one.

Try www.needles4jukeboxes.com WurliTzer needles-- Ron Rich

Some of the Zenith Cobra cartridges were special ones that vibrated a vane to modulate an FM transmitter. The FM radio then picked it up.

Note that, due to changes in FCC rules, these are no longer allowed to be used.

Record-changer wrote:Some of the Zenith Cobra cartridges were special ones that vibrated a vane to modulate an FM transmitter. The FM radio then picked it up.

Note that, due to changes in FCC rules, these are no longer allowed to be used.

Preposterous!
Where do you get your information?

MattTech wrote:

Record-changer wrote:Some of the Zenith Cobra cartridges were special ones that vibrated a vane to modulate an FM transmitter. The FM radio then picked it up.

Note that, due to changes in FCC rules, these are no longer allowed to be used.

Preposterous!
Where do you get your information?

My grandfather had one. We played it through the kitchen radio. They were made in the 1940s and early 1950s. They stopped using it because the cartridge broke, and we found out that Zenith stopped selling them because of the FCC rule change.

The problem with the new FCC rule is not the frequency, but the output power.

Weathers also made one in the early 1950s.

Google "Zenith FM Cartridge"

Record-changer wrote:

MattTech wrote:

Record-changer wrote:Some of the Zenith Cobra cartridges were special ones that vibrated a vane to modulate an FM transmitter. The FM radio then picked it up.

Note that, due to changes in FCC rules, these are no longer allowed to be used.

Preposterous!
Where do you get your information?

My grandfather had one. We played it through the kitchen radio. They were made in the 1940s and early 1950s. They stopped using it because the cartridge broke, and we found out that Zenith stopped selling them because of the FCC rule change.

The problem with the new FCC rule is not the frequency, but the output power.

Weathers also made one in the early 1950s.

Google "Zenith FM Cartridge"

the Zenith *Radionic* cartridges merely modulated an on-board oscillator in the radio chassis to provide audio - there was NO "transmission" involved to cause interference to other radios.
I don't need to google - because a lot of "online" information is bullcrap MIS-nformation.
Do YOU believe everything you read on the internet?

What you are talking about is a completely different thing - and "attachment" player designed with a mini transmitter.
And those Radionic cartridges are STILL sold - though expensive as hell now.

The unit my grandfather had used the radionic cartridge to modulate the radio transmitter.

They may still make the cartridges, but back in the 1960s, the $50 they wanted for one was reason enough to not repair it. Plus, to be legal, the output power had to be reduced to the 100 mW limit enacted after the set was made.