I never thought after 15 years I would hear you do a British accent - what a gift you've given me on this day. This is up there with "what the hell is this crap?" when you tuned into a strange radio station one time.

I grew up with a very similar model! Unfortunately I sold it almost 20 years ago, and I've been regretting it for a very long time - the red LEDs are perfect for a bedside clock because they don't produce light pollution the same way most modern clocks do. Really miss waking up to the radio with that clock for years and years.

The "inspected by" label probably had initials written by hand that have faded over time

I just watched a guy talk about and clean a clock radio..... and enjoyed every minute of it. I had a GE that looked and functioned similarly (same red LED numbers, but GE flipped for the colon), minus the quirky language. Got it in 1982, and I think it finally gave out on my ca. 1997 or so. VERY handy devices - and increasingly difficult to find. When another clock radio gave up the ghost ca. 2010, I headed to the electronics section of the Wal-Mart in town..... and they had nothing. Had to go across the street to Radio Shack (RIP) to finally get a new clock radio. Yeah, I have a smartphone just like everybody else, but it's not allowed to be in the room when I sleep. Now the ULTIMATE clock radio is, of course, a flip clock.😉

Max Goldt, one of my favourite German writers once said in a reading, which I attained, that "it is one of the essential laws of nature that radio alarm clocks never break". He is kind of right. I own a 70s digital alarm radio myself and I know a lot of people who also do.

nice! I love clock radios! I bought one a few years ago that was a NOS version of my childhood clock radio I got from my mom. as a kid I loved the blue green VFD display and was so happy when I got her to give it to me... then I used it for a year or two and took it apart and ruined it 😇 and didn't appreciate it until I was much older. only thing more comforting is a flip clock humming along with an incandescent bulb or a neon bulb lighting it up...

I had the British model of this alarm clock radio growing up. The "slumber" label always tickled me too. I think your theory around "favourite stations on FM" is absolutely correct.

No joke when you said “By Jove! I do believe there’s been a mains breakdown!” my house had a power outage.

I enjoyed the night time insect sounds near the end of the video when you were putting the battery in! Very nice and soothing!

i found one of these at a goodwill year some years ago and it's serviced me very well since! I enjoyed seeing the thumbnail and thinking "hey, that's my clock!" love your channel, keep up the great work! :)

9:29 Gordon Lightfoot on AM radio, that really takes me back…

I'm 52, grew up in Indiana... my family had a Magnavox D3240 clock radio... this video was nostalgia.

Fascinating! I think someone at Magnavox was drinking on the job when they designed this. 👍😆

No doubt it nostalgia but just something about the style of 80's electronics I love!

I love how youtube videos recorded during cricket season are absolutely full of background cricket noises.

WHOA! I OWNED THIS RADIO! It was passed down to me and then got lost during a move.

Even the chip spells "TEA".

Clock radios were huge in the late 70s and 80s. Everyone had or wanted one.

Still have a 90s GE. Would love a full history of clock radios

How unique. Every other clock radio only allows you to sleep, this one lets you Slumber. I love it!

Looks nice love vintage alarm clock. I can't wait every Wednesday or Thursday BC it's Kevin video's day !

Just awesome that you still own it after 37 years! I loved my LED clock-radio (birthday gift in 1981) - it had 4-band radio and lamp, but it and many other things were left behind because my mother moved around a lot and I could only bring what I could carry...

6:30 - Whoa, Green Brook Electronics is still around??? I remember going there as a teenager in the 80's.

I have this exact same model and use it to this day! Yes the controls are a little funky but I’ve gotten use to them over the years! And of course, another fantastic video!

I'm a big fan of the old style clock radios, lord knowns I've gone through a few over the years after countless midnight water glass spills, but I prefer the red display and waking up to a crackley radio in the morning to anything else. Also the word Slumber gave me the giggles for some reason.

I think I had a Philips alarm radio that had similar electronics in the early 1980s. It also didn't have the colon but I found out that the display actually had LEDs populated for the colon, they just weren't connected. I connected them with a resistor and they worked the rest of the time that I owned it. The blinking 12:00 goes to 12:01 and back if you let it blink for a minute. Apparently the internal clock runs when it's in blink mode, but every "blink" cycle resets the time to 12:00 but doesn't reset the seconds counter. After a minute, the seconds counter adds one to the minute counter but the blink logic resets it on every blink. I think it's a hardware bug. By the way it's probably very easy to replace those pushbutton switches with new ones.

My dad has this exact model and still uses it to this day! I'm hoping it'll eventually end up with me lol

I still use a Sony Dream Machine from 1988. My parents got it for me for Christmas when I was in elementary school and I still use it to get up for work.

I've had a very long day today and VWestlife is here to make things better

Kind of off subject but You know what's funny is I have a Magnavox camcorder that has the similar look of my late grandmother's Panasonic camcorder which was from 1980s I'd say about 1982 to 1986 era. Anyway when you mentioned about the manufacturer for the clock radio . the battery charger for my Magnavox camcorder States N.A.P as well. At least now I know what that means thanks to this video. At least you gave it a try to repair it. The camcorder I mentioning about actually works like it was brand new. The only thing that I think gets finicky is the backlight button it has to be semi-dark for that feature to do what it's supposed to do. Plus what's cool is they still make the batteries for those. I'm sure lgr would be eyeing this because of the wood grain which I have to agree myself I like the way that the wood grain looked.

What's so quirky about mains electricity ? We have water mains, mains sewer, a mainmast, mainsail, you contact the main office, drive down a main road, when having a meal you could have a main course, you may have to answer to the main man, it makes perfect sense to refer to the primary electricity source as mains electricity , I live in the land where we have the large 3 pin, fused mains plug which fits into the ring main socket. Rule Brittania ! Great video as always.

I have a GE 7-4675A, and it's somewhat similar to the "quirks" of this Magnavox Clock Radio, such as having to fast forward/slow to set the time rather than set it manually by the traditional "hours and minutes" buttons. However, if you overshoot it, there is a switch that allows you to rewind the time to get it to where you want. However, I am glad that the "Snooz" that's on my clock wasn't misspelled (I haven't seen that either) and this clock doesn't have the colons either. Glad to know my clock wasn't faulty when I got it from the thrift store all those years ago and questioned the missing colons and the misspelling of the "snooze."

I can confirm we do call out electricity here in Britain Mains. I've never heard of a battery backup called a "mains breakdown backup battery" lol. Great video bud. Thanks!

Whoa, had one of these back in the day...it was the only reliable alarm clock in the house for a long time. Whenever someone had to set an alarm it was my job to set it for them in their room.😅 Very nostalgic vid for me.

Quite a neat clock radio, almost borrowing General Electrics design from around the same time period. The spray noise at 6:28 that was too good, actually laughed quite hard. You described it perfectly!

I've definitely seen several radios with number displays like this in the UK, and some of that "weird" terminology. Maybe the UK got a lot of stuff from Malaysia?

Holy crap. We had one of these at the old house. Sadly it was tossed when it started humming bad. It was well before I knew anything about electronic repair.. Wish we still had it, the AM reception was pretty good.

I had the same clock radio through middle school and into early high school, it had been my dads, in the late 90's, in like my junior or senior year of HS, I got a CD/clock-radio, which is still in my bedroom today, though I don't use it as an alarm anymore, just like the dim red LED clock on it, not blinding at night. I will have to dig around, I might still have the old Magnavox packed away in one of my storage totes somewhere, I never throw anything away that might donate fun electronic parts to a project LOL

AM 9.185 has been a personal favorite for a long time now

something almost calming about watching old tech repairs

Had this exact radio got it for Chrstmas in 86 or 87. Used it till the early 90s when I gave it to my Mom because I upgraded to a GE model with a built in cassette deck. ;-) Both are still around and Mom is still using the Magnovox. Never really thought about it not having : between the hour or minutes until I was looking at yours.

i had that same magnavox back in the 80s. mine was also a handmedown, but it was broken and it only told the time. the speaker didnt work. so i opened it up and connected the wires to my boombox speaker and it was great. just the alarm clock function really was loud. it woke everyone up.

Whenever I see these old radios, I always expect to hear old radio broadcasts coming out of them, not current day stuff. Although this time it wasn't as easy to tell.

The fast/slow and wrap around time is pretty much how every clock radio used to work back to the late 1960s as far as I can recall.

😂😂 The fact that I STILL use this clock and that this video was recommended to me is absolutely amazing.

good video clock radios are cool..so many different models....hope you cleaned the case too!

The great news is, it still works.

I've been using a very similar simulated-wood GE model from the 80s since saving it from the curb in the early '00s, thought it has green LEDs. The low-efficiency ones from back in the day are perfect for a bedroom clock if ya ask me; newer ones are usually too harsh, and who wants to fumble around for a phone to check the time if you wake up in the middle of the night?

I swear everyone that had an internship at Philips back in the day was tasked with designing an alarm clock, they had so damn many.

That night George came in turned out to be a very wild night. 🤭 I picked up an older Sony am/fm IcF-p36 that only intermittently worked (like a lot of people today 🤭) and opened it up for a good cleaning. Works perfectly and the batteries last a little over a month playing for a minimum of 8 hours a day. I'm totally impressed with the radio and it goes with me everywhere with its handy wrist strap and headphone jack. 😉👌 I get funny looks, but hey, I'm funny looking anyway. 🤗

Looking at the switch setup I would presume the foam is only present to prevent the buttons from rattling. The foam making it easier or harder to operate is probably more a function of the angle the force is applied.

I have a Westclox LED alarm clock that I put in a box for about 20 years; I brought it out about 10+ years ago (in the e- and i- era), and it is awesome. It works, and I can see it. Buttons are bad, but I eventually get it set.

I had an MQE 1970s style alarm (without radio) that operated in much the same way. Got it from my dad that bought it new as a university student. The colon between the hours and minutes only showed when the alarm was set on that model. Strange indeed. Will try to get a picture of it next time I see it.

When an alarm clock changed to the exact-minute mentality. A wind-up one on a dresser (that you must remember to wind up daily) sets a whole different perspective of living.

I'm British and I can say that without a doubt we love to say 'mains' *"Oi! Dow B runnin' that drill off da' batteries! Run it off da' mains ya' knob'ed"*

"One night years later, I was sitting in a restaurant in West Los Angeles when I saw George come in...." is almost as bad as: "A n4ked blonde walks into a bar, carrying a poodle under one arm and a 6 foot salami under the other. The Bartender says, 'So, I don't suppose you'd be needing a drink?' The blonde says......" Interesting clock, and amazing it still works that well after all these years.

I had this model as a kid as well, when it was new in the 1980s.

For those curious about George - "... saw George come in ..." This is from the radio show "This American Life" "Road Trip" Reporter Margy Rochlin recalls a trip she took with 92-year-old George Burns and his tiny entourage.

The word "magnavox" always reminds me of the Magnavolt scene from Robocop.

2:35 I'll can only guess that by using the spacings they chose, there was room enough to make the markings more accurate without crowding them. Not that that would make much difference with the way most inexpensive radios were aligned. I have an RCA "Lindsey" table radio from 1954 with an FM dial that's marked up to 109, though the FM range marked on the bottom is 88-108.

I have a very similar unit (mine's a Philips D3142, in all its (awfully yellowed) beige glory, though it also existed in orange-ish red, black and I've even seen a pastel pink one online) I've got it from the curb 10 odd years or so and it's still been going strong since. It's just as quirky as this ol' Magnavox. Though it too definitely shows its age as it's yellowed like there's no tomorrow.. It has the same layout as your alarm clock, just on mine the case is much more compact. 4:08 - interesting that yours has "Mains Breakdown buffer" written on the battery cover, on mine instead of bearing the "power back up" logo, it just has "MB BUFFER" written on the display lens.. I've always wondered what it meant.

My mother had this exact same alarm clock. She told me she got it as a gift and kept it until it died in 2003. I remember sleeping in my parents room on the floor and hearing it brings back memories. I wondered why hearing both alarm and radio going off together i couldnt never tell if the alarm or radio was volume controlled.

I grew up with a similar clock radio, but I retired it when my father gave me my first cell phone. Amusing video! Calling it quirky is an understatement. 😂

"when I approached George, rather than hearing another of his catchy one liners, he began talking about his Magnavox and how forgetting to replace the 9v battery from time to time could make your oversleep and being late for work."

The 80’s, how I miss them so! It’s not nearly as quirky, but I still have this blue digit GE brand clock radio (with the fancy “soft touch” keys) in my bedroom that I got as a teenager in the late 80’s somehow I just can’t part with it!

I used to adjust the tuning cool on my Realistic clock radio in the 80's so it would pickup below 88Mhz for our local Police bands :)

I have a GE clock radio from the late 70s with a red LED display that didn't have a colon either. I remember as a kid I thought it was weird that it was missing and thought it was just burnt out, but years later I got another exact model and sure enough - no colon LEDs.

Even if it hasn't been in your family for so long it still would have made a great video, that thing is just full of crazy quirks! Mine's been in the family forever too but it's just a dime-a-dozen GE 7-4634 lol. I think the digits on the radio dial are like that because those frequencies are common for radio stations.

I had one of these when i was growing up brings back some memories.

I have a Lectra CR 901 clock radio that i think is from the late 70´s, my mother bought it new but i have been using it since the 80´s myself. It has the same quirks with the fast and slow setting of the time and alarm and also date setting/display. It seems it had to have been a somewhat higher end clock radio since it is a stereo clock radio and of course has dual speakers for the stereo sound, it also has headphone and speaker outputs and the snooze button is a long flat metal bar that is the integrated upper front part of the clock radio front panel, the bar is touch sensitive so just a light touch is required its not a mechanical button at all and doesnt move, to me thats a typical 70´s feature. The words on the panel is in Swedish (im from Sweden) like it used to be back then, the clock radio is in black and silver so it actually looks pretty ok as well. This is the clock radio that i still use and it works ok, the volume controls are of course a bit scratchy, the buttons works fine still, its very old but still works ok even the radio even though i have never really used it as a radio myself.

Makes me want to repair my 1983 GE clock radio. It has decided to go off whenever it feels like it, had to unplug it because I was tired of waking up to AM radio static at midnight

When I was but a wee lad, we had a similar Philips clock radio in the kitchen. The button design was different, but it also was very slim and had a small speaker. Unfortunately, there was no provision for a backup battery, so I had to set the clock every time there was a power outage (which was a common occurrence in ex-USSR in the 90s).

My dad used to have an old clock like this, but I think it was a slightly newer model. It's amazing how power hungry they are. At 12W this clock's usage is compareable to the CPU in some small laptops

This was my grandmother's clock radio. I thought the colon had burned out, but I guess that model just didn't have one. I remember the buttons not working well on that one either.

My grandpa had a very similar one as well. It was originally out in his backyard shed he used to do his welding job in, but eventually it moved into his and my grandma's kitchen, where they would always use it to look at the time, and rarely play the radio on it. It eventually died several years ago (the LEDs in the clock were always kinda faded near the end anyways, I don't know if that was intentional or some brightness setting), but they've always had an alarm clock there since (hell if I know why). It's funny because stuff that was made by Magnavox from the 80s or earlier seems to have held up really well over the years, whereas stuff made by them since then (especially when it was co-branded with Philips) has routinely been terrible and not lasted long, even if it lasts a few years (case in point being this Magnavox boombox my dad bought himself back in 1994, judging by the manufacturing sticker on the back, which he eventually gave to me when I was born, and used quite heavily from the time I was a baby to just about six months ago, when it finally started to not work properly, probably because age had caught up to it and the fact until recently I had always used it on its power cord plugged into a nearby outlet, even leaving plugged in and sometimes running during lightning storms and power outages, only to wonder why the prongs on the plug suddenly started to look rusty).

Excellent content and channel. Keep up the good work 👍

What amazes me is that after all these years, it still works & even picks up the radio stations. The buttons may be worn, but it actually works. And now it has been fixed up. 🙂

My Mom owned this exact model for years and years. She would probably still own it but it was eventually lost/left behind during a move or something. She used to make me set it because she would always overshoot the time and it would drive her nuts lol

British friend: We have a MAINS BREAKDOWN! Me: Huh? You mean power outage?

The model that we had in the UK which if I remember right was identical (if not, certainly ALMOST😉) was a WALTHAM clock radio et I also think that BUSH in the UK produced something similar. The Waltham one certainly worked well for years, before it got elevated to new heights namely to gather dust in the loft...😉

The font on the top controls and on the tuning dial is very Philips. I think "Slumber" was their thing as well. So, probably just a European model given even less of a cursory localization to the US than usual. Might even explain the lack of a :.

Awesome video! It's cool that you can fix things, great knowledge you have. I have a different type of clock radio from the mid 90s with a CD player. The only thing that works is the LED display but I still keep it around for nostalgic reasons.

We do indeed call the grid electricity "mains" in the UK. I've never heard "mains breakdown" though - that would be a power cut.

I have two alarm clocks from that era, they don't have radios but they both have the fast/slow time set buttons and both have the problem with the time set switches needing to be pushed really hard.

That's a nice review of a clock alarm. Even in Peru, the Phillips brand has been used for a long time ago and in terms of boomboxes and TV's, they're still in a mid quality. However, the fact that most of the Phillips products were sold as Norelco and Magnavox still surprises me, and with that weird clock radio with British stuff blows me up. Curiously, the Latin American editions of Phillips products were always using the North American English functions tags instead of British ones due to the high prescense of US brands, and I didn't see any boombox and/or clock alarm of the 80's made by Phillips that uses that British function tags. Also, the touch buttons are sincerely infamous by gets wasted to be heavily used. I have a late-2000's Phillips boombox that have the same issue that your clock radio, and it's almost impossible to fix that issue unless that you replace that awkward buttons.

Why would something spec carbon zinc only? I've always thought of them as inferior to alkaline in all the ways that matter (and I can't think of anything that makes the carbon zinc a better/useful idea here). Unless it was in comparison to something other than alkaline. 🤷‍♂

I've always preferred green numbers on my own clock radios, ever since I was gifted a Sony cassette player clock radio (with dual alarms -- radio/tape and beeper, which you could set for different times) as a kid in the early 90s. And that first one lasted me a long time -- until the circuit board literally cracked off under the "clock" button in the 2010s. I replaced it with a newer, more basic Sony model after that (radio with dual alarms -- and much bigger numbers), which I still use today. And the "new" clock was the last thing I ever bought at Sears -- since Target only had it in white, and I wanted it in black. (My brother still uses his identical cassette player clock radio, which has yet to break. And he nabbed my old broken one too for his garage.) As for vintage clock radios, I never had one quite like this one. But I did use a flip-clock one at my grandma's sometimes, and my other grandma's guest room had one a lot like this with red numbers and slow/fast time setting -- though with more conventional labeling than this one! And my parents did put a different flip clock radio in the basement laundry room -- until Dad got a CD player clock radio, and put his old Sony VFD one down there in its place. (I'm not sure what happened to _our_ old flip clock after that; think it might've ended up in Dad's workshop, though I wouldn't swear to it.)

Aww, I’d lowkey you’d solder in new tack switches for those two :) the foam job works well enough I suppose. Very cute and quirky clock radio though! I actually quite like the missing colon in the time display. The control panel layout is certainly a bit esoteric.

I have a 1978 GE clock radio with the same fast-slow setup, but it has a much bigger clock chip which failed about 10 years ago. I could replace it for $20, but life is too short for that, and the radio still works. My favorite quirky features are a nap timer, which GE featured in the 1980s, and a slow-wakeup feature, which, I think, Panasonic used in the 1980s; it slowly increased the volume of the radio instead of blasting it the moment the alarm time was reached.

I have seen (and still own!) a clock radio with no colon. It's a 1976 GE electronic digital clock radio, top of the line for its day. I don't remember the exact model. Mine isn't in great cosmetic condition, but it's still fully functional and works great. It is rather odd hearing the old school 60Hz "alarm" coming out of an electronic clock. I also swapped out my 1990 GE cassette recorder clock radio for a similar 1983 model, and while I gained wake-to-tape, I did lose backwards time adjustments. Over the last month I've gotten pretty good at setting the alarm without having to do it over again. Interestingly, the _motor_ was bad, while the _belts_ were still good.

Another consistent quality vwestlife showcase! What a beautiful finish . My father had a silver model it also had the “slumber” button. I remember finding it somewhat amusing.

Jolly good, Kevin!

Didn't know they made adjustable blast contact cleaner cans, jolly good!

I knew it! I had a Phillips more modern version of this, same functions and everything! Love the videos!

I like so much what you do. A couple years ago I found in my basement an old radio alarm clock designed by my grandfather who worked for a subsidiary of Telefunken in my city: it looks very similar. He still has his own and uses it; I’ve done the same until some months ago when I found a deal for a Philips cassette alarm clock, which has the “slumber” button as well. Needless to say that I recorded Aphex Twin in it. Those things are so cool to wake up to, I’m never using my phone again!

Memories flooding back of a fast and slow adjust clock radio my folks had. The two speeds really put the blame on you. Go too far - "Why did you keep holding "fast", a-hole?!"

Looks very nice, I have an 1986 Panasonic clock radio eversince I was 10 years old back in the summer 1986 for my Birthday!

I prefer my clock radio. It's a GE from the 70s. Wood grain on top, silver front, blue LEDs, and a cassette deck that works as one of the selections for the 2 alarms. I have 2 of these, identical, except one has a rotted cassette belt and I don't know how to replace it because the screw that holds the tape deck in is hidden somewhere I can't find.

Thanks for the video, Kevin.

4:20 "By jove! I do believe there has been a mains breakdown!" 😂🤣😂🤣😂