Transistor Radios Around the World

Home --- Timeline --- Radios by Country

Before '54 --- North America --- Western Europe --- Japan and Pacific --- East Bloc and USSR


1958 Bebe Grammont

Small portable, nylon cabinet
6 1/4 x 3 3/4 x 1 7/8 inches / 160 x 95 x 47.6 mm
2-band MW/LW, six transistors (Thomson / COSEM — see below), superheterodyne circuit
Four 1.5-volt cells
Manufactured by TED (Technique et Decoration) for Television Grammont, France

A wonderful nylon-cabinet small portable radio — both examples I have look nearly as new as the day they were made.

Like many European MW/LW radios, this set's MW band is calibrated in meters and the LW band displays the handful of LW broadcasters by name. Radios made in France designated their bands as "PO" (Petites ondes) and "GO" (Grandes ondes), "PO" being MW, and "GO" LW.

The two examples I have of the Bebe Grammont incorporate two different complements of transistors. The red-and-black: COSEM (France), SFT95, SFT102, SFT103, 2x SFT106, SFT123. The gray-and-black: Thomson (France), 2x 36T1, 37T1, 9Y1T1M?, 2x 988T1. The chassis photo below is of the gray-and-black model.

Something I've always been interested in is other people's personal memories of radio in general, and even better, a particular radio model. Last month (September 2019) I received an email from Gilles Mangard, a French national currently living in Northern Ireland who's given me permission to quote him here:

"I'm fond of transistors and old radios. I worked in France at a radio station as a professional speaker for a long time. I know why I'm so fond of radio. When I was four, I contracted a serious disease and had to spend two months in bed. My parents were not there during the day, and my one and only support was my little radio, a Bebe Grammont (the grey model). Because I was really sick, I decided that if I recovered I would become a doctor. And I'm a Doctor today. "


Bebe Grammont

1958 Bebe Grammont


Bebe Grammont

1958 Bebe Grammont

Bebe Grammont

chassis — click on the photo for a larger image

back to Western Europe index page



All content � 2014 by Robert Davidson, worldtransistors@gmail.com All Rights Reserved