Sony CF-160S circa 1978. S for Shortwave. CF-160 version has no shortwave but has a tape counter. I chose this CF-160S out of a group of 3 boxes that were offered for free back in 2014. The Sony was in excellent cosmetic condition and had that "look" I liked straight away. Very light use and few hours on this machine. Cassette pinch roller barely had detectable oxide. The plastic is so thick! Check out the battery compartment door. Shortwave reception is very good. AM selectivity and sensitivity very good. Surprised me. Better than my 1996 Grundig Yacht Boy 305. Around 2016 I received a free Sony ICF 7600D shortwave ( Said to be a model that Gorbachev owned, Google it ) from the same source as the CF-160S. I liked the CF-160S reception better - bear in mind this is with my antenna set up and local reception conditions. I like this little CF-160S a lot. Tape belt in dire need of replacement. So opened up and made a listing of the electrolytic capacitors so as to order replacements. Used Nichicon FG and some Nichicon KA (blue) to fill in values that were not in stock. Ordered belt from e-bay vendor in Portugal. Synthetic bearing oil applied to capstan bearings and required areas. With test tape and WFGUI program was able to get W&F DIN to around 0.18 - 0.25 consistently. Note: Some years ago I added a radio dial back-light. 3mm white LED in wire simply resting in gap on one side of display. Fully reversible modification. Added an extra small SPST toggle switch with "rubber boot" to turn light on and off. Wired to battery compartment with resistor. Below are pictures:
I should also add for completeness that this CF-160S has: An external microphone jack, Mono headphone jack, SP Monitor on / off switch, Front LED low batt indicator / doubles as a record indicator, Fine tuning pot for AM and MW (shortwave), (I added a toggle switch for my own backlight below the fine tuning), Runs on 4D and has a world voltage selector dial of 110/120/220/240 Takes a standard power cord with the 8 shape. (No square corners). (And the carry handle end parts are actually solid metal - not chromed plastic.)
