During much of the ownership of WFLN-FM by Broadcast Pioneers founding member Ray Green, the station offered for sale, an FM radio tuned exclusively to WFLN-FM, 95.7 in Philadelphia. The cost was approx. $20 per unit ordered and it could not receive any station but WFLN-FM.

The only one that we know of, is the Auditron SF101 FM radio. Manufactured by Auditron Corporation, a division of Sarkes Tarzian, the SF stood for “single frequency” or uni-channel. This early sixties model is basically the same as the Sarkes Tarzian model 723-517 with the tuning control disabled. The tuning knob is there and turns but it does nothing.

Auditron Uni Channel FM Receiver
Label on bottom of unit
1962

While others have dated this model as being built in 1964, we suspect that it may have been a year or two earlier. Why? Because the address on the bottom label doesn’t have a Zip Code but only a zone.

The U.S. Postal Service announced that the usage of Zip Codes would begin on July 1, 1963. A manufacturer would want to have the “new” zip code on the device. Otherwise, just a zone would date the unit and customers might not want it assuming that it was an old model. Therefore, we believe that it is more realistic that it was built in 1962 or very early 1963.

The founder of the Sarkes Tarzian Company that bears his name came from Armenia. The family left that country in 1907 because of the persecution of Christian Armenians by the Turkish majority and they ended up here in Philadelphia.

Graduating in 1918, he was the top high school graduate in the City of Philadelphia which earned him a fully paid four year scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his electrical engineering degree and began a long career in the manufacture of radios and television sets.

He first worked for Atwater Kent (who was inducted into our Hall of Fame in 1992) and then RCA in Indiana. In 1944, he founded his own company. It manufactured electronic equipment and later got into the ownership of broadcast stations.