The Śląsk tabletop receiver with a built-in gramophone (a so-called “radiogramophone”) was manufactured by Dolnośląskie Zakłady Wytwórcze Urządzeń Radiowych in Dzierżoniów in 1956-1959. According to the designers’ concept, it was an exclusive receiver targeted at a narrow group of buyers. Work on the device began in 1953 and a limited trial production was launched two years later. It is the first radio developed in Poland in which a button range switch was used instead of a rotary switch; it is also one of the first radios in Poland to be equipped with a UHF-FM module. Its head operates in a super-reaction arrangement. The Śląsk allows reception of radio signals in ultra-high frequency, short, medium, and long wave bands. It comprises frequency modulation (FM) and amplitude modulation (AM) systems. In terms of electrics, it is an AC-powered superheterodyne using vacuum tubes. The radio has automatic amplification adjustment, which makes the Śląsk less sensitive to waves fading out or being overdriven. The entire device was enclosed in a box housing of polished wood. At the bottom of the front wall there is a row of button switches, behind and a little above them there is a glass scale with rotary switches on either side. Above that there is a rectangular board covered in fabric, behind which two magnetoelectric GDWS speakers are installed. There is an electron ray tube tuning indicator in the upper right corner. The top surface of the box is a lid under which there is a recess for the GE-56electric gramophone made in the T-4 factory (later renamed to Fonica).
The receiver was manufactured in two slightly different versions, and 2345 units of the first version and only 390 units of the second were produced. Over time, it turned out that such a design did not fulfil the expectations for it so the electric gramophone addition was abandoned, giving rise to production of the Podhale, which had an electrical arrangement identical to that of the Śląsk. During its production, in 1957 the Dzierżoniów plant was given the name “Diora”, which was submitted by Jerzy Brzoski and selected in a competition. Jerzy Malanowski and Michał Tyburkiewicz created the new company logo, which is shown at the front of the receiver, next to the bottom right rotary switch.

Author: Filip Wróblewski