Fairchild MODEL-500
A "Fairchild Model 500" turns out to be several different instruments wearing the same number, and the archive can't yet pin down which one this page means. Period coverage of Fairchild components in this era, such as the equipment listings in Audio (March 1961, p.59), does not resolve the MODEL-500 designation.
Overview
Here's the problem with the Fairchild MODEL-500: the designation doesn't resolve to a single product. The research record for this entry came back empty. The source excerpts that mention a "Model 500" describe machines that have nothing to do with one another. Until someone produces a document that names Fairchild and MODEL-500 together, this page is a placeholder, not a profile.
The candidate that most plausibly belongs under the Fairchild banner is broadcast and field-service gear: a sensitive interference locator that tunes from 550 kc. to 220 mc. across six bands. It covers the standard and FM broadcast, shortwave, and UHF-TV spectrums. According to the brochure excerpt, it uses a transistorized power supply and a meter that reads proportional to carrier strength. The claimed sensitivity is 5 microvolts minimum for 5% meter deflection across the whole tuning range. Its job was hunting down interference in the field, and the wide coverage is the selling point. But the excerpt never states the manufacturer, so attributing it to Fairchild is an assumption, not a verified fact.
The other "Model 500" references in the source material point somewhere else entirely. One is a transmitter remote-control system from Schafer Electronics of Burbank, built around 26 metering circuits and 40 control functions on two metallic lines. Another is an Inovonics Model 500 acoustic analyzer, a one-third-octave sound-level and reverberation-time instrument priced at $2750. A third is a Conar Model 500 three-band ham receiver sold as a kit for $37.50 (assembled, $56.50). None of these are Fairchild products, and none of them are audio components in the sense this archive usually means. Putting any of them on a "Fairchild MODEL-500" page would be a fabrication.
The number 500 was common enough in mid-century electronics that it attached itself to interference locators, remote controls, analyzers, and ham receivers alike. If you're holding a Fairchild-badged unit marked MODEL-500, the archive would like to see it. A photo of the faceplate, the model plate, and any manual would settle what pages of guessing cannot. The fact sheet is explicit that no verifiable facts could be extracted, and this entry reflects that.
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