FDK 2700 Multi or KLM 2700 Multi – how old?

In a quest to find out how old the FDK 2700 radio’s are, with little other resource than my head, hearing that the American Ham Radio magazine 73’s archive was now online covering 1960’s, 1970’s, 1980’s etc era’s, I trawled through them focusing on the adverts with a hopeful eye on a possible review.

First advert I came across was this general Linear Amplifier an Antenna advert. It wasn’t just radio’s they made then….

KLM Goodies Linears an Antenna’s

Next up…1975…

KLM Echo II tranceiver from 1975

1976 shows this HyGain HF. Can’t help but notice the similarities in design to the FDK 2700 Multi. An extension speaker is on the left, but otherwise we have a manual VFO on the right hand side.

Hy Gain 3750 HF rig from 1976

An ITC advert from 1975…similar styling leaves me wondering if ITC was associated with KLM in some way…

ITC State Of The Art advert from 1975

This surprised me…from 1977…

KLM 6 Metre rig from 1977

Finally, in the May 1977 edition of 73’s magazine. A full page colour advert announcing the new feature packed KLM/ FDK 2700 Multi

All colour KLM Multi 2700 advert place in 73’s magazine May 1977

KLM used three full page adverts in this issue promoting this rig together with their Antenna’s and Linear Amplifiers.

How the world looked in 1977…

The company was founded on April 1, 1976, and incorporated as Apple Computer, Inc. on January 3, 1977	Space Shuttle Enterprise, the Space Shuttle was still in development.	April 22 – Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic	25 London Red Routemaster buses for Queens Silver Jubilee are painted Silver
June 16 – The Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores.	The Tandy Corporation TRS-80 Model I computer is announced at a press conference	Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, dies in his home in Graceland at age 42	August 20 – Voyager program: The United States launches the Voyager 2 spacecraft
September 3 – The Commodore PET computer is first sold	September 10 – Hamida Djandoubi’s is the last guillotine execution in France	The Atari 2600 game system is released	New York City blackout of 1977, looters stole DJ equipment
November 10 – The Bee Gees release the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever, which will go on to become the then best selling album of all time.	TCP/IP test succeeds connecting 3 ARPANET nodes (of 111), in what eventually becomes the Internet protocol	December 1 The Lockheed’s top-secret stealth aircraft project, designated Have Blue, precursor to the U.S. F-117A Nighthawk, makes its first flight.	September 28 – The Porsche 928 debuts at the Geneva Motor Show