Fire station radio - always painted RED! - There was always that guy on the Fire Department who know radios; he was the guy who serviced the early 2-way radios in the fire engines and the base station in the fire station, this, of course in big city stations. The plug on the back pipped the music from the radio to the sleeping quarters, the dining facilities and down stairs to the station where the other fire men serviced the equipement to keep it in top condition for fighting fires. This radio was surely a member of the LAFD at one time and served the men who kept the fires at bay in your major city area.
I like your sense of humor. Looking at the cord, I knew it was a short. Bare wires touching, lol. Great video, as always! I like the dial. it's like a backwards speedometer. Go over 150, you get the police! I'll add that whoever altered the circuit seemed to do a good job, because it worked.
Stewart-Warner made sets for many department stores. They were sold as the "house" brand. Many Montgomery Wards sets were built by Stewart Warner or Wells Garner. They could even be the same model with the similar parts. SW stuff is quite decent quality in the low priced set field. It is not surprising it works as is. It is now a happy Saturday after my shango066 fix. Thanks!
Many of you see a “butchered” radio. Personally I am impressed how someone way in the past, by force, made that thing work again! It took that person a decent level of compression to make that all work! Love it! I like old repairs, quite amusing
I find it interesting that it's less of a collectable to you because it's modified; to me that makes it more interesting since the fact that it was worked on so heavily is the only reason it still exists today. The cabinet would be easy to refinish for someone with time. I have a large Zenith tombstone which had every capacitor replaced, went through at least 2 power transformers, a replacement speaker, and both the volume and tone control were replaced. I replaced the power transformer again, recapped it, and got it working... I felt like since someone cared enough to put the time and parts into it way back when, it was worthy of it now too!
Yes.... This is a charming, well made set from an interesting and diverse American manufacturer. It "wants to live". I do not feel as Shango does about this one.
Always a real man after me dear own heart, Shango. Plug it in turn it on and not be afraid to get a buzz and feel that 110 volt tingle. 250 volts is ok, but that 400volt jolt is real man's territory, right there, especially when one puts ones hand across all three phases at once. But there again this is just a test.
Unbelievable, it actually works. So much for solid-state being more reliable. Too bad some clown butchered it. Love that dial, looks modern and so clear to read.
As Shango pointed out, the 'fix' was correct, but a mess. I can imagine someone in a radio repair shop working on this and thinking 'I'm already into this for the parts... I better hurry!!' I worked on a friend's 1946 Philco console (they only had one, their first one after the war). His grandparents had it. It was missing the crucial IF Transformer that allowed FM reception. Someone had 'fixed it', but it might have been mid '60s, so no such IF Can was available. They replaced it with an AM only IF Transformer. So, Shortwave & AM worked, but no FM. I was disappointed, but the owner understood.
@@michaelyancey3021 OK, excused if there was no possible way to get a factory part or a substitute that would not require as much change to the circuit. It seems almost certain such a speaker could have been found with some effort.
Oh yeah now we are talking! 20s-30's transformer sets are my favourite era of tube radios and what I collect... There is so much variation in these sets as radios were still closer to being new technology than established. Tubes and circuit designs also went through a lot between 1925 - 1940, later sets all tended to follow the same schematic and use more or less the same tubes.. which were just smaller versions of late 30s or 1940s tubes... the 30s especially though had some really unusual tubes and designs you might come across in a radio as manufacturers were testing out all the new tubes and tech to see what could sell the most radios.
Personally i don't collect these, i collect early video game stuff (pre-2000 mostly) but i may get one of these radios to work on as they are growing on me. Thanks for the info as well.
Many times they would buy a license to RCA for instance and copy the schematic of the license. AA5 radios were a very common one to do. There were 5 or 6 designs in the late 1930's and a quite a few more in the 1940s that were done this way by many manufactures. A badge or label was mounted on the rear of the chassis which listed the many licensed patents to the original patent holder whether it was RCA or some others.
Shango, just a suggestion to tgo out and rack down the location of the "Test Lady" and take a video of it..her. The antenna is probably located on or near the interstate. The transmitter would be a small metal box connected to a large fiberglass antenna, it would look like the A99 CB antenna. Those TIS/Caltrans information stations only run about 10 watts, so it would have to be fairly close to you. Not sure where that Spanish station would be. If I knew the exact frequency, I could probably track it down by looking at a station list for that particular frequency...
As always, Great Diagnosis Shango066! I think they moved the transformer to allow the new power resistor to breath as you mentioned. However, I also think the main reason they moved it was to reduce hum because of the loss of the speaker field coil. They turned the transformer on its side so the flux lines would be parallel to the chassis to cut down cross talk interference between it and the rest of the power supply section for the same reason. That was most likely necessary to made use of same place to add the additional electrolytics in the same low interference section of the chassis.
ElectroRestore You have yet to master the English language and learn the difference between breath and breathe. Undertake an extensive reading program to better educate yourself. You can do it.
Hi from england. I like the dial too, aircraft of the day style. The mods look period they are part of the sets history. Not may radios now will be modified like that or still work in 80+ years.
Very cool radio! Excellent design! 6k7 converter uses the suppressor as the oscillator grid! another 6j7 used as gridleak detector ! Excellent sensitivity! Worth restoring! Nice Santa maria Bandito - This is a test!
This was an interesting repair because of the discussion on the reverse engineering and why things were done at the time. For that reason alone I like this radio.
I like it. It shows how somebody worked around a problem to get the radio going. What happened to get there is an educational guess. I have a capacitor tester I bought that was bodged back together sometime in the '70s. The person who did it drew a whole load of circuit diagrams to explain what they did. Can't beat a bit of electronic archaeology.
somebody could not have worked around a problem - because a BODY is a DEAD ENTITY. Only someone could have. The emphasis is on ""One"" Write an essay on the significance and the importance of ""One"" Regrettably you are not competent in the English Language and my youngest students age 8 academically outclass you. Undertake an extensive reading program to better educate yourself.
The modification for eliminating the field coil speaker was pretty common - better than it hitting the trash can. Says something that a 10-20 year old radio was worth repairing - a similar quality table radio in 1951 would have probably been $30 or more ($350 in 2022 money) not to mention shortages during WWII and somewhat during Korea...
Back in the late 60’s and into the 70’s you’d see a radios and furniture from this era painted,blue,brick red,yellow and other such colors. I was watching some tv show from the late 60’s not that long ago that showed a bunch of hippies living in an old Victorian house and they had an old cathedral radio painted blue. Guess it they thought it looked “hip”. I can’t believe how many electrical modifications were made to this radio over the years. I understand your feelings about that as I would want it to be original too
I think the modifications are OK and part of the history of the radio. If the original speaker failed and it was too expensive to get a new one or they were no longer made at the time, I would have done the conversion too. When I repair my devices, I do not try to make it look original - if I replace a capacitor, I do not try to put the new one into the shell of the old one etc. Similar with modifications - I have a vacuum tube receiver, where originally all four output tubes (stereo push-pull) share a common cathode resistor and capacitor. I modded it and put separate resistors and caps for each tube - the reason is that with the original configuration al tubes had to be closely matched - if one got weak, the other three would be overloaded and would fail faster. With the new configuration, the tubes do not need to be matched as closely and I was planning to use the receiver a lot. Another modification was to put in a switch that disconnects B+ from the eye tube and drops the heater voltage to it to 3V or so. The idea is to tune to a station, then disconnect the eye tube to save wear on it - I usually listen to the same station all the time.
They thought it looked hip because they were convinced they recycled something their parents would have trashed by then. Every generation has its junk yards.
@Erik Den Houter, Yes,I’m aware of what happens to older things when they are replaced by something new and aren’t old enough to be seen as having any value. Jay Leno bought a one of a kind 1934 Duesenberg aerodynamic coupe and told the story of how it was being used as a tow truck back in the late 60’s early 1970’s when those cars were seen as having no value. It was then left to rot in a yard and some guy bought it for $400 and then sold it to Jay for a million dollars. Thankfully Jay has the money and talented craftsmen and mechanics to restore it to its former glory.
one of the more beautiful radio dials i have ever seen. that radio is a diamond in the rough. i would strip it swap the four caps find some vintage speaker cloth and keep it on my nightstand
Motor boating was probably caused by capacitors sharing a common (but short) ground lead. Giving each cap its own ground lead, even if a bit longer than the common ground lead cures the motorboating by eliminating a feed back ground loop.
That red paint could very well have been used in the '40's because if this was a farm radio, that red color could have been the widely used barn paint which was cheap, because it was such a common color! Watch out for lead! Very nice radio though! Love watching your trouble shooting skills and your humor! I am a subscriber. I have a '50's Electrohome tube table radio, and find that if I reverse the plug in the outlet, the hum goes away! Why is that!
Probably because of which side of the cord the chassis ground or floating ground to the supply line is tied. Many owners manuals would recommend tying the plug in both positions.
The old police band was 1650-1720 kHz, in Western Electric transmitter catalogs of the time, the same transmitters in the 50W-1.5 KW range were sold as either broadcast or police band, the police band ones are essentially the same with changes to the output stages and a relay circuit to allow a Push To Talk, along with a specific higher frequency TCXO. After WWII and the reassignment of TV Channel, 1 to public safety VHF FM and cars with Two-Way radios became the norm .
I would definitely try to get the cabinet back to something that it looked like in the 30s and a new grill cloth if I had it. I'd love to give it a home .
You could give it a good home imo. I like it, and the mods could be cleaned up neatly. With improvements suggested by Shango. Tbh, the fact it STILL WORKS suggests strong performance if fixed ip. (to me) and the dial drive looks unique to me. So the cabinet was painted? So what! Just primer for a nicer paint job. Hard to find good stuff this old!
If someone painted this long ago, they sure did more work than one would think. The bottom side nobody sees painted as well and the screws to hold the chassis have no paint on them so it looks like the radio was dismantled down to the cabinet before that was painted. Maybe spray painted even? No sloppy brush work. The crackling on the paint says this must have happened many decades ago.
Well done for working through it and getting it going! You described what across the pond here would have been called an Energised Loudspeaker where as you correctly said the Field Coil was made to double as a Smoothing Choke but you didn't mention the Hum-Bucking Coil which I believe is shown on the Schematic and was vital for Hum Cancellation.
As it contains a power transformer, this was probably a pretty expensive broadcast-band receiver, particularly for the Depression-era 1930's. Replacing paper caps in the B+ circuit was a good idea, but it would not be not necessary to replace original paper caps that carry little to no voltage and otherwise have no adverse effects on the performance of the receiver.
So I watched the whole video, thought it was interesting including the DX at the end. I like the AM radio repair videos in general. The thing about the modifications is that it is easy to judge these hacks as substandard, but we live in the future with unlimited resources like mouser and internet. How long did catalog mail order parts take back then? What if you didn’t have the schematic? So if these "hacks" saved the radio from the trashbin, they were a success. Without them and the skilled tech who was likely working with limited time and resources, the radio would be buried in some landfill.
It does surprise me though, even with all the previous repairs and mods, and a quick slow power up, how well this radio works, and how "hot" it is picking up stations!
hello friend shango good afternoon, ah shango I liked to see the Radio was a jewel, changing only the power cord, & some electrolytics, but finally the Radio was a jewel hugs old friend Ricardo Sales Franz
If I had the money, absolutely I’d buy it (+ shipping). I need a good AA5 set. As long as it can pick up stations, I know the core of it works; everything else is veneer on a red wooden box. Sadly, money is in short supply, unlike dead spiders.
Those date codes are easy to read if you know what you are doing. Clearly that is the zero week which would be just before New Year’s of 1845 remember this thing is old!
Buff Doge pre-war tube radio: Several of my components are broken and connected incorrectly, but I'm still working and sensitive! Cheems HD radio: Some 1s and 0s are missing, so I won't play.
It looks like the radio should be in flame birch, it is a beautiful three dimensional texture wood kind. Sandpaper away the red and clear coat it? Or amber colored clear coat perhaps if the wood is too light colored after the sandpaper. One should get amber by mixing in a tiny amount of i guess equal parts of red and green in the paint mixer machine at the store, in other words some brown in it. Use paint remover on the black dial ring to get it metal colored again, it is easy to just spray and wash away the black on the ring, and should look good unless they has used sandpaper on it before painting it black. Change speaker cloth for something beige and gold matching the wood or beige and silver if the dial ring is in silver may fit better perhaps. Or coat the ring with amber color too to look antique gold colored. And voila it is looking similar to like it was from the factory again :) I notice 41:54 the stock knobs look deformed, like they was melted, perhaps the radio was in a room in a house with a fire or a next door apartment fire perhaps, or perhaps the plastic mix was not so great in the length.
From the tube lineup, seems like it has an autodyne converter and a plate detector, no AGC. I would probably try to mod it back to original, with some changes. Get a filter choke to replace that resistor and look for a better speaker. Move the power transformer back to where it belongs. Maybe replace the 6J7 detector tube with a 6SQ7 or 6Q7 so it has a diode detector instead of a grid leak and then add AGC and a REAL volume control. The autodyne converter is probably inferior to a real pentagrid circuit, but if you tried to change that, then the alignment of the front end would be screwed up without coil mods, too much effort. Yeah it wouldn't be original, but it would still look close and work much better. Finally, maybe the red paint could be stripped off and there might be something underneath that could be refinished, or stained. If I was local to you, I would be interested in adopting it, but add the shipping costs and it's not worth it to me anymore.
@@mohinderkaur6671 Well the 6J7 detector is only making up for the poor performance of the 6K7 autodyne converter opposed to using a real pentigrid circuit. One could use a 6B8 or a 6SF7 diode/pentode to get the additional AF gain with a diode detector that the 6J7 provides. You can hear the lack of AGC.
14:13 - Those Paper and wax Capacitors need to be replaced. As near as I recall - I have hundreds of NEW - unused - from decades ago and taking up space in the Garage/Workshop as we;; as many Carbon resistors from many decades ago.
Camp Lejeune legal adverts are on XM125 'Patriot' several times an hour... Mark Levin was even complaining about them, and usually radio hosts won't even allow a caller to make a comment on their advertisers.
the police band on that radio was in use in California till 1960s -1970! wonder if that lady is on one of the old California highway patrol mw am transmitters? looks like the plan to expand broadcasting up to 1700 kc dates back to the 1930s as the Manuel states 540-1750 BROADCAST BAND! it stopped at 1500 in 1937. in 1941 the band was expanded to 1600. the set diel go's to 1800 kc. so alignment is off 100 kc. as talking lady is at 1710 at most. cool radio! love the diel! could make it tune 160 m and now there is a bit of am on 160.
No standard AVC circuitry on the front end grids so they just vary the strength of the RF signal coming off the antenna to attain volume control. That's a new one on me. My 1930s Setchel Carlson AA5 has no AVC and a standard volume control. Guess it was left up to the user to adjust his antenna on the stronger stations.
Shango....I want to buy this radio, and restore it like new, and video it all on my UA-cam channel. I will completely re-wire it, and strip and refinish the cabinet and make it look new. Let me know, Buzz
The original power cord could have served as a heater cord with all those shorts in it. And the tuning dial could be a temperature gauge for the future global warming and includes a Red cabinet suggesting it is for use in Hot weather. From a mod bodged chassis to a repurposed color and dial indicator! Cool!!!
Regarding the gray line test at the end of the video, how many watts is the "This is a Test" transmission, and how far is the transmitter from your location? I would assume they do not cut the power at sunset, if it is only 100 watts or less.
re-watching a set cultivation video, lots of bound motor trends and sams editions. early on- you can see this fuschia wooden radio up, next to a window. the electo-dude
That cord is for "Professional use only" , don't do this at home type . For it's age it held up well, lesser radios probably would just hum. Look like someone used it for a radio project, too bad it's not all original. The way they controlled the volume from the front end is interesting. Hey I got a Camp Lejeune commercial while watching your video 🙂
I would love to have that radio, except I live in east Tennessee. My plan would be gut it to an almost bare chassis and rebuild it to the original layout as best as possible.
Great video thank you for the post it seems like I always learn something I do have one question though your testing station wonder what frequency that is I think I may be out of range I can't pick it up but I've been trying anyway thanks again👍🏻👍🏻
you can always "UNMODIFY" the radio, and strip the red paint off , then you have an unmolested radio, put back to factory specs, it would be a real nice unit!!!!.
Fire station radio - always painted RED! - There was always that guy on the Fire Department who know radios; he was the guy who serviced the early 2-way radios in the fire engines and the base station in the fire station, this, of course in big city stations. The plug on the back pipped the music from the radio to the sleeping quarters, the dining facilities and down stairs to the station where the other fire men serviced the equipement to keep it in top condition for fighting fires. This radio was surely a member of the LAFD at one time and served the men who kept the fires at bay in your major city area.
I could hear Mr Carlson scream when you plugged that "vintage" power cord. 😂😂
I get so sick of his microphone being so sensitive that you can hear each inhale and exhale of his breath
@@danielknepper6884 🤣 I was waiting for someone else to talk about this..
Ditto
Ha😂
He's actually given Shango a shout-out on his channel. He secretly likes the chaos, but can't bring himself to cause it.
I like your sense of humor. Looking at the cord, I knew it was a short. Bare wires touching, lol. Great video, as always!
I like the dial. it's like a backwards speedometer. Go over 150, you get the police!
I'll add that whoever altered the circuit seemed to do a good job, because it worked.
funny
Stewart-Warner made sets for many department stores. They were sold as the "house" brand. Many Montgomery Wards sets were built by Stewart Warner or Wells Garner. They could even be the same model with the similar parts. SW stuff is quite decent quality in the low priced set field. It is not surprising it works as is.
It is now a happy Saturday after my shango066 fix. Thanks!
You got my vote straight after you plugged in that power cord !
If anyone ever doubts Shango’s abilities, they should watch THIS video. He’s a master.
Many of you see a “butchered” radio. Personally I am impressed how someone way in the past, by force, made that thing work again! It took that person a decent level of compression to make that all work! Love it! I like old repairs, quite amusing
When that radio was new, wonder if they had commercials like "penicillin is not for everyone see your doctor for advice."
I find it interesting that it's less of a collectable to you because it's modified; to me that makes it more interesting since the fact that it was worked on so heavily is the only reason it still exists today. The cabinet would be easy to refinish for someone with time. I have a large Zenith tombstone which had every capacitor replaced, went through at least 2 power transformers, a replacement speaker, and both the volume and tone control were replaced. I replaced the power transformer again, recapped it, and got it working... I felt like since someone cared enough to put the time and parts into it way back when, it was worthy of it now too!
I like when things can be functionally the same as when they came out (but not enhanced). Innards being replaced never bothers me.
Yes.... This is a charming, well made set from an interesting and diverse American manufacturer. It "wants to live". I do not feel as Shango does about this one.
Always a real man after me dear own heart, Shango. Plug it in turn it on and not be afraid to get a buzz and feel that 110 volt tingle. 250 volts is ok, but that 400volt jolt is real man's territory, right there, especially when one puts ones hand across all three phases at once. But there again this is just a test.
Unbelievable, it actually works. So much for solid-state being more reliable. Too bad some clown butchered it. Love that dial, looks modern and so clear to read.
As Shango pointed out, the 'fix' was correct, but a mess. I can imagine someone in a radio repair shop working on this and thinking 'I'm already into this for the parts... I better hurry!!'
I worked on a friend's 1946 Philco console (they only had one, their first one after the war). His grandparents had it. It was missing the crucial IF Transformer that allowed FM reception. Someone had 'fixed it', but it might have been mid '60s, so no such IF Can was available. They replaced it with an AM only IF Transformer.
So, Shortwave & AM worked, but no FM. I was disappointed, but the owner understood.
I so dislike these butcher repair jobs.
It's a crying shame
Near enough IS NOT good enough
@@michaelyancey3021 OK, excused if there was no possible way to get a factory part or a substitute that would not require as much change to the circuit. It seems almost certain such a speaker could have been found with some effort.
Mr. Shang: You are a gift to electronic enthusiast. Your words just flow out w/ meaning.
Oh yeah now we are talking! 20s-30's transformer sets are my favourite era of tube radios and what I collect... There is so much variation in these sets as radios were still closer to being new technology than established.
Tubes and circuit designs also went through a lot between 1925 - 1940, later sets all tended to follow the same schematic and use more or less the same tubes.. which were just smaller versions of late 30s or 1940s tubes... the 30s especially though had some really unusual tubes and designs you might come across in a radio as manufacturers were testing out all the new tubes and tech to see what could sell the most radios.
Personally i don't collect these, i collect early video game stuff (pre-2000 mostly) but i may get one of these radios to work on as they are growing on me. Thanks for the info as well.
Many times they would buy a license to RCA for instance and copy the schematic of the license. AA5 radios
were a very common one to do. There were 5 or 6 designs in the late 1930's and a quite a few more in the
1940s that were done this way by many manufactures. A badge or label was mounted on the rear of the
chassis which listed the many licensed patents to the original patent holder whether it was RCA or some others.
Shango, just a suggestion to tgo out and rack down the location of the "Test Lady" and take a video of it..her. The antenna is probably located on or near the interstate. The transmitter would be a small metal box connected to a large fiberglass antenna, it would look like the A99 CB antenna. Those TIS/Caltrans information stations only run about 10 watts, so it would have to be fairly close to you. Not sure where that Spanish station would be. If I knew the exact frequency, I could probably track it down by looking at a station list for that particular frequency...
GREAT DAY TESTING
@@jaedenspider877it's only a test!
As always, Great Diagnosis Shango066! I think they moved the transformer to allow the new power resistor to breath as you mentioned. However, I also think the main reason they moved it was to reduce hum because of the loss of the speaker field coil. They turned the transformer on its side so the flux lines would be parallel to the chassis to cut down cross talk interference between it and the rest of the power supply section for the same reason. That was most likely necessary to made use of same place to add the additional electrolytics in the same low interference section of the chassis.
ElectroRestore
You have yet to master the English language
and learn the difference between breath and breathe.
Undertake an extensive reading program to better educate yourself.
You can do it.
Yay, you finally found her 😂 🥹I get so excited when the test lady comes on! 😂😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂
I always love to hear 'great day testing'
It's always nice to hear the beautifuly voiced channel mascot doing a test. :)
This is a test, this is only a test.
@@andymouse She is a tease. LOL
BTW, Mr Brown is on at 21.05 tonight. :)
@@frankowalker4662 Ta !
Hi from england.
I like the dial too, aircraft of the day style.
The mods look period they are part of the sets history.
Not may radios now will be modified like that or still work in 80+ years.
Very cool radio! Excellent design! 6k7 converter uses the suppressor as the oscillator grid! another 6j7 used as gridleak detector ! Excellent sensitivity! Worth restoring! Nice Santa maria Bandito - This is a test!
I never laugh so much while watching an electronic diagnostic video as while enjoying a Shango production.
This was an interesting repair because of the discussion on the reverse engineering and why things were done at the time. For that reason alone I like this radio.
I like it. It shows how somebody worked around a problem to get the radio going. What happened to get there is an educational guess. I have a capacitor tester I bought that was bodged back together sometime in the '70s. The person who did it drew a whole load of circuit diagrams to explain what they did. Can't beat a bit of electronic archaeology.
somebody could not have worked around a problem -
because a BODY is a DEAD ENTITY.
Only someone could have.
The emphasis is on ""One""
Write an essay on the significance and the importance of ""One""
Regrettably you are not competent in the English Language and my
youngest students age 8 academically outclass you.
Undertake an extensive reading program to better educate yourself.
I should be in the Torrance area next weekend. I would be happy to adopt it, recap it, & align it.
Might be a good time to take a little pocket radio and see if the "test lady" can be pinpointed to La Cienega Blvd and Imperial Highway.
@@auchterawer1150 I'll have to see if I have a pocket radio that goes to 1700. If not, I'll bring my Grundig S360, and a compass.
5:29 some crackle pony master play for your camp Lejunne advertisement.
The modification for eliminating the field coil speaker was pretty common - better than it hitting the trash can. Says something that a 10-20 year old radio was worth repairing - a similar quality table radio in 1951 would have probably been $30 or more ($350 in 2022 money) not to mention shortages during WWII and somewhat during Korea...
Thanks for putting safety last, it's the honorable thing to do.
Back in the late 60’s and into the 70’s you’d see a radios and furniture from this era painted,blue,brick red,yellow and other such colors.
I was watching some tv show from the late 60’s not that long ago that showed a bunch of hippies living in an old Victorian house and they had an old cathedral radio painted blue. Guess it they thought it looked “hip”.
I can’t believe how many electrical modifications were made to this radio over the years. I understand your feelings about that as I would want it to be original too
I think the modifications are OK and part of the history of the radio. If the original speaker failed and it was too expensive to get a new one or they were no longer made at the time, I would have done the conversion too.
When I repair my devices, I do not try to make it look original - if I replace a capacitor, I do not try to put the new one into the shell of the old one etc.
Similar with modifications - I have a vacuum tube receiver, where originally all four output tubes (stereo push-pull) share a common cathode resistor and capacitor. I modded it and put separate resistors and caps for each tube - the reason is that with the original configuration al tubes had to be closely matched - if one got weak, the other three would be overloaded and would fail faster. With the new configuration, the tubes do not need to be matched as closely and I was planning to use the receiver a lot.
Another modification was to put in a switch that disconnects B+ from the eye tube and drops the heater voltage to it to 3V or so. The idea is to tune to a station, then disconnect the eye tube to save wear on it - I usually listen to the same station all the time.
They thought it looked hip because they were convinced they recycled something their parents would have trashed by then. Every generation has its junk yards.
@Erik Den Houter, Yes,I’m aware of what happens to older things when they are replaced by something new and aren’t old enough to be seen as having any value. Jay Leno bought a one of a kind 1934 Duesenberg aerodynamic coupe and told the story of how it was being used as a tow truck back in the late 60’s early 1970’s when those cars were seen as having no value. It was then left to rot in a yard and some guy bought it for $400 and then sold it to Jay for a million dollars.
Thankfully Jay has the money and talented craftsmen and mechanics to restore it to its former glory.
one of the more beautiful radio dials i have ever seen. that radio is a diamond in the rough. i would strip it swap the four caps find some vintage speaker cloth and keep it on my nightstand
That reduction ratio friction drive for tuning cap looks unique to me! I really like this one.
Send this unit to Mister Radio, Radiorama. Bet he would have a great time with it... Drop it off at the museum. Cheers.
Nice work, as always! Thanks for what you do...
Dont worry about that power cord, a simple spritz with 'crepe erase' will cure it
Motor boating was probably caused by capacitors sharing a common (but short) ground lead. Giving each cap its own ground lead, even if a bit longer than the common ground lead cures the motorboating by eliminating a feed back ground loop.
That red paint could very well have been used in the '40's because if this was a farm radio, that red color could have been the widely used barn paint which was cheap, because it was such a common color!
Watch out for lead! Very nice radio though! Love watching your trouble shooting skills and your humor! I
am a subscriber.
I have a '50's Electrohome tube table radio, and find that if I reverse the plug in the outlet, the hum goes away! Why is that!
Probably because of which side of the cord the chassis ground or floating ground to the supply line is tied. Many owners manuals would recommend tying the plug in both positions.
The old police band was 1650-1720 kHz, in Western Electric transmitter catalogs of the time, the same transmitters in the 50W-1.5 KW range were sold as either broadcast or police band, the police band ones are essentially the same with changes to the output stages and a relay circuit to allow a Push To Talk, along with a specific higher frequency TCXO. After WWII and the reassignment of TV Channel, 1 to public safety VHF FM and cars with Two-Way radios became the norm .
Love the mint condition power cord.
I would definitely try to get the cabinet back to something that it looked like in the 30s and a new grill cloth if I had it. I'd love to give it a home .
You could give it a good home imo. I like it, and the mods could be cleaned up neatly. With improvements suggested by Shango. Tbh, the fact it STILL WORKS suggests strong performance if fixed ip. (to me) and the dial drive looks unique to me. So the cabinet was painted? So what! Just primer for a nicer paint job. Hard to find good stuff this old!
Yes, quality video as always and quality comments on the current state of AM broadcasting content. ads ads ads. :)
That rework job is so old that the can cap on top was good and was left in parallel for it's capacitance.
Nice Work, Thanks for the 'tour'. Love look of Dial; Raised Decorative work around Screws adds interesting flair.
Cool set! Oscillator coil stimulation video. Great video! Thanks!
It’s so strange hearing current radio chatter compared to what was going on with this was made .
Ah yes Shango I love your videos almost every day I see
If someone painted this long ago, they sure did more work than one would think. The bottom side nobody sees painted as well and the screws to hold the chassis have no paint on them so it looks like the radio was dismantled down to the cabinet before that was painted. Maybe spray painted even? No sloppy brush work. The crackling on the paint says this must have happened many decades ago.
I’m amazed that cord didn’t blow up and also amazed that the radio woke right up!
The light bulb limits the current so no fireworks
VERY INTERESTING ANALYSIS TO FIX THIS RADIO👍
"great day testing testing this is only a test this is only a test test this is a great day test"!perfect nightmare
Oh dude ,good to see your back..UA-cam missed ya..
Thanks for the class! I like the educational part =)
Well done for working through it and getting it going!
You described what across the pond here would have been called an Energised Loudspeaker where as you correctly said the Field Coil was made to double as a Smoothing Choke but you didn't mention the Hum-Bucking Coil which I believe is shown on the Schematic and was vital for Hum Cancellation.
I would guess the cabinet had a photofinish that was damaged. Easiest thing to do is paint it since you can't refinish paper.
I love radios like that lol.........the hunt to fix everything is the fun of it
For a hack job, it still seemed somewhat functional. Enjoyed your reverse engineering instructional segment!
As it contains a power transformer, this was probably a pretty expensive broadcast-band receiver, particularly for the Depression-era 1930's. Replacing paper caps in the B+ circuit was a good idea, but it would not be not necessary to replace original paper caps that carry little to no voltage and otherwise have no adverse effects on the performance of the receiver.
Very interesting radio. Enjoyed the video!
Happy Saturday morning!
So I watched the whole video, thought it was interesting including the DX at the end. I like the AM radio repair videos in general. The thing about the modifications is that it is easy to judge these hacks as substandard, but we live in the future with unlimited resources like mouser and internet. How long did catalog mail order parts take back then? What if you didn’t have the schematic?
So if these "hacks" saved the radio from the trashbin, they were a success. Without them and the skilled tech who was likely working with limited time and resources, the radio would be buried in some landfill.
The modifications were probably made at a repair shop with the parts available on hand.
Mr Spock modified it to communicate with the enterprise.
It does surprise me though, even with all the previous repairs and mods, and a quick slow power up, how well this radio works, and how "hot" it is picking up stations!
Someone really liked this radio
hello friend shango good afternoon, ah shango I liked to see the Radio was a jewel, changing only the power cord, & some electrolytics, but finally the Radio was a jewel hugs old friend Ricardo Sales Franz
If I had the money, absolutely I’d buy it (+ shipping). I need a good AA5 set. As long as it can pick up stations, I know the core of it works; everything else is veneer on a red wooden box. Sadly, money is in short supply, unlike dead spiders.
If I lived close... I would so adopt that thing and give it the TLC it needs
Thanks for sharing "Garfield". You're a trip!
Those date codes are easy to read if you know what you are doing. Clearly that is the zero week which would be just before New Year’s of 1845 remember this thing is old!
Buff Doge pre-war tube radio: Several of my components are broken and connected incorrectly, but I'm still working and sensitive!
Cheems HD radio: Some 1s and 0s are missing, so I won't play.
It looks like the radio should be in flame birch, it is a beautiful three dimensional texture wood kind.
Sandpaper away the red and clear coat it? Or amber colored clear coat perhaps if the wood is too light colored after the sandpaper. One should get amber by mixing in a tiny amount of i guess equal parts of red and green in the paint mixer machine at the store, in other words some brown in it.
Use paint remover on the black dial ring to get it metal colored again, it is easy to just spray and wash away the black on the ring, and should look good unless they has used sandpaper on it before painting it black.
Change speaker cloth for something beige and gold matching the wood or beige and silver if the dial ring is in silver may fit better perhaps. Or coat the ring with amber color too to look antique gold colored.
And voila it is looking similar to like it was from the factory again :)
I notice 41:54 the stock knobs look deformed, like they was melted, perhaps the radio was in a room in a house with a fire or a next door apartment fire perhaps, or perhaps the plastic mix was not so great in the length.
Yey !!! test lady !....cheers.
I have an old tube radio a bit like this one, except only from 500-1600 khz.
nice radio with some restoration on the case and chassis.
You could use paint stripper and see if the underneath is still in good condition, if so all you have to do is apply new shellac
From the tube lineup, seems like it has an autodyne converter and a plate detector, no AGC.
I would probably try to mod it back to original, with some changes. Get a filter choke to replace that resistor and look for a better speaker. Move the power transformer back to where it belongs. Maybe replace the 6J7 detector tube with a 6SQ7 or 6Q7 so it has a diode detector instead of a grid leak and then add AGC and a REAL volume control. The autodyne converter is probably inferior to a real pentagrid circuit, but if you tried to change that, then the alignment of the front end would be screwed up without coil mods, too much effort. Yeah it wouldn't be original, but it would still look close and work much better. Finally, maybe the red paint could be stripped off and there might be something underneath that could be refinished, or stained.
If I was local to you, I would be interested in adopting it, but add the shipping costs and it's not worth it to me anymore.
sensitivity is due to that 6j7 second detector instead of 6sq7
@@mohinderkaur6671 Well the 6J7 detector is only making up for the poor performance of the 6K7 autodyne converter opposed to using a real pentigrid circuit. One could use a 6B8 or a 6SF7 diode/pentode to get the additional AF gain with a diode detector that the 6J7 provides. You can hear the lack of AGC.
@@KennethScharf 6k7 autodyne may actually have a higher gain. They use autodyne 12au6 in short superhets
14:13 - Those Paper and wax Capacitors need to be replaced.
As near as I recall - I have hundreds of NEW - unused - from
decades ago and taking up space in the Garage/Workshop
as we;; as many Carbon resistors from many decades ago.
Camp Lejeune legal adverts are on XM125 'Patriot' several times an hour... Mark Levin was even complaining about them, and usually radio hosts won't even allow a caller to make a comment on their advertisers.
the police band on that radio was in use in California till 1960s -1970! wonder if that lady is on one of the old California highway patrol mw am transmitters? looks like the plan to expand broadcasting up to 1700 kc dates back to the 1930s as the Manuel states 540-1750 BROADCAST BAND! it stopped at 1500 in 1937. in 1941 the band was expanded to 1600. the set diel go's to 1800 kc. so alignment is off 100 kc. as talking lady is at 1710 at most. cool radio! love the diel! could make it tune 160 m and now there is a bit of am on 160.
Send it to BUZZ1151, he likes RED, he paints the power transformers red....LOL
This is a test. This is a test. This is only a test. This is only a test.
43:09 This thing is narmaldil-mcdweebilezer…
No standard AVC circuitry on the front end grids so they just vary the strength of the RF signal coming off the antenna to attain volume control. That's a new one on me. My 1930s Setchel Carlson AA5 has no AVC and a standard volume control. Guess it was left up to the user to adjust his antenna on the stronger stations.
Shango....I want to buy this radio, and restore it like new, and video it all on my UA-cam channel.
I will completely re-wire it, and strip and refinish the cabinet and make it look new.
Let me know,
Buzz
Nice offer Buzz. I hope you get the radio. BTW, how is Dickel?
"Somewhere up here is the "Test Lady'? What is the Test Lady when tuning the dial??
someday shango's gonna meet that test girl..and do some tests together
The original power cord could have served as a heater cord with all those shorts in it. And the tuning dial could be a temperature gauge for the future global warming and includes a Red cabinet suggesting it is for use in Hot weather. From a mod bodged chassis to a repurposed color and dial indicator! Cool!!!
Regarding the gray line test at the end of the video, how many watts is the "This is a Test" transmission, and how far is the transmitter from your location? I would assume they do not cut the power at sunset, if it is only 100 watts or less.
re-watching a set cultivation video, lots of bound motor trends and sams editions. early on- you can see this fuschia wooden radio up, next to a window. the electo-dude
I'm glad you located the short in the power cord 😂😂🤦🏼🤦🏼
I like the Magic Joe ✨ decal 😆
It says RADIO on the dial so that you can distinguish it from a Stewart Warner speedometer. Neat little set, shame it's been dinko twirkulated.
It would be cool to play oldies through this . Using satellite radio .
I wonder if they moved the transformer because it caused some sort of hum being close to the speaker coil?
And not having the field coil humbucking.
Every time I hear him talk about how dim the bulb is I think it's a political statement.
Dim bulb is Joe Biden and the Democratic party
From the sound and the looks of the cone, I suspect that the replacement speaker should now be replaced or re-coned.
28:25 - transformer may have interfered with the replacement speaker
Camp legune ads 🤣
I'm so effing sick of those ads
Those don't bother me as much as the Kars4Kids commercial does.
@@airplaneengine those seem to have gone away thank goodness
That cord is for "Professional use only" , don't do this at home type . For it's age it held up well, lesser radios probably would just hum. Look like someone used it for a radio project, too bad it's not all original. The way they controlled the volume from the front end is interesting. Hey I got a Camp Lejeune commercial while watching your video 🙂
That power cord belongs in the Smithsonian.
I would love to have that radio, except I live in east Tennessee. My plan would be gut it to an almost bare chassis and rebuild it to the original layout as best as possible.
Great video thank you for the post it seems like I always learn something I do have one question though your testing station wonder what frequency that is I think I may be out of range I can't pick it up but I've been trying anyway thanks again👍🏻👍🏻
Good morning!!!!
I'd be happy to pay shipping for it!
you can always "UNMODIFY" the radio, and strip the red paint off , then you have an unmolested radio, put back to factory specs, it would be a real nice unit!!!!.
That's a pretty fancy escutcheon ya got there!