montclaire,I reckon that the front of your radio was pinched by Chev for the grill bars of 48 - 53 pickups
I used to collect them and I sold them for a while, too, but when we moved I traded off most of the clunkers for a couple of early cowls (one with doors). Probably my best score, though, was a Philco that was the same as the Plymouth/Dodge car radios they made - but with a big fat transformer so it could be plugged in, and mounted in a case with a turntable. Trouble was, it was the wrong cabinet. Philco did make a couple models in the war era that used the car radio, but this one was clearly someone's recabinet job. I can't remember now if they used up surplus sets to make something they could sell, or what. So I took the radio out and sold it for pretty good money, and traded the case towards the previously mentioned '29 LaSalle cowl. Given Philco supplied radios for Chrysler, I don't think Ford owned them. There used to be tons of companies making radios - some later made televisions - before the Japanese and later Chinese killed us on them all. My buddy has probably a couple hundred early radios, from the 20s to the '50s - even has a couple jukeboxes to go with them all. I have kept an Emerson table radio all this time, and my dad still has a big Firestone console radio from about 1942 - it still works, and we play it once in a while. Michael Savage never sounded better -
. lots of tube radios and amps here, just no recent pictures. My favourite would have to be the '36 Rogers Majestic (floor model). It doesn't have a dial indicator as per say, It has a perfectly focused beam of light that projects from the backside onto a curved dial gl***. All in all pretty high tech for the 30's and the woodwork is something to behold. Long live the 30's .
Ford owned Philco from 1961-on; in 1981 the consumer electronics part was sold to Philips, mostly so Philips could use the name "Philips" on their own products in the U.S. Before that time Philips was prohibited from doing so, because the names were so similar. They still use the Philco name on some promotional & value line stuff and license it for retro-style electronics. And hey- they are making Philco-branded digital converter boxes- so's you can use them with your vintage ****og Philco Predicta TV sets. The other half of Philco, the defense & aerospace part, was merged with Ford's Aeronutronic division in '63...
I make tube amps for a living. Specializing on 1930s and 40s tubes and transformers. Here is my Stromberg-Carlson from the late 1930s that I rewired into a stereo. Rebuilt to original specs and added the phono preamp using 30s pentodes. ....hot rodding with tubes, the traditional way!
My dad started repairing radios back in the late forties and wound up working on German radios and tv's mostly Saba brand. When he p***ed I just couldn't let his stuff go. Books of schematics from the mid 20's thru the 60's. Tubes and tube testers and a bunch of radios. The Philco is a portable. Here are some pics
Thanks - you are right. One of these days I have to modify an early phonograph with a high-quality stereo cartridge. To me, form always follows function in audio. Lucky that my favorite sounding gear and instruments also please the eye. The original tubes on the Stromberg-Carlson were all metal envelope tubes. They are alright, but the early coke-bottle shaped gl*** tubes have a sound quality that was never equalled again. I always greatly enjoyed the parallel evolution between early automotive and audio technology. Talking about peaking at the same time....
This ones a Philco. I picked up at the antique store 30 years ago for $12.00. I have never plugged it in to see if it works. I just thought it looked cool as hell so I bought it >>>>.
Here is our 1947 Philco. It's been in the family for awhile. It even has the old stations from Portland, OR............KXL, KOIN, KGW, and KEX. I think most of these stations are still around. Oh, it has 78 record player that folds out..................hasn't worked in years, but the radio does.
I've got a '40 Philco console, and listen to a 50s Magnavox Hi-Fi all the time... I also collect and restore Western Electric telephones from the turn of the century to the '70s! Small world! Glad to know I'm not the only nerd with a tube tester... ~Jason
Here's my Zenith Trans-Oceanic. This was marketed as a portable radio, has a provision for a 90 volt (!) battery inside the cabinet. Not sure of the year, maybe early 50's? It picks up propaganda broadcasts from all over the world on the shortwave bands!
OH MY GOODNESS! That brings back lots of long ago memories! I really really really miss my Zenith TransOceanic radio, with the glowing tubes and two minute warmup times before the sounds came out. I remember back to many evenings while working late at night on my bicyle or building my first minibike, hearing the very unique sounds of a shortwave or AM signal pulling in a far off station like KXOK St Louis, WLS Chicago, or Radio Netherlands. Or listening to Radio South Africa and finding out that "Build Me Up ****ercup" was just as popular over there as here. I miss the interesting "character" sounds that the radio signals carried with them. While you could usually hear the station quite clearly if the weather was right, with a little fade here and there, it also sounded exactly like you pulled it in from halfway around the world. It had a sound that told you it had travelled from a distant land. I cant describe it to people who have only heard the newer radios or modern electronics, but you could actually hear and feel and experience the long travelling distance of the signals that came thousands of miles from around the globe to reach your garage. Sometimes when listening to a favorite show, you could hear some distant faint hiss and crackle of a far off thunderstorm the signal had to p*** through. You could count the lightning strikes from somewhere on the other side of the globe, but they weren't an annoyance. They were just another interesting part of the "drive with the top down" experience. The "character of sound" that you just don't hear today. I found so many interesting places. To me, todays short-range FM is hospital-room sterile. People who haven't spent some quality time with an old old radio just don't know what they missed. Sorry for ramblin on. Take good care of that radio.
I have a lot of little AM transistors, some older stuff including Heathkit. A few portable record players too. But the biggest thing does not work. It's a '49 TV radio and record player. I want to put a newer TV behind the circle opening and hide a DVD player where the record player sits. Then we can enjoy old B&W shows in a cool way. 3 of my AM tube radios my wife found at a local thrift store for 10 cents each. 2 work. All our stuff is packed away so no pics.
Well me and my radios have been evicted from the house but we are in the old chicken house now. rather disorganized right now somewhere around 300-400 radios, a few Trans-Oceanics i took pics for a friend. http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=eed9203975b0bf69ab1eab3e9fa335caad82fa86ce293ad2 maybe over the winter i can get them organized? tt
Have a King from 1923. A Fred Eisenunn model 30 from same era. A Stark single tube regen from 1918 (Still works) A 1923 Marconi 4 tube Radiola III-A, A Stewart Warner , Gibbard furnature case 2 band 6 volt table radio, probably 1930s. A german transisitor radio from the very late fifties or early sixties, Zonderblatt or something .( it is in my shop. ) A Heath Kit Sx somethng 6 band transistor radio. A Realistic SX100 and an A****er Kent standup radio from the 30s which also works yet or jetzt if you will. Plus a 1 tube regen I built myself which looks period correct as it is a 1920s design. A early twenties console radio innards which was sold to furnature makers called Showers Consola Don VE3LYX
Hey mabye one of you guys can answer this .My grandfather used to clean out stores here and do deliveries for them.Gramps had a few tube testing machines that customers could check their radio/tv tubes in he knew a lot about old electronics and said that the showroom testers were a scam that a tube was either GOOD or didn't work period but the "customer" testers were marked with a scale so that you would think a tube was "weak"etc.these testers were usually supplied with a tube rack so new tubes were right there wouldn't want to chance a "weak"tube blowing during your favorite show right so a grab a new one!OK so was gramps right ?was the scale on them just a way to sell more tubes ?
Fellow HAMBer Engine-Ear sells just what you need: http://www.rediscoveradio.com/ It plugs inline with the antenna cable and allows you to hook up a Walkman, Ipod or whatever portable device so you can listen to it through your AM radio.
All portable tube testers and the ones that were in stores gave very limited and inconclusive results. Plate voltages are too low and they are often out of calibration. Only few bulky and heavy tube ****yzers were made for the large tube manufacturer's labs, that can test tubes for all kinds of conditions and give accurate results. I used to work for one of the biggest tube testing facilities in the country and had the opportunity to use all kinds of amazing vintage tube ****yzers and test equipment that gave very thorough and extremely accurate results. Just amazing the kind of technology that once existed, which is almost completely obsolete these days. The metallurgy and chemistry knowledge that is required to create the finest audio tubes in history is absolutely mind-blowing and is not around any longer. I once discovered notes that listed all the chemicals required to make tubes....pages of the scariest stuff, which would be impossible to utilize in a western manufacturing plant today. Vintage vacuum audio tubes are a religion to countless audiophiles around the world and luckily there are still countless thousands of them stored in pristine condition. Amazing what man used to be able to create with relatively low-tech means ! Nothing like this can or will ever be recreated on the same level...
These are setting in a family garage doing nothing, he used to build his own radios had a **** load of tubes and electronic qizmoes out there.
That, my friend, was eloquent as hell. It rings true, and lays out what I cannot articulate myself. It touched me. No ****. ~Jason
Ah but it is not gone, Just disguised. With a 6SN7 tube and a little work , an old capacitor and a coil form , cardboard or otherwise these old radios can be recreated. I run mine on ten 9 volt transistor batteries snapped together and a six volt motorcycle battery for the filiments. WIth a short length of wire and an old set of earphones stations from all around the world come in complete with the squeal and fade we know and love . Modern radios compensate for that with AVC ANL etc etc. Tried a photo inthe storage roomright now but not good as you can see. In the third photo the homebrew 1 tuber is on the top right in the corner. underneath is the Marconi Radiola III-A and the one with the external threecoils is the 1918 Stark 1 tube rgen. oldest tube radio i have ever seen. It works just fine even now. Don
Great Topic, This is an interesting sideline to our love/hate relationship with 'cars' in my humble opinion, as we all grew up with radios as a fair impressionable and fairly memorable -unforgettable- part of the lore of our old clunkers.... ..If we were lucky, our regular cruisers, for the most part had tube radios with decent reception (well pre 60's anyway). At night the signals from 'Across the border' drifted in and out and you and your girl just got used to the intermittent fading and sporadic static and accepted it as part of cruzin around on a nice summer night..... While At home, I always loved the warmth and glow of the tubes especially on those cold nights when the wind blew. Many times the cold winds seemed to blow the signals in stronger (as a side effect)... here are some quick pics from the darkest corners of my moldy oldy garage A lot of these radios are set aside now but I can't tell you how many hours i spent with my ear glued to some of those speakers hearing all about the storms in Buffalo or the wars in Vietnam.. (sorry for the low quality shots, -very cheap camera and poor lighting) '36 Rodgers Majestic with a curved dial gl*** and dial pointer. 7 different types of inlaid hardwoods made up the cabinet. I listened to WLS and Wind in Chicago when conditions were good. ...1090 Wild from Boston(?) would drift on in after 2AM if conditions were right. Eaton's Viking HiFi had a good tube amplifier secton and could really crank the tunes out. A 27ish Rogers Majestic. These were pretty expensive and highly treasured by the people who could afford them in the day. This one sold for about $275 in the 20's which was a whole Lot of money. notice the 6 sided cabinet (6 legs) Based on a 20's Westinghouse Cathedral Radio. (This is just a nice all wood cabinet repro and it sounds good too) I remember listening to 1410 CFUN all night long on this Bakelite Cabinet model Philips table top. It's surprising how well these old girls pulled in the distant signals at night. A Marconi 'Recordio' This one was owned by the local radio station in the 40's to make on sight 'Live' commercials. The Marconi Recordio in the 40's was a fair expensive piece of studio gear, one of it's unique features was that it could cut records on demand/on sight from a mic or even record the radio or an auxiliary signal. It recorded to a 78 rpm record much like we burn cdr's today. back when RCA wanted to sell Batteries with that new radio (1920's) An Hammerlund HQ100, what a work horse and a pleasure to listen to and operate. Bathroom listening pleasure. Hallicrafters S-53A I bought second hand in the 60's. My very first ever Battery operated Tube radio was an RCA which has a space age theme. The dial cover is also the on/off switch and as seem here, it is in the 'turned off' position and kinda looks like the Jetson's maid/Robot (space age design).. RCA 26 -I think- sitting on it's ear to conserve floor space. A****er Kent 1920's horn/speaker would have been a great mate to the above RCA 26 receiver. .
. Other not really radio stuff Dad used this Stromberg Carlson tube amp for microphone and guitar in the early 50's This heavily heat sinked (64 pound) amplifier kicked everythings **** bar none. My old Victrola makes Johnny Cash 78's sound almost acceptable A few Misc. Clocks and cameras You gotta love the lure of a distant station late at night with nothing but the the glow of an old tube radio to keep you warm when it's -40 and the wind is howling... .
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