Ancient radio

>>1042998
clean it up and look for damage, replace dead parts etc, et voila.

>>1043020
Also power it up carefully instead of just plugging it in.

>>1043026

I already did, I get no filaments and the power transformer just buzzes loudly I suspect a short so only had it powered on for a few seconds

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>>1042998
might be a short. I have a tube radio from 1955s luckily it had no issues

>>1042998
replace the capacitors, test for continuity through the resistors and transformers, make sure there aren't any burnt bits or loose ends. then power it up through a dim-bulb tester.

google for "all-american five" radio and you'll get tons of info

Hey I have one of these that I was asked to fix! Only came up in conversation today! I'll open her up tomorrow and see if I can join you fellas on this project

>>1043054
>I have a tube radio from 1955
five tube special and clock radio

>>1042998
>be me
>talk to guy giving away his granddad's old radio on CL
>says its busted, powers on but no sound
>get it home plug it in turn it on
>sure enough no sound
>leave it on for a bit as I try to tune in a station
>then I hear something, very quiet
>gets louder and louder
>it was a super old tube radio and it takes 30 seconds to warm up
>eventually hooked it up to an old TV antenna on the roof
>it can get stations from Europe

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Here's my contribution

>>1043076
Awesome.

>>1043054
Plastic case and PCB construction? That's bit unusual for tube radios.

>>1043076
where I'm from country folk would build up radios before there was tv usually in a cigar box and build 3m long antennas, they would pick every signal no matter how far they were from a town

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>>1043268
>>1043058
Well it glows at all five tubes, so that's a start. But no sound save a bit of crackling.

I've fuck all knowledge of electrics at 230v so I'm gonna wait till I get a book before I start fucking around. I assume some of these capacitors could easily send me sprawling

for ancient pre-transistor equipment like this, the safe way that you power it up is you use a rheostat or a variac to gradually apply higher wall power in several steps. The reason you do this is to look and listen for problems before they ruin other connected components.

>>1043049
>I already did, I get no filaments and the power transformer just buzzes loudly I suspect a short so only had it powered on for a few seconds

Then you need to do these things:
1. you need a schematic of the circuit
2. you disconnect the transformer's output wires
3. you apply a low-voltage AC signal to the plug wire, and measure what each winding of the transformer outputs.

Transformers (especially old ones) can fail because the winding sealant (the solidified lacquer coating it is soaked with) comes loose, and one or more turns of wire inside the windings vibrates until it wears off the insulation and develops a shorted turn.
When this happens the transformer gets a LOT hotter than normal, and can't put out the full voltage it is supposed to.

If the transformer is bad and you can't find a new one, you can re-wind the old one. But you gotta vacuum-impregnate it with sealant (formvar or clear enamel paint) to prevent the vibrating wires/shorted turn issues.
It is not good to vacuum-seal vintage transformers with epoxy, since it is not easy to dissolve. If you make a mistake with the windings, you can dissolve formvar or enamel paint off much easier with toluene/xylene/acetone.

>>1043334

Yeah....caps are no joke. They're easy to bleed though, just look up how to deal with them before digging in

>>1043358
>the safe way that you power it up is you use a rheostat or a variac to gradually apply higher wall power in several steps.

This also gives the capacitors a chance to 'reform'.

Have fun dying on the live chassis of your all-american 5 OP

>>1043590
It has a mains transformer, like eurofag receivers usually do. The chassis is not electrified. Sure, there are still high voltages present.

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I know next to nothing about radios but thought someone here could help me identify this one that's been in my house for quite some time.
The only identification on the front is the Victor logo. I've been searching the net to find a radio exactly like it and haven't been successful.
In the position it's in I can only move it enough to see that the guts are in it though they're dusty.
Don't know if it works for sure though.

I've always loved it, even though the cabinet is pretty scuffed up. My cat thinks it's pretty nice too, under it is his favourite sleeping spot.

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>>1043646
Here's a closer look at the controls. You can just barely see the tuning indicator. It does still light up supposedly.

>>1043646
>>1043647
Jesus man, I don't know the exact model nor can I really help you in terms of repair/refurb but that is an absolute gem. If you could get that appliance to sing again you might just quickly hear FDR delivering one of his fireside chats from the 1930s. That radio is 100% so worth saving. Don't junk it, and don't let it become dilapidated on your watch!

>>1043649
Yeah I'm going to be moving soon, I'd love to have it working and prominently displayed in the living room. Right now it's in a corner surrounded by other stuff like that lamp with the ashtray and the tall floor lamp you can just see the base of in the bottom left.

>>1043276
The last of them were like that.

>>1043649
>Don't junk it

I have a case like that which someone turned into a cupboard.
>Just!

>>1042998
Valves are probably dead desu

>>1043076
>it can get stations from Europe
>old TV antenna

What band are you listening to exactly?

>>1044739
>What band are you listening to exactly?
It says 'Short waves' and is measured in 'Megacycles'. The top band ends in 18.20 megacycles and the bottom band ends in 6.00 megacycles. It has a bunch of city names on the dial. I've picked up German and French plus a few other languages I don't recognize. It only works during certain times of the day, though. There are 5 shortwave bands and a 'Standard Broadcast' band. That band is FM and AM combined. It is 150 to 55 kilocycles.

>>1044768
Didn't know they used to refer to hertz as cycles, I suppose that's what it is.
>It only works during certain times of the day, though
Yeah different bands work better at different times with shortwave. A rule of thumb is lower frequency bands like 6mhz are better at night, and the higher ones are better in the day.

>and a 'Standard Broadcast' band. That band is FM and AM combined. It is 150 to 55 kilocycles.

150-550khz is longwave, which would be in AM.

FM broadcasting band in the UK at least is 87-108mhz or w/e. Maybe the radio is old enough that longwave was the standard back then, I'm not sure.

Any chance you could take a picture of the radio? It's interesting.

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I messed around with a wall radio/intercom for a little while. I took an ohm meter and continuity meter to all the components and everything seemed fine. I plugged it in and let it warm up and everything worked fine but every time I tried to change the volume the half wave rectifier tube in pic would blow the heater element. I went through 3 tubes before I gave up. Any ideas why that would happen? I couldn't find a wiring diagram for it either so I was really shooting in the dark.

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>>1044794
I was going to get it cleaned up and use it but since I couldn't get it to work it's just sitting on a shelf. Pic is front of the radio

>>1044795
replace the pilot light, some of those rectifiers relied on a pilot light. If the pilot light was dead the rectifier would blow.

>>1044778
No pictures. It has a data plate on the back that says it was made by Rogers - Majestic Corporation Limited for De Forest Crosley Limited. I also know it was purchased before WWII. That is about it. There is no model anywhere on the outside that I can see but the cabinet is kinda rough so maybe it fell off.

>>1044778
>they used to refer to hertz as cycles
Hertz refers to 'cycles per second'.
It sounds obvious to you but it had do be explained fully when the change occurred.
A cycle (wave cycle) can be over any period of time.
A Hertz is one cycle in one second.
I remember when it changed.

>>1044778
This was one of the more recent names given to units. Plenty of old equipment out there labeled in cycles rather than hertz.

>>1043049
All the capacitors in it are 60 years beyond heir expected lifespans, including the ones that filter the ripple out of the power supply. That's why you're getting buzzing all over the place when you power it on.
The solution is to replace EVERY SINGLE electrolytic capacitor in the thing. That'll get you 80% of the way there. After that, you'll need to work on cleaning up the solder joints, reconing any speakers that have fried/dry rotted/ etc, and replacing any other things like tubes that may be bad (only replace them if they don't work-tubes are now pretty rare and expensive, but were pretty durable and built to last).

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It was a motorola at the end of the tube era

>>1044768
Sounds like it's from the early 1940s.
When FM was first introduced in late 1940 it was on a much lower frequency band before the government changed its mind and kicked it up into its current, much higher frequency band in mid-1945. They estimated that approximately 500,000 FM sets were made obsolete by the change at the time, yours is probably one of those very early FMs. Makes it a neat conversation piece, though not that useful anymore if it wasn't converted to run at the higher band.

>>1043076
>collect old radios
>occasionally find them at thrift stores
>I can think of at least 4 times where someone (usually a flipper) at the store plugs one in and says it's broken and trash
>all have worked fine, just needed to warm up

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>>1044768
>It is 150 to 55 kilocycles
>55 to 150
they dropped a zero 550 to 1500 kilocycles

much like pic related from >>1044795

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>>1045070
>they dropped a zero

It was common practice to do this.

The CD (Civil Defense) triangle on this radio marks 640 on the dial.

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another shot of the 1940s radio

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>>1044930
I will have to try that, I never really thought about the bulb, now I just have to find one for it. It's a very small bulb. I assume your talking about the one in pic

>>1045540
He's talking about the lamp which is connected to the rectifier tube in a weird way, in parallel with a part of its filament.

>>1045694
>>1045540

That's definitely it then, it gets power directly from the heater grid pins in the tube

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>>1042998
See if you can determine the model and find a schematic. I don't know radios very well, but I repair tube guitar amps. You want to check your power supply section first. Nothing else will work properly if it's fucked up. It either has a power transformer or it runs off rectified wall voltage (prepare to be electrocuted because they typically arent isolated). I'm not seeing anything that looks like a power trans, so that may be the case. Pic related is an old Zenith I have. The power trans is in the bottom right corner.
>identify model
>find schematic
>post here
Don't fuck with it until you know what it is. You could give it a cleaning with some compressed air and then hit the tube sockets and pots with some electronics lube/cleaner as well

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>>1045834
>bottom right
>pic gets rotated
Damnit

Heres the front

>>1043334
Turn it off and really twist the heck out of the dials, might have some issues there.

Won't replace a proper cleaning but it might get things moving again.

>>1043646
It's an RCA dating back to the pre-war era. It could have been fitted with a number of different 'guts' so hard to say at this time.

The Radio Museum site's a good reference.

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>>1043646
>>1046081
>>1043649
So this is a RCA/Victor R-109 according to all the identifiers in the cabinet, which I was able to get to taking pictures of today. From the very little information I can find about the model, it's from 1932. I think this model was only in Canada.

It's dusty as fuck and there were cobwebs everywhere.
There are many things I really love about this radio.
The sticker from the "Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario" which no longer exists is neat, even though I'm not in Ontario.
Several of the wires are looking pretty sketchy though.

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>>1047038
Here's the neat little metal plate at the bottom of the cabinet with the model, watts/volts, and another "approved by the HEPC" message.
Also the proud marking of "Made in Canada", good luck ever finding that on anything modern.

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This area is possibly my favourite of the insides.
Victor Radio R-109.
Serial number is 667, the neighbour of the beast. Awesome.
More mention of being approved by the HEPC.

The best part I think is this warning label that's partly destroyed.
I guess in those days you had to have "Private Radio Receiving Licence" to operate it (maybe similar to the TV license in Britain?), which you had to present to even buy the radio. I think it also says anybody that serviced the radio needed to see your license first.

Not having this license could mean a maximum fine of $50 Canadian in 1932 which is around $871 today. That's $664 American.

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>>1047044
And a closer look at the components was the last thing I got before my camera battery ran out.
Another great thing that makes this set very Canadian is the Robertson screws on the brackets. They were invented by Canadian P.L. Robertson (The square head previously existed but was never commercially successful until the Robertson design) and you find them everywhere here.

Supposedly Henry Ford found that these screws saved around 2 hours of production work per Model T but P.L. Robertson turned down a licensing deal feeling it wasn't in his best interest, so Ford turned to the Phillips screw instead.

>>1047038
>>1047043
>>1047044
>>1047047

breddy neet - I hope you're able to keep it as original as possible.

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>>1047068
Funny you should say that.
I showed the pics to a engineer friend who knows his electronics (dude has built robots and 3d printers, while my knowledge is limited to a few years of high school electronics) and his response was basically "Tubes are too old school for me and I don't even know anything about radios".
He suggested I gut the whole thing and put a modern radio in it.

>>1047075
>He suggested I gut the whole thing and put a modern radio in it.
because:
>"Tubes are too old school for me and I don't even know anything about radios"

It's yours, you may do as you please with it.
If it were mine, I'd make every attempt to restore it working order with as close to original parts and material as is available.

If unable to get it working again, I'd still leave it intact and 'hide' a small modern receiver in the case with the original parts.

Means could be found to have the original knobs operate the hidden receiver without destroying the old.

As it is, it's a historic treasure.

Gutted and insides replaced with modern stuff, it's a piece of plastic inside a nice cabinet.