My Radio Gallery

Admiral Prototype 154
The Admiral 154 is a prototype that I found at a garage sale. I paid a dollar for it. There wasn't a model number on it anywhere. There were three resistors that were bad plus I replaced all of the paper capacitors. It sounds pretty good for its size.

Airline 84HA-1528
Airline 84HA-1528 has interesting swirls on the dial face which reminds me of a clam shell. When I bought it, it did not have any tubes in the chassis. I replaced all of the paper capacitors and mica capacitors and had to repair the IF can. The radio plays excellent and is one of my favorite radios.

Arvin 851T
This Arvin-851T was another find at an antique shop. I gave $12 for it which I thought was a little too much to pay. I replaced two tubes and the power supply electrolytic capacitors. Plays very nice.

Atwater Kent 55C
This Atwater Kent 55C radio came from Oklahoma. My dad got it from a friend that he worked with. Anyway, my dad sent it to me and it arrived undamaged which I thought was amazing because the radio was literally coming apart at the seams as well as the ripwood separating. I pulled the chassis out of the main cabinet and removed the 16 in. speaker before I started a total restoration on the radio cabinet. As you can see by the close-up photo, it turned out very well. I was amazed at the condition of the chassis after I got the bottom cover removed and looked inside the circuitry. Everything looked well preserved, even the large power resistors and quality condensers had their original color remaining on them. Since these parts are very hard to find I did manage to locate what I needed to get the radio up and running. It takes a long wire antenna and has a local and distant switching condenser that works great. This is also one of my favorite radios.

Catalin

Crosley 10-140

Crosley 56xTW
Crosley 56TW was found at another garage sale for two dollars. I was glad to find this radio because of its rarity. Anyway, after I got it home and opened it up, I found scorched marks under the chassis with several burned parts. This was another radio that I had to completely rewire. Now it plays beautifully and has two bands, one is broadcast and the other is shortwave 20 to 58 megacycles. It's a very nice Deco style with rounded corners and top.

Delco R-1175

Delco 1429
This was another nice find at a flea market for $10. I almost overlooked it because it was sitting in a corner with a bunch of other things on top of it. I replaced all the paper capacitors and found a shorted oscillator coil that I had to carefully repair because the wire is about the size of a human hair. Anyway, it plays great.

Emerson 503

Emerson 520

Emerson

Fada

Firestone 3071, chassis R-307
This radio chassis was completely rewired because when I received it, it was in a cardboard box. Fortunately the knobs, dial face, pointer, etc. was all there along with a good cabinet. The wood bars that fit against the speaker grill wasn't there so I had to find another radio so that I could take the measurements and make new bars exactly the same as the originals. The cabinet turned out very nice as you can see from the photo. It is a shortwave radio with a nice tuning eye and sounds excellent even shortwave bands come in loud and clear. This is another one of my favorite radios.

Firestone AirChief R3075

General Electric X1561A

General Electric 613
GE 613 is a portable radio with a very interesting dial. There are two rings with small knobs on them to adjust the volume and tuning and a chrome swivel handle. I have never seen one of these before so when I saw it in a pawn shop I just had to have it. It cost me $15 and I haven't had to do anything to it except to polish it.

General Electric 443
GE 443 is called a "Dial Beam" radio. This was another one of my two dollar garage sale finds. Once I got the radio home and on my work bench, I knew why it was two dollars! Someone that didn't know what they were doing, decided to try making a police or shortwave receiver out of it. In the process, they got disgusted with the project and the radio wound up being sold AKA basket case. It works great now after replacing, removing and switching around parts. It plays excellent and the cabinet has no damage.

General Electric Cathedral Repro.
I could not find a model number on this radio. It is a reproduction of an original I think. I found this radio at a garage sale for $10. The radio was in pretty sad condition for a reproduction. It must have been one of the first reproductions. I refinished the cabinet and replaced two capacitors and installed a new AC cord. It receives both AM/FM.

Gilbert 752

Grundig 5060

Grundig type-97-WE-11
Grundig type-97-WE-11 was given to me by a friend. This radio was very difficult for me to repair because I couldn't find a part's list or a schematic. I must have spent two weeks trying to figure out the circuitry. Now it plays like it's supposed to and the shortwave bands work too.

Hoffman 3001

Majestic "Town Crier"

Majestic 131A

Majestic 5A430
Majestic 5A430 was a nice find to add to my other plastic radios. A friend down the road said that he had a radio that he wanted to give me so I stopped by and here was this nice Majestic that hadn't played since 1950 according to the original owner. He said,"Here, take this. It's in my way while I'm cleaning up the basement." I had to remove all the paper caps and power supply electrolytics and a couple of tubes. Plays very well now.

Monitor 36M1a

Montgometry Ward GEN1494A
Montgomrey Ward All Transistor shortwave that I bought new in 1973.

Motorola 5x1
This Motorola 5X1 was purchased for five dollars at a garage sale. When I opened the radio up I found that someone had taken most of the parts out so I had to completely re-wire the chassis and install two new tube sockets. It plays very well.

Packard Bell 5R1

Patterson 104-AW
This is a Patterson 104-AW Super-Heterodyne 10 tube that uses 59 Class-AAA power tubes. I found this radio at a flea market. The chassis is I believe, nickel-plated and measures 18-in. X 10-in. and uses a 10-in. Magnavox speaker which is mounted on a 19-in. piece of square sound board. This radio is all original right down to the grill cloth. After going over the cabinet with 4.0 steel wool and then applying a sealer type of varnish the cabinet, as far as I was concerned, was finished. The grill cloth was in fantastic shape so all I did was wash it by hand, let it dry and reinstall it because it looked like new. I knew the history of the radio from the previous owner at the flea market where I bought it. The radio had been in storage in a heated basement since 1957 and was never turned on by anyone, so I decided to try reforming all of the electrolytics starting at 70 volts using my variac with a 40 Watt light bulb in series with the line cord and watching closely to see if there was any smoke. I worked the voltage up ten volts at 30 minute intervals until I reached 117 volts. While I was doing the reforming of the capacitors, I was checking the vacuum tubes and decided to replace No. 56 OSC. & 82 rectifier tubes. I was amazed at how well and how strong the receiver was. I could not believe it; the radio sounded fantastic. This is a pretty rare console with ball feet, oak and rosewood veneer. I decided to move the radio into my bedroom beside my bed to keep it safe from the grand kids (knob turners). The radio remained there for five years with no problem. One day as I walked in my bedroom I couldn't believe what had happened. You can see by the photograph, one of my wife's cats somehow got into the room and decided to sharpen their claws. Enough said.

Philco 40-120

Philco 42-200

Philco 190FX

RCA 8x541
This RCA 8X541 was a complete chassis re-wire. There was so much rust that I decided to remove all the components to the bare chassis, sanding away all rust spots and re-galvanizing the chassis. I know it's a lot of work for such a small radio, but I believe that my effort will bring someone pleasure in listening to the sound of this radio.

Silvertone Bookcase

Silvertone
Silvertone, no model, but I think its a 3007 table model. Anyway, The cord was cut off the back which I replaced along with all the molded caps plus one IF can had to be rebuilt. I paid 50 cents for it at a garage sale at Bonny Lake, Washington. It plays pretty well. Its a small radio and it has the transistor tinnie sound.

Silvertone 7050

Silvertone 8020

Western Electric

Western Patrol 269

Westinghouse H336T5U
I found this radio at a Salvation Army store for $2.95. It's a great little radio. Naturally it didn't work, so I helped it along by replacing all the paper capacitors and resistors that were out of tolerance in the audio section, which caused the radio to sound like a motor boat. It plays nicely and someday it will make someone happy to own it.

Zenith

Zenith H615ZY
THis Zenith H-615-ZY Was another radio that I found at a place called Value Village, they wanted $9.95 for it, so I waited till the following Sunday to come around because they have what is called a senior discount on Sundays only. I got it for 1/2 price. It had one tube that was missing, I replaced all the paper caps and used the Nova polish to take out the oxidation on the cabinet. It turned out excellent and sounds excellent too.

Zenith H500
These are Zenith H-500 Trans-Oceanics. I found the left radio at a garage sale for $25.00, the person that I got it from said that it belonged to his parents and it did work at one time and quit working soon after he acquired it. When I got it home and opened it up, I noticed that it still had the original battery. All the connections was eaten up by the battery acid that went to the battery compartment. Everything had to be replaced back to original and it's a good thing that I had a spare H500 chassis that I could rob parts from. The radio cabinet was in excellent condition on the outside as well as the front cover and the wave magnet antenna looked almost new. All the capacitors and some other resistors had to be replaced. Everything works perfectly and sounds like a new one. It's another one of my favorites. The right one was found at an estate sale.

Zenith G725
I found this radio at an indoor flea market, I couldn't pass it up for $5.00. When I got home, I discovered that someone had already changed the capacitors and most of the resistors. So I plugged it in and waited for it to warm up, it sounded terrible so I checked all the tubes and everything was okay there. I decided to check all the capacitors to see if they were the right value. I noticed that there were a lot of soldier drippings on the chassis by the tube sockets and so forth, so I decided to investigate a little bit more and found some soldier touching some of the tube socket terminals. After removing the solder drippings and cleaned up a few things and plugged it back-in and it worked just fine and sounded just great. This shows you that sloppy work can cause problems.

Zenith G730