1942 Truetone table set

[Conelrad]

This set was bought by a good client of mine's Mother new in '42.

It had seen a lot of use in her home, and a repair shop at least once in it's 80 some-odd years. Even dropped once and repaired at some time.

I spied it at his home in Flagstaff, and asked if it worked. He said no, so I got him to agree on my getting it going again.

A bunch of caps, some resistors, a couple tubes, and it was working fine. I swapped the 35Z5 for a 45Z5, as that is a easy fix for our higher line voltage today. I deleted the preset mechanism & buttons, as they were frozen solid and unusable. Reproducing the dial scale on our color copier came out OK, as it was beyond hope with wrinkles. Then hours of interfacing a Bluetooth receiver, a 12V PSU, and an audio transformer to isolate the different voltages now into it. Done since there really isn't much on AM in Flag worth listening to.

Now it sounds great on BT, and the AM side is good, if it's in a place without lots of RF noisemakers.

I'll be giving it back to him in June, when we meet up in Tucson at KUAT AM FM TV for a new studio tour.

I always feel good when bringing one back from the grave. Now to move on a 1938 Hammarlund HQ-120, a really great RX of the day in beautiful condition. Then that pesky Stromberg tuner...

[TC Chris]

So I see 6 tubes--maybe an untuned RF amp? And Fahnestock clips so you can remove the coil antenna for servicing, instead of letting it dangle until the wires break at the solder joints....

Chris Campbell

[Conelrad]

Yep, untuned first RF stage.

Originally, the loop was separate from the chassis, and all the wires were broken or shredded because the cardboard corners failed and it just hung there. It was a good electronic design, with mechanical failures due to age and cardboard usage. Course, they never thought it would live over 80 years: It now plays better than most table sets of the early-war era.

Backed with a piece of heavy fiberboard, and screwed it to the chassis with spacers the loop is stable, without having to worry about that any more. The BT/AM switch is on the back, with a gob of connections as well. BT tech is so much easier to implement than a flea-power TX to play things thru old sets with a cellphone, as it can travel anywhere.

I wish I could get the pix to show right-side-up, but there is some kind of orientation lottery going on everywhere I post them.

D

[William]

Nice job, Dennis. So this must have been produced during the war. Interesting that they would be allowed to produce home radios and not swapped over for the war.

Bill

[TC Chris]

The two WW II era radios I have are both "no brand" models. One is a table top AA5 with octals. My Dad had owned it at some point at or around the war but my the time I was 10 or so I was trying to take it apart to see how it worked. It sits in the storage unit, IFT caps twiddled with, tubes scavenged, speaker needing a cone. It would be interesting to restore since the basic parts are there.

The other is a tabletop radio/record player (78 rpm changer) with an AA% chassis. The cabinet melted when a boiler feed regulator soaked it all night. The changer had some pot metal components that have disintegrated. I've got the original operating manual that has n manufacturer's ID whatsoever.

There must have been some regulation governing sale of such devices anonymously during the war so no company got a post-war advantage by having its label seen during the war.

Chris Campbell

[electra225]

Is that a Wells-Gardner chassis? If it is, there might be radios like it with different brands on them. Airline, Coronado, Firestone maybe?

[Conelrad]

I've no idea who actually made it. Could be WG...

D

[electra225]

I can always tell if it's a WG by the way the tube diagram is drawn on the back cover. The font is unique....

[Conelrad]

If there was a tube diagram on it somewheres, it was lost in the frey previously. I used Riders data for the job.

D

[Motorola minion]

Sorry I'm late to the party ; https://radioatticarchives.com/radio.htm?radio=11820 and https://radioatticarchives.com/radio.htm?radio=12670 are birds of a feather. Schematic is https://www.nostalgiaair.org/pdfs/Weste ... -D2615.pdf, z

Sharp eyes noticed a lack of 3-gang tuned RF stage, but this is a better than average receiver This radio was made by Belmont for W-A and I had one once! The restoration you did was absolutely brilliant as those in the UK would say. The isolated BT input is a very important step.

I am so sorry that AM is non-existent or cancelled by noise for so many who would otherwise want to make this radio a functional showpiece.

Mine easily traded for 2-3 other table sets, even 30+ years ago someone wanted it pretty bad . I got it when I was 11 from a local RCA/Whirlpool repairman, it worked as given so later I recapped it again . It never had a back cover or tube chart. The tuner always crackled as it was manually rotated, so buttons were set to the local stations and that fixed that!