Yes we should have moved the radio discussion to the antiques Emporium as the details won't interest others so much but oh well, if we find it moved , no issue. I keep meaning to take some pictures of some of the radios in my collection. and can start a new thread in the appropriate place. Many , mostly the project cases reside in boxes but I have enough out to give others a glimpse and I think most here are interested in antiques of other sorts as well as houses.
I find that to myself and many others , the real interest is in the restoration and then after a time even though the radios are restored and able to be used daily they get shuffled aside. AM radio gets hard to listen to for long periods as there are a lot that are talk radio and such. When I had a bigger antenna I was amazed how much I can get on am and even shortwave. lots have gone to rebroadcasting from their I Phones or computer and through one of these
http://www.sstran.com/pages/AMT3000/overview.htmlI bought up a few 45's and a few more rare tubes that I need for restorations like eye tubes and 01A tubes even some of the older 1 volt tubes used in early radios like the WD11 They are becoming harder to get. along the way I have aquired a few 6L6 and other output tubes not often used in radio and some used in communications equipment, and of course a lot of TV tubes which are useless. I have some pretty rare tubes that aren't much use other than a historical display. Rogers made their own spray shield tubes and I got on to a nice collection of those. it's hard to organize them all and they don't display well but it ocurred to me that it might be wise to latch on to some of the ones that would become difficult to get and prevent my restorations.
at one point I decided I wanted an Atwater Kent breadboard and I just saw lots on Ebay but never wanted to drop upwards of a thousand bucks on one so I began buying parts with the intention of building my own breadboard. I aquired almost every part but there is one part I can't seem to find one part, the 2 tube island on the far right.. anyway sometimes collecting all the bits is fun and here is what the 12C will lok like when complete
http://www.nixie.dk/~jthomas/4910.htmlone of the ones that I have and just want to get into is a grunow teledial 12 , it is quite a big radio with 12 tubes and often people refer to it as a shirley temple radio because of this ad
https://www.flickr.com/photos/22283683@N07/4250722639/other personal favorites are the D25 crosley.. this one was manufactured in pretty high numbers so some others might recognize it. it was a refrigerator radio or a bedside radio and came fitted with a plug so it will turn on a lamp or whatever you plug in. it seems reminiscent of a car dashboard of the era
http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~srs/Antiques ... hp?pid=370westinghouse columair radios always caught my eye. these are from about 1929 and look like a grandfather clock. the speaker faces upward from the top. the clock has a synchronous motor and to start it you have to plug it in then open the face and there is a little lever that gives it a push to get it started. they didn't want ot pay the patent rights for the self starting motor. I restored one WD12 and I have a couple of WD10's that are a bit rough but restorable. I love seeing radios that are also clocks and there weren't many made at that era. so one of the first clock radios.
the one shown also has the optional "remote control" which was actually wired to the radio but enabled the listener to tune it without getting up from their chair.
http://www.radioatticarchives.com/image ... Potter.jpgI have one like this , a philco chairside radio. It doesn't have a remote control , instead the radio is built into a table. a few manufacturers including zenith made chairside radios.
http://www.johnjeanantiqueradio.com/philcochairside.htmIt's just fun to collect them. Most of my examples are ones that I obtained without spending more than 100 or so as Im not a rich collector. One of the great things is it really isn't alll that expensive to get into restoring them I have had as much fun restoring some typical table radios that were in horrible shape and it is fun to see some of these old barn relics turn back into something beautiful.