Antique Radio & TV Shop
Antique Radio & TV Shop
Some of My Radio Restoration Projects
1937 Philips Radio
Here is my grandfather's radio after restoration. I'm sorry I did
not take a "before" pictures. The history of this radio is in
about-us link. This radio's cabinet was broken
to pieces. It took me one week to repair the cabinet, glue it together and
polish it, with no cracks visible, in like new condition. Very few parts were
needed to restore it electrically; one tube UCH 11 was replaced, one
filter capacitor and a few paper capacitors changed, pilot light (neon) and
controls and switches cleaned. IF transformers and RF capacitor were
re-tuned to maximum performance.
Here is how this 1934 Roger Majestic cabinet looked when I got it. Painted with several coats of white oil paint: cabinet, knobs, grill, the whole thing. It was given to a new bride by her husband in 1934 and later painted white to match bedroom. When she died 65 years later, her now 85 year old husband remarried and sold this "painted beauty" for $25.00 as is.
One week later the cabinet was stripped, washed and painted in original antique walnut color, all paper and electrolytic capacitors replaced and the radio was aligned. This only 5- tube AM radio can pull the stations from 100 miles away with no difficulties, which my latest solid state receiver cannot do! It is using 6A7 tube in RF and oscillator stage, 88S in 1st IF, 6B7s as 2nd IF and detector, #41 is an output tube and # 80 is used as rectifier.
1947 GMC Car Radio
This car radio was in sad shape. Chassis rusted, missing parts and somebody tried to repair it. To make it more complicated, the owner of this radio was rewiring his car to 12 Volts.
So I started with cleaning the chassis, replacing all leaky paper capacitors which were disintegrating, and leaky filter capacitors were replaced (new ones mounted on small terminal strip). Signal filter choke was made by winding 120 turns of solid 18 gauge copper wire on a ferrite core. All the tubes had to be replaced for new 12 volt filament voltage ones, new solid state vibrator installed and vibrator transformer replaced for 12 volt battery input.
All controls and switches were cleaned and lubricated.
Corroded antenna jack was replaced and finally signal IF and RF alignment
made. This retuned the radio to maximum signal sensitivity and
selectivity. Radio was tested for 1 day, just to make sure there is no
over-heating or any other problem. It is now working for a year with a happy owner in the sunny state of Florida.
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