1933 Airline Shop Heater

[John Kogel]

Actually, it is an AM Standard Broadcast radio, but with the 10 big vacuum tubes, it generates a bit of heat, too. This was state of the art for the Depression years, and I imagine it was a major investment for an average family at that time.

Output is said to be about 16 watts. I repaired one of the 8" Utah speakers with rubber cement, restretched the grill cloth and of course replaced a bunch of deteriorated components under the chassis. One tube had a loose grid cap but I was able to solder it back on. I replaced a worn bushing on the tuning shaft.

Because this radio has no phono switch, I've come up with an innovation, a wire hairpin soldered to the edge of one of the tuning capacitor plates. This wire strikes the grounded body of the capacitor at about 490 Khz, shorting out the RF. Then I can plug in a better sound source by way of an earphone jack. Digital stereo becomes analog mono, more fun than trying to tune in a decent radio station.

I can get a couple of distant oldy stations during the day, Vancouver and Seattle, but at night, they are drowned out by cross talk and brown noise from around the globe. 6 feet of wire is all it needs for an antenna. I will have it playing Xmas music for the holidays (if it doesn't sell before then).

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[Rob Amaral]

"CHU Canada Dix heures, cinq minutes..." That's what that reminds me of..We'd listen to that 'clock' up there in Canada.. BBC, etc..

We used to dig those up around here and listen to the 'flanging' sound of shortwave... They give off very cool 'radio' odors, too..

[Nolan Kienitz]

Ah the history and mystery of old radios. I grew up listening to AM broadcast and shortwave radio in the '50s on a 1939 era Zenith radio that my parents had.

I think such times helped spur my overall interest in radio and I ended up working in commercial broadcast radio for many years (on air and ended up as an engineer for a couple stations). Got my 1st Class Radiotelephone license (now known as a GROL) as well as my amateur radio license.

Below are two images of that 1939-ish Zenith radio. I got it refinished a number of years ago when living in the Houston area.

Still works and it fascinates the grandkids with all the buttons.

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[kurt]

It's interesting that folks thought about radios as pieces of furniture more than technology.

[John Kogel]

Right, the Zenith was always a high end product. All those curves in the veneer had to cost, and in those years, they are all multiband with interesting dials and controls.

Airline was a Montgomery Ward line of radios, priced a bit lower with no gimmicks. This model I believe came out of the Wells Gardner factory in Chicago. Under the tinted lacquer finish, the wood is something like pine or ash with just a bit of fancy veneer. It's a good quality radio, but just AM, no frills. 1933 was a grim year.

One sales gimmick was to use lots of tubes. More tubes meant higher quality.

The Canadian public broadcast station is the CBC. Taxes go to keep it on the air from cities across the country. There are no commercials, but in recent years they have been rebroadcasting old boring programs as filler.

Nolan, your radio is similar to this one 10-S-464, they say 1940, but 39 is possible too. The same chassis would go into a multitude of cabinet models.

http://www.radioatticarchives.com/archive.htm?page=z3

7 pages of Zenith radios to enjoy here.

[Nolan Kienitz]

JK,

I'm going to peruse the back-side of the Zenith and see what labels I can uncover.

That is great information ...

[Rob Amaral]

That Canadian station I mentioned was an automated 'time' station .. It was a recording of a clock ticking and then it would announce the Station name and time .. in French and English.. must have been Quebecois.! I can't remember the name of the US station that did that.. What's that agency that ran it? Bureau of Standards?

The old radio I fooled around with had the local Boston area station-names on those preset-levers.. Imagine the logistics of selling those all over the US...

Make a long story very short, I can communicate 'out' in Morse code pretty good... it's the deciphering that is slow.. My brother had a ham shack in the house from the mid 1960's.. used to drive me nuts with the code while I was playing my electric guitar.. 'leakage'.. "73's OM" and all that rot.. I did enjoy foolin' around with it sometimes..

[John Kogel]

That Canadian station I mentioned was an automated 'time' station .. It was a recording of a clock ticking and then it would announce the Station name and time .. in French and English.. must have been Quebecois.! I can't remember the name of the US station that did that.. What's that agency that ran it? Bureau of Standards?

The old radio I fooled around with had the local Boston area station-names on those preset-levers.. Imagine the logistics of selling those all over the US...

Make a long story very short, I can communicate 'out' in Morse code pretty good... it's the deciphering that is slow.. My brother had a ham shack in the house from the mid 1960's.. used to drive me nuts with the code while I was playing my electric guitar.. 'leakage'.. "73's OM" and all that rot.. I did enjoy foolin' around with it sometimes..

What you heard may have been the National Research Council time signal. "The beginning of the long dash following ten seconds of silence indicates exactly x o'clock, Eastern Standard Time." We hear it at 10 AM, PST on CBC.

Maybe you were listening to public radio broadcasts of the CBC. The BBC would not have bothered with the language of their enemies, the French. []

Usually, the push buttons presets can be adjusted with a screwdriver and infinite patience. Many of them came with blank labels that could be filled in with a pencil. But I have seen pictures of radios with radio stations printed right onto the dial. Obviously aimed at the local market.

I imagine they would fill an order for a set number of radios and label them accordingly.

I have a British Bush portable radio with European station locations printed on the dial, 3 different bands.

[Rob Amaral]

http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/services/ ... _wave.html

Ah! They changed the name.. Boy, that was a long time ago.. (65')..