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That is pretty cool.Can anything be done about the noise of the governor? I know, would be a small improvement,

Spectacular views!

Very good 👍👍 hello from Ukraine .

That looks like an epic trek and that 'roo at 4:08 looked like he was waiting for a handout.

Great view, how high is it?

Thank you for posting, breathtaking views.

Did you have to replace grid leak resistor?

I think I bought a Xtal Radio set that looked just like this one but it didn't use a perikon detector. I believe it probably use a Ge diode hidden inside a wooden tube. Then I foolisly sold it back to them a tear later

TJ Fullmusic seems to be the best reproducer of these old tubes. TJ 300B sounds even better than Western Electric, of some reason.

Thank you Mark for doing the video on this radio. I especially like seeing you tune it, the internal workings, and the differences between the tube types. Before watching your video, I pulled the schematic, figured out how it worked, and determined what components the front panel knobs were connected to. The only thing I could not figure out is, what do those thumb wheels below the variometers connect to? From pictures, they seem to be part of the variometer assembly. I had no idea this was a one tube receiver. Alfred Grebe was quite advanced in his designs for that time period. His antenna input circuit resonates antenna capacitance to improve receiver gain. The variometers are used in place of tuning capacitors, found in later receivers. In this circuit, they are actually resonating the tube grid and plate capacitance to accomplish the tuning. However, due to the relatively high grid-to-plate capacitance (Miller's Effect), the circuit is guaranteed to oscillate when both the grid and plate are tuned to the same frequency. That's why you must detune the plate to stop the circuit from oscillating. Regenerative receivers are always radiating the signal they are tuned to. Obviously, more signal is being radiated the closer you get to the oscillation point. This is why they act like they have a BFO (Beat Frequency Oscillator) when receiving CW and SSB. Operating this radio in the early 1920's must have been instantly addictive.

Thanks Mark for all the 1920's tube history; great info!

Wow, A Radiola III with the original WD-11 tubes! I assume you are running a reduced filament voltage to minimize wear on those valuable tubes? I saw a Radiola III in an electronic surplus store that was in good condition a year ago, I was very tempted to buy it. I then remembered that I have a Grebe Synchrophase (1926 model) I need to work on. One of the holdups is, I need to design 7 isolated regulated power supplies to run it and, I haven't found that much free time. Thanks Mark for doing the video on this popular regenerative receiver from 1924 - 1925! 73, de AC8AQ.

Great video…..

Thanks for showing your collection of 1920's radios and speakers, which are extremely crude by today's standards but, highly a desired piece of technology in their day. I especially like the non-synchronized (2 or 3 tuning knob) tuned radios, where you had to keep a pad of paper by the radio to record the tuning knob settings for each radio station. The earliest radios would drive sensitive headphones only, because they had no amplification devices. When tube circuits (amplification devices) were later used, much more audio output power was available but, not enough to drive a modern speaker. I suspect the first horn speaker came about when someone placed a Victrola horn in front of a headphone, which is essentially what a horn speaker is. This opened up a whole new world, as more than one person at a time could listen to the radio. Horn speakers were refined over the years but, all had the same problem: Audio amplification is being accomplished acoustically, which causes a narrow frequency response. Horn speakers were barely adequate for voice but, poor for reproducing music. These early speakers were connected directly to the audio output circuit, between the plate of the tube and 90 volt battery (the power source used in the pre-1926 radios). There was no audio output transformer used at that time. Due to the DC bias on the voice coil, the magnet to diaphragm spacing took this bias caused offset into account, thus, the speaker had to be connected to radio in the correct polarity. Paper cone speakers were a vast improvement in sound quality over horn speakers but, needed more audio output power to drive them. Radio designers noticed this and redesigned the audio circuitry to increase output power starting in the latter 1920's. Paper cone speakers quickly obsoleted horn speakers. In the late 1930's, paper cone speakers were increasingly being refined, as well as the radio cabinet to further improve sound quality. The console radios used a 10 to 12 inch speaker and actuality can be considered "High Fidelity", even by today's standards.

Hopefully you don't get in music copyright issues ;-) should be a joke - hopefully..., because by the silliness of copyright, special with music there is nothing impossible...

I built a heathkit regenerative shortwave radio that I still have and it still works great, this was in the 1960s

Absolutely terrific! Thanks for posting!

Excellent quality video.

Would love to have 2 WD11s for my radiola 111 . Great little radios .

Those tubes are valuable these days!!

I love how these early radios look insane.

cool

Interessante

This is so fascinating, thank you for uploading!

Great video. A small correction: The WD-11 was designed by Westinghouse, not Western Electric. The tube was generally a poor performer with a very high failure rate. A real POS that Western Electric would have never allowed to hit the market with the poor reliability that this tube suffered. Shortly after the WD11 was introduced, GE introduced the UV199 and UX199. These used 3.3V for the filaments. 3 "A" batteries were needed, as opposed to the 1 A battery needed for the WD11, but these tubes performed much better than the WD11. So much so, that RCA, who marked both the Westinghouse and GE receiver and tube lines, wrote a service document on replacing WD11s with UV199s using an adaptor made by a third party. The 864 (JAN VT-24) was introduced during WWII for rough duty service. The Author is very correct in stating that it makes an excellent replacement for the WD-11. Unfortunately, many vintage radio collectors are folks are between 60 and 90 years old and we are passing away. The younger generation needs to step up to preserve this hobby which, for us "boomers", started when we were kids. How many of us built 1 tube regenerative receivers using the technology of the Westinghouse Aeriola (one of the first radios sold to the public) for a Boy Scout Merit Badge? Fortunately, prices for these collectible radios and tubes are dropping as the estates of deceased collectors are sold on auction sites such as eBay. So join the hobby and enjoy a piece of century old technology that still works. Imagine the earth-shaking news events that were received by the person who first owned it and say a prayer for their souls.

Always wondered if very early broadcast STEREO SOUND might have been possible, using the same principle used with visual stereography, which stereosonic equivalent would have been essentially persistence of hearing: first one side heard then the other and so-on but switched very fast. If actually feasible aurally*, such well might have been effected 'back-in-the' day technically. *likely not.

Q.R.S. Redtop Tubes were going to be used with the Q.R.S. DiscTeleVisioN, but regrettably it never got off the ground.

Very useful... Thanks

Love your video. I learned that there was a transition from UV200 to the 01A's. However I think you mean "thoriated" with the chemical thorium. The side pin was needed to have the tube in the correct position in socket. Those 01A's also have bigger pins on the filament part of the tube. They could be installed correctly by either that side pin in a socket or in a base that matches the correct pin sizes.

I would liked to have watched you tune the radio, both with the variometer and finding a sensitive spot on the crystal. I have always wondered just how tricky it was to tune the old radios.

This is awesome, electronics knowledge and history is fascinating. These speakers are gorgeous! For those interested, these are high impedance speakers, and here's a bit more info into what that means. Impedance does not apply to DC voltage. Impedance is a concept used in AC (alternating current) circuits and is a measure of the opposition to the flow of AC current. It combines both resistance (which opposes the flow of current in both AC and DC circuits) and reactance (which opposes the flow of AC current specifically due to inductance and capacitance). A 1920's horn speaker typically requires a higher voltage to operate effectively. Impedance is essentially the opposition that a circuit presents to the flow of alternating current (AC), and a higher impedance means that less current will flow for a given voltage. To produce the same amount of power (which is a function of both current and voltage), a higher impedance speaker needs a higher voltage to compensate for the lower current. This relationship is described by Ohm's Law (V = I * R) and the power formula (P = V^2 / R), where V is voltage, I is current, R is impedance, and P is power. To produce the same power (1 watt) in an old RCA 1920s horn speaker with an assumed 4,000-ohm impedance, you would need approximately 63.25 volts, compared to the 2.83 volts needed for a modern 95 dB 8-ohm speaker.

Cool Nice 🙂💯

How does this work? Can an entire transformer be replaced with a couple of resistors and caps?

Thanks for the visual presentation of the horn-loudspeaker models made in the USA. I am a humble radio lover. There are old radio tube magazines, but when I tried to imagine how to make SUCH a CURVED DIFFUSER for my regenerative receiver, I was puzzled))). Damn, - "forbidden technologies of the ancient Americans")))) 73.

Any idea why transformer coupling was used in the first place? Were early tubes so expensive, or low gain, or both that it made sense to use an expensive transformer between stages instead of much smaller, cheaper, lighter resistors and capacitors?

How many (ball park) turns are there on this kind of transformer? Is rewinding that onerous?

Thank you for this video. Great information! I have rewound several transformers but it is not my cup of tea.

Interesting. Looks like they designed a lot of these speakers to work with a wide variety of radios/amps.

Turn on Alan Freed.....

Thanks for this video! What impedance are the antique speakers you're using?

Do you still have this? I have one in excellent condition, but I've never tried to power it up. Haven't been able to find much technical info online. I assume it needs high-Z phones or an external amplifier. What power supply voltages are you using?

Dont drive high!

Very cool. Def an improvement in audio over the horn speaker. How much power is driving that speaker with the AF output push pull tube setup?

I'm an old analog guy I'll tell you one thing vacuum tubes are much more forgiving than solid state

1074 years old and I have a lot of these tubes and actually I had several of these working radios that had tubes like that in them and I had my roof of my house redone and some decking was taken off of the house it's quite large house a lot of these radio for stolen by the roofers and I had no idea this even happened until about six to eight months later I went up in the attic of the house to look around and I said oh where's all my radios I called the police department basically you can't do anything but I still have a lot of tubes but the radio these tubes went in are gone somebody's got them out there they were restored that's what I used to do anyway yeah I still think about it when I came across that I got to thinking about it even more

I think its so cool that a simple regen rcvr can demod SSB by adjusting just before oscillation ( or just past osc?)

I hear CQ and then 2 but cannot catch the entire station call. I am very out of practice with CW. Nice Grebe radio. I wonder if that radio was designed for amateur users as well as general broadcast band listeners. Very nice radios. Did your Atwater Kent horn have the phenolic driver cap verses the pot metal driver? I have a Radiola RC (Westinhouse RA-DA) I should see if I can tune up to 160 on it. I believe that was a popular receiver for early 1920s amateur radio enthusiasts.

Great video.

Some of those old Grebe receivers were hard to beat!

Error in spelling will cause browsers to miss your web page. Change "Edison standard pho-ograph" to "Edison standard phonograph". My phonograph is an Edison Amberola model 30. It belonged to My Grandfather and a picture of him sitting at the table with a watch in hand to adjust the speed correctly. Then it was handed down to my Father. On many occasions when we had family and friends visit, He would proudly give demonstrations. One of the problems He had was the records would skip or repeat a track, and I figured out the problem when it became mine. When ad was working, I decided how it worked and almost got in trouble for tearing it apart. I had problems getting the Spring in place but fixed it just as Dad came Home from work. Whew! The problem was the collar holding the cylinder was too loose, so I moved it a little closer so it wasn't binding.😲