Bryan, That was a fascinating video. It's very surprising to me that a radio manufacturer would let a radio out of it's factory without a strain relief for their antenna input. I guess they saved a few pennies, but the risk they subjected their radio to was very large. It's nice to hear this old radio playing again. I can imagine Old McDonald and his family gathering around in the evening listening to it. Regards, Tom
It makes you think, if were into radio DX reception those farms with no AC supply must have been fantastically quiet places, its almost impossible nowadays to get anything other local stations on the broadcast band with all this switch mode supplies and digital equipment everywhere...
Very cool Silvertone "Farm" set. I never gave much thought to the production end date(s) for this era of sets until I saw your video. Thanks for sharing and the antenna lead strain relief was definitely a good idea. Don
It took a long time for electricity to reach most of rural America. In 1925 only 1 in 25 farms in the United States had electricity. Power companies were reluctant to provide power because local populations and infrastructure didn't warrant it. Installation of electricity on farms doubled from 1935 to 1939 when federal loan programs made it possible to finance it. It's hard to image what life would be like now without those wall sockets. I think it's hilarious the way some people react to power outages. We're so quick to take things for granted. Some people act like their lives have stopped when there's no electricity. All I need is my flashlight, my transistor radio, my acoustic guitar and some good books. You don't electricity to play chess or sit around singing old songs.
I had a SILVERTONE 4-Tube Superhet from the late 1940's. It had a triple-anode filter/bias condenser. With an 8 ft long aerial it could pick up a great many stations depending on the timer of day. It had no IF amplification stage! Over time it's power condenser got much worse, and the back was missing since I got it - - the case was made of cheap plastic that warped over time. I threw it out ten years ago, and now I beginning to regret that.. 1:51 My late father had one of those picnic table tube radios, but by the 1980's its plastic parts were all brittle and breaking to little pieces. It's power supply used a small selenium stack as the half-wave rectifier. 6:20 My old SILVERTONE had a tuning coil exactly like that one, with the same wonky soldered aerial wire connection
Sears must have owned the rural market during those years; they were the ones that kept selling suds-saver washing machines well into the 1970s. I'll never understand why so many sets with circular dials even had dial cords; a tuning capacitor with a concentric fine tuning shaft (or even a cog belt) couldn't have cost much compared to the labor for stringing those wretched things.
I wonder how,much they paid in the day for those big batteries,I no they made battery eliminaters ,because you told us they did,very cool piece of history I glad you saved it
Beautiful! A farm radio and WSM are made for each other. That radio seems to be picking up a LOT of stations. Isn't the soil conductivity poor down yonder way? About the "A" battery: Have you tried it with a single *alkaline* size D battery? Two batteries in parallel was never good engineering. When one dry cell got to be weaker than the other, the stronger one tried to charge the weaker one. When one failed, they corroded, and you had acid everywhere. My GE 637 works fine with a single D alkaline as the A battery. EDIT 2021: I have a Summer 1956 Sears catalog that shows farm radios. That Wizard battery was Western Auto's store brand.
Farm battery sets were on the market in Canada until 1958-59, even though transistor sets were available they cost at least twice as much as a comparable tube set of any kind. One trick I have seen some manufacturers use for a strain relief was to wrap the antenna lead around a mounting post and knot it in clove hitch fashion.
When I was a kid we lived on the old Homstead, the house was built in 1910, the year of my dad's birth by my grandfather to replace the soddy where they lived a few miles away. While power was to our yard, the house was so old and dad had no money so the house was never wired. Thus it was, I grew up with no power or running water in our house till we moved in 1961. We had a more modern looking radio but it took the same type battery pack, Dad had a rule that the radio could only be played at specific times. Mom got her soap operas, we got the kids show in the early morning to get ready for school, the hospital report was required, and in the evening we could listen to specific radio shows like the Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid and Suspense, Johnny Dollar and Dragnet. Other then that only ball games and the fights were allowed late in the evening.
Did you recap this radio,I think a battery elimanator would be the way to go to get the most use our of this radio .great repair video ,I love to watch your repairs.
Never seen this radio before, and it was a farm radio, but I don't know if farm radios do exists. It could be in rural areas if anyone who has a portable radio, and yes, portable radio is still a great one for traveling and in farms.
Wow you sure do find the interesting sets! I noticed that this particular farm radio does not appear to have a visual indicator that the set is "on"...most of these battery sets did have an indicator that the set was "on: so people didn't just turn the volume down, then forget the set was still on, and run down the batteries. BTW - that A-B pack is huge! Bet it costs a week's wages back in 1952 :-)
Nice radio, it looked great and now it sounds great! I am surprised they didn't just reuse a case design from an AC powered set, since this was probably a low production item.
How ironic that you should mention using a terminal strip for the antenna coil lead; I just did the same thing to a '38 Philco TH-3 two days ago, and for the same reason you did.
That capacitor from final anode to ground can also be returned to the B+ feed on the output transformer primary to obtain the same desirable results. And if the capacitor shorts it won't endanger the transformer primary near so much. I hate working on dial drives. But one thing I found that works well in a pinch is to paint a little FeCl3 PCB etchant solution onto the capstan shaft. If you can move the winds of dial cord aside some to prevent getting acid on it so much the better. Leave on for about a minute or two, then rinse with tuner degreaser. In most cases this does the job, and is much less messy than dial drive tar.
what intrigues me is how many AM radio stations you get we get 1 am station and it's a greek station I think I can get a couple more in the car but nothing worth listing to
You said that you were going to do an alignment on this radio, but it wasn't in the video...did you align it? Also, I am curious why you didn't replace the wax/paper capacitors?
This is a really cool radio!! Sears had a controlling interest in Warwick electronics until selling it to Sanyo. I personally prefer their Warwick built sets to their Arvin sets as they have better sound. BTW- Does polarity matter on the "A' battery in these sets? I don't see how it can.The "B" battery of course it's imperative. Hook up an electrolytic backwards and "boom!"
It might. Some of these radios used an "A" supply as high as 4.5 volts. In such instances I can see the possibility of the "A" polarity also acting as cathode bias for at least a couple of the tubes. Since the filaments are in series in some of these sets, the filament-to-ground potential would have the secondary effect of making a handy bias for the tube(s) that were towards the "hot" end of the string. Using this idea would would require the negative side of the "A" supply to be at chassis ground. The battery shown here has an "A" voltage of only 1.5 volts, which indicates parallel filaments. Although a 1.5 volt potential could still function as a bias, so polarity may still matter.
Inverting the "A" battery would have the effect of changing the bias voltage. It may not matter, it may reduce or increase sensitivity, or do neither. It may damage a capacitor if the reverse voltage is high.
SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE! I have a Emerson radio model 646B and I need to know how many Ohms is in primary (I have no clue of that). The speaker is 8 ohms, I assume that is the secondary. What happens it is that I bought this radio to learn electronics and fix, but I came without this output transformer and the schematics doesn't say much too. If anyone can help me I'll be more than gratefull!!!! Thanks a lot!!!!
A battery eliminator build guide sounds good. I've been wanting to power different things, like my camera, and have been unable to do it. It takes 4 AA batteries. Would that be possible? Thanks for the great video, once again!
Four AA batteries equals six volts, you should be able to find a ready made wall wart/power cube that will do the job, but make sure you get one with a linear power supply in it, not switch mode.
simple and effective nice little rig a loose wire strikes again, not always those crappy caps boy I sure would like a Crosley replica of this radio at 99$. Crisley crap can easily run on batteries. Why buy the authentic real thing when you can buy a Crosley replica retro radio?
Because the Crosley replicas are pure JUNK made in China ! Like who in their right mind would buy something like a Crosley replica for $99 that is not worth 50 cents ?
Bryan,
That was a fascinating video. It's very surprising to me that a radio manufacturer would let a radio out of it's factory without a strain relief for their antenna input. I guess they saved a few pennies, but the risk they subjected their radio to was very large. It's nice to hear this old radio playing again. I can imagine Old McDonald and his family gathering around in the evening listening to it.
Regards, Tom
It makes you think, if were into radio DX reception those farms with no AC supply must have been fantastically quiet places, its almost impossible nowadays to get anything other local stations on the broadcast band with all this switch mode supplies and digital equipment everywhere...
I have a weakness for these Farm Radios, I must keep them original, NO AC upgrade
Nice restore. Keep up the fine work
Bob T
Very cool Silvertone "Farm" set. I never gave much thought to the production end date(s) for this era of sets until I saw your video. Thanks for sharing and the antenna lead strain relief was definitely a good idea. Don
It took a long time for electricity to reach most of rural America. In 1925 only 1 in 25 farms in the United States had electricity. Power companies were reluctant to provide power because local populations and infrastructure didn't warrant it. Installation of electricity on farms doubled from 1935 to 1939 when federal loan programs made it possible to finance it. It's hard to image what life would be like now without those wall sockets. I think it's hilarious the way some people react to power outages. We're so quick to take things for granted. Some people act like their lives have stopped when there's no electricity. All I need is my flashlight, my transistor radio, my acoustic guitar and some good books. You don't electricity to play chess or sit around singing old songs.
I had a SILVERTONE 4-Tube Superhet from the late 1940's. It had a triple-anode filter/bias condenser. With an 8 ft long aerial it could pick up a great many stations depending on the timer of day. It had no IF amplification stage!
Over time it's power condenser got much worse, and the back was missing since I got it - - the case was made of cheap plastic that warped over time.
I threw it out ten years ago, and now I beginning to regret that..
1:51 My late father had one of those picnic table tube radios, but by the 1980's its plastic parts were all brittle and breaking to little pieces. It's power supply used a small selenium stack as the half-wave rectifier.
6:20 My old SILVERTONE had a tuning coil exactly like that one, with the same wonky soldered aerial wire connection
Nice job, Bryan! That is truly 1 of the "last of the Mahicans" as far as battery sets go!
That's one fine looking radio! As usual, fantastic job on its repair!
Sears must have owned the rural market during those years; they were the ones that kept selling suds-saver washing machines well into the 1970s. I'll never understand why so many sets with circular dials even had dial cords; a tuning capacitor with a concentric fine tuning shaft (or even a cog belt) couldn't have cost much compared to the labor for stringing those wretched things.
Boy that tube audio sure sounds good. I just love the warm sound of a good old tube radio. Thanks for showing it to us!
Brian
Thank You... I watch your videos and learn a lot from your videos...
Very nice and useful explanation of how to find out a problem in a battery operated tube radio of 1953. Thanks very much for the lesson.
I wonder how,much they paid in the day for those big batteries,I no they made battery eliminaters ,because you told us they did,very cool piece of history I glad you saved it
Thank you for your wonderful video. What a beautiful condition radio you got there. Keep up the your good work. I always enjoy your videos
This is really a cool old radio. Seems to be a great performer too. Good find.
Beautiful!
A farm radio and WSM are made for each other.
That radio seems to be picking up a LOT of stations. Isn't the soil conductivity poor down yonder way?
About the "A" battery: Have you tried it with a single *alkaline* size D battery?
Two batteries in parallel was never good engineering. When one dry cell got to be weaker than the other, the stronger one tried to charge the weaker one. When one failed, they corroded, and you had acid everywhere.
My GE 637 works fine with a single D alkaline as the A battery.
EDIT 2021: I have a Summer 1956 Sears catalog that shows farm radios.
That Wizard battery was Western Auto's store brand.
Farm battery sets were on the market in Canada until 1958-59, even though transistor sets were available they cost at least twice as much as a comparable tube set of any kind. One trick I have seen some manufacturers use for a strain relief was to wrap the antenna lead around a mounting post and knot it in clove hitch fashion.
Great find and rare your right I've seldom seen a farm set after 44. Great video as always
When I was a kid we lived on the old Homstead, the house was built in 1910, the year of my dad's birth by my grandfather to replace the soddy where they lived a few miles away. While power was to our yard, the house was so old and dad had no money so the house was never wired. Thus it was, I grew up with no power or running water in our house till we moved in 1961. We had a more modern looking radio but it took the same type battery pack, Dad had a rule that the radio could only be played at specific times. Mom got her soap operas, we got the kids show in the early morning to get ready for school, the hospital report was required, and in the evening we could listen to specific radio shows like the Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid and Suspense, Johnny Dollar and Dragnet. Other then that only ball games and the fights were allowed late in the evening.
Good video!, Thanks always for the information you provide!
Great video, very nice radio&repair! Thanks!
Did you recap this radio,I think a battery elimanator would be the way to go to get the most use our of this radio .great repair video ,I love to watch your repairs.
Also used at the time for summer cabin at lake or hills.
Never seen this radio before, and it was a farm radio, but I don't know if farm radios do exists. It could be in rural areas if anyone who has a portable radio, and yes, portable radio is still a great one for traveling and in farms.
"A Seeyerz, toob RAYdeeoh, ayund of coo-urs ..."
Wow you sure do find the interesting sets! I noticed that this particular farm radio does not appear to have a visual indicator that the set is "on"...most of these battery sets did have an indicator that the set was "on: so people didn't just turn the volume down, then forget the set was still on, and run down the batteries. BTW - that A-B pack is huge! Bet it costs a week's wages back in 1952 :-)
Very nice set !
Worktop could use a clean up,good fault finding,and great accent from here in the UK,regards Colin.
Nice radio, it looked great and now it sounds great! I am surprised they didn't just reuse a case design from an AC powered set, since this was probably a low production item.
How ironic that you should mention using a terminal strip for the antenna coil lead; I just did the same thing to a '38 Philco TH-3 two days ago, and for the same reason you did.
We had one of those in puerto rico when i was a kid , we got electricity in 1963.!!!😀whoa the battery was everready.
That capacitor from final anode to ground can also be returned to the B+ feed on the output transformer primary to obtain the same desirable results. And if the capacitor shorts it won't endanger the transformer primary near so much.
I hate working on dial drives. But one thing I found that works well in a pinch is to paint a little FeCl3 PCB etchant solution onto the capstan shaft. If you can move the winds of dial cord aside some to prevent getting acid on it so much the better. Leave on for about a minute or two, then rinse with tuner degreaser. In most cases this does the job, and is much less messy than dial drive tar.
We have one & it is beautiful.
Nice restoration and awesome set.. thanks for sharing, rtpn. :-)
Not bad for a little 4 tube set !
Very interesting!
muito bonito este radio a maneira que trabalhavam no passado muito impressionante
Jose Rocha ⓟⓐⓘⓝⓔⓛ ⓢⓞⓛⓐⓡ '
Si, what you say.
I'm fortunate to not have had to deal with IF cans with built-in capacitors. Perhaps some day I will.
Sensitive little devil, isn't it? Nice repair.
Thanks, always enjoy your videos! Nice catch on the output xformer!!
You sure that is an antenna coil...or is it an oscillator coil???
hello. what do you take for cleaning the cabinet please ?
what intrigues me is how many AM radio stations you get we get 1 am station and it's a greek station I think I can get a couple more in the car but nothing worth listing to
I hope you made it thru the storm ok...
What a shame alkaline batteries weren't back then!
18:30 Radiotvphononut, why didn't someone invent for these radios, the DD cell battery :-)
You said that you were going to do an alignment on this radio, but it wasn't in the video...did you align it? Also, I am curious why you didn't replace the wax/paper capacitors?
I'm thinking electricity came behind Lake James around 1956 or 1957.
good videos but the sound of your camera is so low bitrate, around 32kbps i cant hear the sound quality properly of the radios you are fixing.
This is a really cool radio!! Sears had a controlling interest in Warwick electronics until selling it to Sanyo. I personally prefer their Warwick built sets to their Arvin sets as they have better sound. BTW- Does polarity matter on the "A' battery in these sets? I don't see how it can.The "B" battery of course it's imperative. Hook up an electrolytic backwards and "boom!"
It might. Some of these radios used an "A" supply as high as 4.5 volts. In such instances I can see the possibility of the "A" polarity also acting as cathode bias for at least a couple of the tubes. Since the filaments are in series in some of these sets, the filament-to-ground potential would have the secondary effect of making a handy bias for the tube(s) that were towards the "hot" end of the string. Using this idea would would require the negative side of the "A" supply to be at chassis ground. The battery shown here has an "A" voltage of only 1.5 volts, which indicates parallel filaments. Although a 1.5 volt potential could still function as a bias, so polarity may still matter.
Inflec s
Inverting the "A" battery would have the effect of changing the bias voltage.
It may not matter, it may reduce or increase sensitivity, or do neither.
It may damage a capacitor if the reverse voltage is high.
SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE! I have a Emerson radio model 646B and I need to know how many Ohms is in primary (I have no clue of that). The speaker is 8 ohms, I assume that is the secondary. What happens it is that I bought this radio to learn electronics and fix, but I came without this output transformer and the schematics doesn't say much too. If anyone can help me I'll be more than gratefull!!!! Thanks a lot!!!!
That's a battery radio that uses a 3V4 output tube, which likes to work into a 10K ohm load, so shoot for that.
@@dkd1228 Thank you very much!
A battery eliminator build guide sounds good. I've been wanting to power different things, like my camera, and have been unable to do it. It takes 4 AA batteries. Would that be possible? Thanks for the great video, once again!
Four AA batteries equals six volts, you should be able to find a ready made wall wart/power cube that will do the job, but make sure you get one with a linear power supply in it, not switch mode.
okay, thanks for the tip
simple and effective nice little rig
a loose wire strikes again, not always those crappy caps
boy I sure would like a Crosley replica of this radio at 99$.
Crisley crap can easily run on batteries. Why buy the authentic real thing when you can buy a Crosley replica retro radio?
Because the Crosley replicas are pure JUNK made in China ! Like who in their right mind would buy something like a Crosley replica for $99 that is not worth 50 cents ?
Copper chassis !