Vintage radio restoration

"Just Jeepin'" (macintux)
03/07/2020 at 14:20 • Filed to: radiolopnik

Found this channel through a discussion on Reddit about restoring old radios.

I’m still only marginally electronics-knowledgeable: I got my ham license last year, but I’ve only used it once, and my barely-used Arduino and Pi were stolen last year when my house was burgled.

But, I’m definitely looking forward to watching more of this video. Not sure at 2 hours I’ll make it all the way through, but he knows his stuff, knows how to present it, and this is my first exposure to vacuum tubes.

DISCUSSION (13)

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > Just Jeepin'
03/07/2020 at 14:28

oooo bakelite....i kinda miss that stuff

aaaah the good ole days....when a phone was a perfectly good murder weapon

Just Jeepin' > farscythe - makin da cawfee!
03/07/2020 at 14:30

I’m sure ph ones are going to kill more people in the next 24 hours than they did in the entire 20th century, so look on the bright side!

ranwhenparked > Just Jeepin'
03/07/2020 at 14:33

Shango066 is another good one - mostly vintage TVs, but he does some radios.

lone_liberal > Just Jeepin'
03/07/2020 at 15:00

As someone who loves the history of technology, and who was an electronics tech that specialized in radio transmitters long ago, I love this kind of stuff.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > farscythe - makin da cawfee!
03/07/2020 at 15:24

Spoken like a man who also realizes that our mutual disdain for SUVs with rear hatches is actually nostalgia for the Classic Three Call Girl Trunk...

Junkrat aka Rick Sanchez: Fury Road Edition > lone_liberal
03/07/2020 at 16:06

lone_liberal > Junkrat aka Rick Sanchez: Fury Road Edition
03/07/2020 at 16:29

I watched that a couple of days ago! Great stuff.

Chariotoflove > Just Jeepin'
03/07/2020 at 16:31

That’s cool!

Makes me want to watch a Dennis Quaid movie.

fintail > Just Jeepin'
03/07/2020 at 16:50

This is relevant to me. Backstory: when I was a kid, my parents were hobbyist antique dealers, and they’d take me along on their buying trips, as my dad called it, “junking”. They’d often let me get what I wanted, so I started hoarding old radios. At one time I had maybe 30 radios in various conditions from the 20s to the 50s. I’d tinker with them and try to get them working again, with varying success. When I was away at school, my mom decided to clean out my old room/attic, and I sold off most of them - it was a good sale for local pickers.

I kept just a few: a Philco “baby grand” cathedral undergoing a longterm restoration at a specialist in Portland, a leather case Zenith Trans-Oceanic, an Austrian “Ingelen” early transistor set, a Philco tombstone style still at my mom’s house, and the one I will feature here, a Motorola 51A table top from 1939. I bought this radio at an estate sale when I was a teen. I paid $10 or $15 for it, and it worked great. It is a rare small size marbelized bakelite case with a car grille style speaker design. Several years later it stopped working reliably, so I put it away. About 5 years ago, I dusted it off and sent it to a specialist in Oklahoma (I think) for mechanical restoration. He was thrilled to see it, as he says few of these survive. Here’s a link to a technical description, also showing the small dimensions :

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/motorola_5a.html

A few years ago, I made a couple short clips of it playing period music, taken at night to show the glow of the dial. E very Friday night a local AM station plays music of this era. Time warp here:

I should probably take some better quality clips of it. It’s a charming little set.

Here’s what it looks like in light:

Kinja'd!!!

And to scale with other items where it sits now. Also showing something else I hoarded - clocks. I am down to maybe 10-12 clocks now:

Kinja'd!!!

I also have an early tabletop Victrola with a matching accessory record cabinet. If I had space and time, that type of material could also get me hooked, but I have limited myself to just one.

On the restorer subject, this Youtuber has some cool stuff about old electronics, TVs in particular, and also has a few nice old cars:

https://www.youtube.com/user/drh4683/videos

Fortunately, I have avoided old TVs, but I really like this one of his:

Just Jeepin' > fintail
03/07/2020 at 16:52

That’s awesome. You should expand this into a post (not that it technically needs much more than you already have).

fintail > Just Jeepin'
03/07/2020 at 17:05

One of these days, perhaps . As I’ve aged, I have to pick and choose hobbies, and this one is about priority #100. But I still enjoy firing up that old set on Friday nights for the time travel effect. Something about the sound of period music over AM radio on an old vacuum tube set.

Just Jeepin' > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/07/2020 at 22:19

Losing Archer on Netflix was a sad, sad day.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Just Jeepin'
03/08/2020 at 00:17

Yeah. My DVR picks up the odd episode here and there, but I’d love to be in position to binge again.