______________________________________________________________One of my projects for 2023 is to rebuild 2 antique battery-operated AM radios I own and to restore them to be fully operational.
My radios are an Atwater Kent model 20C and an RCA Radiola III.
I have owned these radios since the mid 1970’s when Karen and I operated an antique shop in Northern Illinois. We purchased several radios from a man who was liquidating his collection, but these two radios are the only ones we have left.
Both of these radios date from the mid-to-late 1920’s, and they were both designed to be powered by a and 6-volt “A” lead-acid hour storage battery , as well as “B” and “C” dry cell batteries. Many of you are familiar with these types of “farm radios” which were intended to be used in homes before there was widespread household electrification.
Fortunately, both radios were popular models, and there is a fair amount of information available outlining the necessary steps for restoring them to their original operating condition.
Unfortunately, I have never restored a radio of this type, and I will have to be learning while I go.
My reasons for writing to you all are that there are numerous aspects to these projects, and I am seeking advice and assistance from all of you in the club.
Firstly, if any of you have experience in restoring radios like these, I would be very grateful for any assistance you can provide to me. I would also be interested in learning about any resources you may know of regarding the restoration of radios like these.
I need to replace all the tubes in each radio. The Atwater Kent uses 5 ‘01A or UX201A tubes, and the Radiola III uses 2 WD-11 tubes. Sometimes the WD-11 tubes are replaced by UX199 tubes, using some sort of tube socket adaptors. If any of you have any new old stock (NOS) tubes of these types, I would be interested in purchasing them from you. I would also be grateful if any of you has any information or experience in sourcing tubes such as these.My intention is to power the radios using a modern day “battery eliminator”. There are commercially made battery eliminators available. KD8BUV operates a company called Antique Radios Inc. in Jackson, MI, and he sells the model ARBE-III battery eliminator for $160 plus s&h. I have never seen one of these, but I have heard through people in the AWA that it is a reliable unit. The AWA offers a printed circuit board for making your own solid state battery eliminator. I have purchased one of these, and Ken Kaplan KB2ART, and Rich Antolick W4RJA, have been helping me to source many of the components required for this project. Again, if anyone has advice or experience with battery eliminators like this I would be grateful for you advice and assistance.
I have two further challenges as I move forward with these projects:
First is that I do not have the matching horn speaker for the Atwater Kent radio. It was originally paired with the Atwater Kent Model H, which was a matching metal horn speaker. If any of you have leads or ideas on sourcing an AK Model H speaker, I would love to hear from you.
Second is that the RCA Radiola III was intended to be operated using headphones rather than a speaker, but I want to drive a speaker rather than headphones. At the time, RCA marketed a “Radiola Balanced Amplifier” which was a separate 2-tube amplifier to be paired with Radiola III like I have for use driving a speaker rather than headphones. Additionally, RCA offered a Radiola IIIA radio which was a 4-tube radio that integrated the separate Radiola III and the Radiola Balanced Amplifier into one unit. If any of you have information or experience with either of these other units in the Radiola III Family, I would be grateful for any information or assistance you may be able to offer me.
These are my antique radio restoration projects for 2023. Many thanks to Ken KB2ART, Rich W4RJA, and George K2DM for the frequent assistance and advice they have already provided to me on this project and on many other projects that I have undertaken. I look forward to hearing from you in regard to this project.
Thanks,Mike Regan KM4ZTE
816-678-5086
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