03-14-2017, 10:53 PM
Thank you, everyone! 
The first order of business is to get my radio in working order. I'm (somewhat impatiently
) waiting for the arrival of a replacement 1U5 tube, and then I can at least plug it in.
There's a paper cap that may have failed, due to age and the fact that it is a paper cap, but I plan to power the radio up with a 100W light bulb in line with the radio's power cord (see note below). So maybe the cap will "recondition" before it just blows up and I have to spend Saturday vacuuming the remains of a paper cap out of the chassis... one can hope.
I'm a newbie, so if anyone sees a glaring flaw in my plan, PLEASE RESPOND BEFORE FRIDAY NIGHT... assuming my new tube has arrived!
I did spend a pleasant (?!) last Saturday vacuuming the remains of a few dead spiders and their webs out of this particular radio. I took the first layer of crud (patina?) off of the radio, inside and out.
The Note below: Having read through several sources, adding a 100W light bulb in series with the 120 volt AC cord will prevent a catastrophic failure, if a capacitor is shorted. If a cap DOES short, the light bulb will glow brightly, indicating that there is no, or very little, voltage drop across the radio being tested. The light bulb acts as a ballast resistor.
Ideally, the bulb will glow somewhat less than one would expect a 100W bulb to glow, when connected across 117V household voltage. Radio performance will be impaired, but this is simply to test that there are no short circuits present.
One last bit about me; I'm an electrician by trade. I got a 2 year degree in Electronics Engineering in the mid 1980's; in fact, I got the tail end of Vacuum Tube Theory (the next class didn't get it). That's how this hobby originally got a grip on me. My grandparents had a few radios that I inherited, and I collected 2 or 3 more at garage sales.
Finally, just after I turn 50, time and money came together and presented me with the opportunity to get these radios working again!
I'm putting together A and B battery packs that I think will fit in this radio chassis. The A battery (that I'm doing) is a little bit bigger than the specs I found, but I think it will fit in my radio. I plan to use 10 AA batteries, 5 stacks of two batteries each. I'll wrap them with the period correct battery labels later if all goes well.
The B battery is very straightforward: the 10 batteries I salvaged out of smoke detectors can be series'ed (sp?) together at least long enough that I'll know that part of the radio is good! That was the easiest battery to figure out, the 10 9V cells will easily fit in the original battery dimensions, to spare.
The first order of business is to get my radio in working order. I'm (somewhat impatiently
) waiting for the arrival of a replacement 1U5 tube, and then I can at least plug it in.There's a paper cap that may have failed, due to age and the fact that it is a paper cap, but I plan to power the radio up with a 100W light bulb in line with the radio's power cord (see note below). So maybe the cap will "recondition" before it just blows up and I have to spend Saturday vacuuming the remains of a paper cap out of the chassis... one can hope.
I'm a newbie, so if anyone sees a glaring flaw in my plan, PLEASE RESPOND BEFORE FRIDAY NIGHT... assuming my new tube has arrived!
I did spend a pleasant (?!) last Saturday vacuuming the remains of a few dead spiders and their webs out of this particular radio. I took the first layer of crud (patina?) off of the radio, inside and out.
The Note below: Having read through several sources, adding a 100W light bulb in series with the 120 volt AC cord will prevent a catastrophic failure, if a capacitor is shorted. If a cap DOES short, the light bulb will glow brightly, indicating that there is no, or very little, voltage drop across the radio being tested. The light bulb acts as a ballast resistor.
Ideally, the bulb will glow somewhat less than one would expect a 100W bulb to glow, when connected across 117V household voltage. Radio performance will be impaired, but this is simply to test that there are no short circuits present.
One last bit about me; I'm an electrician by trade. I got a 2 year degree in Electronics Engineering in the mid 1980's; in fact, I got the tail end of Vacuum Tube Theory (the next class didn't get it). That's how this hobby originally got a grip on me. My grandparents had a few radios that I inherited, and I collected 2 or 3 more at garage sales.
Finally, just after I turn 50, time and money came together and presented me with the opportunity to get these radios working again!
I'm putting together A and B battery packs that I think will fit in this radio chassis. The A battery (that I'm doing) is a little bit bigger than the specs I found, but I think it will fit in my radio. I plan to use 10 AA batteries, 5 stacks of two batteries each. I'll wrap them with the period correct battery labels later if all goes well.
The B battery is very straightforward: the 10 batteries I salvaged out of smoke detectors can be series'ed (sp?) together at least long enough that I'll know that part of the radio is good! That was the easiest battery to figure out, the 10 9V cells will easily fit in the original battery dimensions, to spare.
