Overall it looks relatively decent. There is rust on the back of the chassis but most of the chassis is rust free. It has the usual crumbling rubber insulation for this vintage and all the tubes test good except the 6A7. All of the transformers ohm out OK except for the secondary on the antenna transformer. The 5 ohm section between lead 3 & 4 is open. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do about that.
Bob, yeah. The secondary is critical, as it is part of the tuning.
Is it a simple bobbin, easy to rewind, or one of those "cross-wound" wax-dipped jobs?
People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.
Might turn out to be not too bad at all. Looks like a regular one-layer coil. The sleeve..I guess you'll find out when it's off. Could be of some simple mechanical purpose.
People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.
This is a Pittsburg PA area radio which is consistent with where it was shipped from. The automatic tuning buttons are set for KQV, WJAS, WCAE, KDKA, and WHJB which according to a 1940 Station Log in our Library are 1380, 1290, 1220, 980 and 620 on the dial. All are Pittsburg stations except WHJB which is Greeensburg (WHJB is currently 107.1 FM in Greensburg).
I finally got back to working on this radio after almost a year. I even forgot that I had already started this thread and that the antenna transformer has a problem. As I mentioned earlier the wire insulation is crumbling for almost every wire in the set. The power transformer got my attention first and indeed there has been some heat I think.
Transformer may heat up for reasons that are not its own; it could be loaded heavier than appropriate.
But if it did not sustain damage, it could be OK.
To me a good way of testing it is plugging it in 120V and running it with no load. If it does not heat up (could get a tad warm) considerably, it is OK (no turn short).
Ohming out is the first check, of course, but it will not reveal a turn short.
This test will.
(BTW this is one instance where I approve using a dim bulb tester).
People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.
Thanks Mike, I will do that check. Just a bit of progress today but ready to put the shell back on and reinstall the power transformer now. I simply took off the old insulation by squeezing it a little with needle nose pliers. It just crumbled away. Then a colored heat shrink sleeve went over the uninsulated wire. I spliced in a longer piece of wire that will then get soldered onto the appropriate spot on the chassis. A quick ohm check after all the work and it still seems to be OK.
Well now its just getting plain ugly...every wire in this puppy need to be replaced or resleeved. I started doing that and of course to get to one part you have to undo another and another...it will be a miracle if this thing plays after I get done! I've been working on this in between other things and not being as systematic as usual. I needed to take of the first IF transformer can which required removing the push button assembly because the nuts on the top of the can are frozen. Then the nut on the interior of the transformer came off ... yikes...
I remember working on my 39-6 in 2016. Which is the same radio. Without the preset buttons. Yes, lots of bad wiring. Including inside the transformer. But not too bad otherwise.
People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.
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