[skodajag]

Good Evening All from England

This is a fabulous site and has helped me greatly in the restoration of a Philco console. My interest in American sets has now extended to Zenith consoles, of which I’ve recently acquired no fewer than four – from mid 1930’s to 1941. I’m wondering if there is a similar site to this one to help me in the task of restoring these. I’ve been looking on the internet and so far not found one. It’s always more difficult to restore sets from another continent and any advice at all would be most appreciated.

Regards
Jonathan
skodajag@aol.com

[BDM]

There are a number of us here who also collect Zenith sets. So fire away your questions. No specific Zenith only sites I'm aware of.

[Doug Houston]

You might look into the Antique radio discussion site

http://www.antiqueradios.com

There are discussions about all sorts of things.

Zenith radios became sort of a cult item, once one was seen on a popular TV show: "The Waltons". That has been the basis for the Zenith panic here in north America. The "Walton" Zenith cabinet looks like it has a couple of gigantic nostrils for a speaker grille.

I describe Zenith radios as "blue collar" radios. They were always priced to attract the laborer market. The big round "wash machine" dials assured the buyer better reception, because, the bigger the dial, the more stations the radio will receive. (everyone knows that)

Most of them are good performers, though. But, quality-wise, they're way behind Philco and RCA (HMV in your neck of the woods). Zenith is noted for underrated power transformers, and bloated tube counts.

[etech]

Most of them are good performers, though. But, quality-wise, they're way behind Philco and RCA (HMV in your neck of the woods). Zenith is noted for underrated power transformers, and bloated tube counts.

What Doug says is true. But, on the other side of the coin, Zenith had many stunningly beautiful 'art deco' cabinet styles, especially some of the consoles, and the sound quality of the average Zenith console was in many cases far better than some competitor radios. Also, it's hard not to like those big black "wash machine" dials.

Here is a pic of my 6S147 dial.
[Image: http://i135.photobucket.com/albums/q136/...47Dial.jpg]

Regards,

Ed

[Doug Houston]

Well, as a fatter of mact, I have a Zenith table model set, 12S445. It has the shutter dial, 12 tubes, and I guess it's about as good as Zenith ever got. The flywheel dial is something one could get entranced with. If no other gimmick ever sold a radio for Zenith, the flywheel dial certainly did. I anso have the 10 tube version of that set, and it doesn't have the shutters, nor the flywheel. It does have the same audio, so I suspect that if and when it gets restored, it will run neck and neck to the 12 tuber.

I've seen several of the big 1000Z Stratospheres, and knowing their circuitry, I have no desire to own one. They're one great big console, with a manhole size dial, and eight 45 tubes in parallel push-pull, driving the speakers. (Remember about bloated tube counts?)

Of course, Zenith comes off as innocent, after you've seen one of the 37 tube Crosleys (the service notes, at least). They were the champion of the universe for the use of tubes, and the illogical applications of them. They were tri-amplified, with a very mediocre receiver section. Those monstrosities were all audio and power supply.

[etech]

Hi Doug,

I really enjoyed your post. The depth of your knowledge fascinates me and that flamboyant sense of humor cracks me up.

Regards,

Ed

[skodajag]

Good Evening

I’m replying belatedly, and in this form of a second topic posting, because when I clicked on “post reply” I got timed out every time. Anyhow, thanks to you all for your advice and thoughts. Doug’s comments about Zenith reminded me of how Ekco over here in the 1930’s often made preposterous claims for ordinary sets. For example, even “magic eye” wasn’t grand enough for their tuning indicator (which was the same as everyone else’s of course and what they sometimes called it). No, the Ekco item had to be called a “mystic eye”.

The Zenith's I have recently bought are the following:

10A3
7S 363
10S155
12U 158

I hadn't intended to get four but the same person had them all and wanted to sell them all and so obviously I bought them all. Like you do. As you can imagine Zenith consoles are rather rare over here; they tended only to arrive here as and when an individual bought them over personally.

Ed: as for styling I think the 10A3 is a bizarre mixture of styles and it doesn’t work for me at all. The 7S 363 on the other hand looks very handsome to my eye, especially in the pictures I’ve seen of restored sets on your side of the sea, where the contrasting veneers are retrieved from decades of dulled finish and nicotine (?). I confess to loving the big black dial already. But what is the shutter/flywheel dial Ed refers to: is this the later set up where the dial itself changes with the wavelength selection?

I see the speakers on the other two sets are encased in a cone, presumably for acoustic effect? Does this work I wonder? One further question: did the motor tuning on the later sets work OK, or was it, like ours, a bit temperamental and gimmicky?

It’s great to have made contact with you all,
Jonathan

[Ron Ramirez]

Jonathan

Sorry you were having trouble posting. I've merged your last post with the original topic to keep the thread together.

Question: are your Zenith sets designed to operate on 220-240 volts AC, or are they as you say, simply American sets brought over by individuals (110-115 volts AC)?

[etech]

Hi Jonathon,

Welcome aboard the Phorum. That is a very nice selection of Zenith consoles. I also have a 10S155 and the brother to the 7S363, that is the 9S367. The 'Acoustic Adaptor' was supposed to fine tune the response to the acoustics of the room. If the truth be known, all it does is reduce bass response when it is pushed forward. Everyone I have ever seen, including the ones I have here, are all slid to the most rearward or maximum bass position. It is a bit of a gimmick in my opinion.

Another gimmick is the motor drive tuning. It is a bit temper-mental The motor will have a tendency to overheat if used a lot.

Yes, the shutter dial is the setup where the leaves of the dial change as the bandswitch is rotated. The flywheel tuning involves the use of a weighted disk or flywheel on the manual tuning shaft to allow the tuning dial to be moved from one end to nearly the other with a quick spin of the tuning knob. This gives the manual tuning dial a very luxurious feel. Both of these items (flywheel tuning and shutter dial) are actually very nice features. I personally do not consider them to be 'sales gimmicks', so to speak.

Regards,

Ed

[Doug Houston]

To amplify a bit on shutter dials. The upper level Zenith sets had each wave band on separate dial scale segments. As the band switch was changed, a pair of segments would open out of sight, revealing the set of scales for the next band. It was a rather intricate mechanism, and worked very well. Since I was a kid in the days that those gimmicks were in the stores, and families of my friends bought radios, the shutter dial and the flywheel tuning did attract attention, and I still believe that they both had a stimulus, on sales, though perhaps not as great as the intricacy of the gimmick.

Another Zenith feature was the softly suspended, spring-mounted chassis. The controls and dial bobbled about for a moment if you tweaked a control a bit gingerly. It certainly helped in preventing feedback from the speaker, but the operator often suffered from blurred vision while tuning the set.

In the mid to late thirties, tuning mechanisms and dial designs took some interesting, and some times, amusing forms. All were to lure the fancy and the imagination of the customer.

Zenith is credited with having had the first preselected tuning mrchanism, in 1928, I believe. RCA followed in 1931, with a motor-driven preset tuning system, and a wired remote control. Both of these were on higher level radios in the line.

[skodajag]

Thankyou all for your help. I'm afraid I'm becoming hooked on these Zenith consoles. Given their size and the fact that 99.9% of them are on your side of the sea I reckon that involves (at least) a double perversity.

Ron - in answer to your question they are all original 110v US sets, bought over by the one individual (he at least has now relinquished this particular perversion, replacing it though with one hardly less challenging: the collection of outsized vintage hi fi speakers....)

One interesting difference between US and UK sets: I note that none of the Zeniths have sockets for the connection either of an extension loudspeaker or a "pick up" (with a corresponding "gram"[ophone] position on the wavechange switch). Almost all of our pre war sets had both. The pick up sockets are especially handy because one can feed a VHF/FM signal through them from, for example, an old hi fi tuner. I guess I'll have to invest in one of those little AM transmitters. Do any of you use your old sets for VHF/FM listening?

[Jim Berg]

Sounds like you have some nice radios. You got to love that dial on the 12-U-158. On the export sets they had multi voltage transformers and had a socket on the back of the chassis you moved the wire to the proper voltage setting. They also had a phono jack and switch on the back of the chassis on these sets. I have a NIB headphone adapter kit with phones for a 1937 set. It has a 8-S-154 pictured on the front of the box. It has a switch and volume control on it.