01-17-2025, 01:19 AM
Hello everyone, today I picked up for free locally from someone on facebook marketplace a 1939 Motorola Model 82A AM/SW Radio with built-in clock/timer controlled motorized tuning that is all original except for a couple of weird hacked in modifications that were put in by the one of the previous owners of the set, one of the modifications was that they hacked in a toggle switch in the back of the radio cabinet presumably to take the place of the original push-button power switch mounted on the front panel of the radio, and then the other modification which is kind of a weird modification is that someone at some point in time attempted to hack into the radio two extra speakers besides the original 12" Full-Range Speaker, but it looks like they were never able to actually get the speakers wired into the radio though because they wired some speaker wires to the hacked in drivers but never had them actually attached to anything by the looks of it, and also when they hacked in these additional drivers they butchered up the original speaker soundboard but somehow managed to keep the original grille cloth intact? Not sure how that works...
Anyways I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this particular model of radio and if so how hard or easy is it to restore electrically? I looked at the Rider's Manual for this radio and it looks pretty straight forward except the clock/timer/motorized tuning part which will be kind of interesting to work on.
Also How rare is this radio? I haven't seen too many examples of this model radio out there when doing a general Google search for this model, and what examples I did see were not in very good shape and or the bakelite bezels were either missing or damaged (mine has both bakelite bezels intact yet but the one for the clock is missing the glass insert.)
Any info on this radio would be appreciated, Pictures below of the unit in question.
Anyways I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this particular model of radio and if so how hard or easy is it to restore electrically? I looked at the Rider's Manual for this radio and it looks pretty straight forward except the clock/timer/motorized tuning part which will be kind of interesting to work on.
Also How rare is this radio? I haven't seen too many examples of this model radio out there when doing a general Google search for this model, and what examples I did see were not in very good shape and or the bakelite bezels were either missing or damaged (mine has both bakelite bezels intact yet but the one for the clock is missing the glass insert.)
Any info on this radio would be appreciated, Pictures below of the unit in question.