[radiorich]

Hello Peter,
I am glad you got the radios and I too have that same zenith in my collection !
I am also waiting for the weather to warm up so that I can do some cabinet work too.

Sincerely Richard

[RadioSvit]

Hi Richard. Yes, we are waiting for warm weather. I have more than a dozen hulls waiting to be painted.

[MrFixr55]

Hi Peter,

Always praying for peace. Is the VEF156 Stereo or does it have only a mono amp with the 4 speakers? (I assume that the grilles on each side are speakers. Tabletop stereo tube radios with side-facing speakers from USA manufacturers were very rare. In the US, stereo radios were either separate components, electronics and one speaker in one cabinet, and speaker only in another cabinet or console cabinets, mostly with front-facing speakers. "Stereo" was mostly experimental in the mid-late 1950s in USA with the only stereo program sources being either stereo records or reel to reel tapes. Broadcasts were limited to "AM and FM Stereo, where one channel (the prominent one) was sent via FM and the other channel was sent via AM. these broadcasts occurred only during certain times of the day because the FCC required a radio station to broadcast the entire program, not parts. (FCC is the abbreviation for the Federal Communications Commission, the USA regulatory agency that regulates and sets standards for electronic communication.) This issue was resolved when the FM Multiplex system was introduced in the US in 1961. I have several "AM / FM" Stereo receivers that allow AM and FM to be tuned separately and assigned to one each of the speakers. However, this system is long obsolete. I have one receiver, a Fisher 800B that has AM / FM Stereo and FM MPX (multiplex) Stereo. I found this receiver on the curb on a trash day and rescued it. These are quire collectible now and is an excellent performing "HiFi" receiver., one of the last before Fisher converted to transistors. Avery Fisher sold his companyin the early 1970s, it was eventually bought by Sanyo and is a shadow of its former self.

[RadioSvit]

Hello John. I have never met VEF156 and have not even heard of the existence of such a model. Perhaps you are mistaken with the model index. But there was a VEF Lux (RK-156) model from 1956. If you are asking about this radio, then it usually had a monophonic push-pull amplifier and 4 speakers connected in a 3D scheme. That is, two front broadband plus two side ones for reproducing mid and high frequencies, connected via a capacitor. I had such a radio and it had excellent sound. But it was monophonic. The first stereophonic radios appeared in the USSR only in 1962, but these were also small-scale batches without stereo detectors, that is, only the amplifier and speakers were stereophonic, but not the FM radio receiver. Fully stereophonic radios appeared only in 1965-67. These were Rigonda Stereo and Symphony Stereo. By the way, the principle of operation of Soviet stereo detectors was very different from European ones, and therefore such radios were not suitable for receiving stereo programs in Europe and the USA. For Europe and the USA, radio receivers adapted to the Western standard were manufactured with a different frequency range (88-108 MHz) and a Western stereo signal demodulation system, for example, Rigonda Bolshoi.

[MrFixr55]

Hi Peter,

Sorry about the model number mix-up, my dyslexia kicked in. I was describing a model that you had pictured with equal sized oval speakers in the front and speaker grilles on each side. The only radio of this style that I have is a Telefunken Allegro 5083W, ca 1960. It receives Broadcast Band (MW) AM, FM, and 2 SW bands covering 2.15 - 22 MHz. Advertised as "Stereo", but the radio section is Mono, not even AM A - FM B. Unequal amplifiers, one is part of an ECC83 (12AX7 and EL84 (6BQ5. The "other" amp is an ECL82 (6BM8 triode- Beam Power tube, whose output is not the same as the ECC83 / EL84 amp. An external speaker for the "other" Channel. This radio relies on a stereo phono or stereo tape deck as well as a second speaker for Stereo sound. It seemed rather common for the early days of stereo to have unequal amplifiers and speakers, even in some US sets. However, my Pilot 602, Sears Silvertone 1025, Arvin 35R58 and Fisher 800 all have equal amps. The Pilot and Fisher require external speakers for both channels. The Silvertone has a built in speaker for one channel and an equal external speaker for the other channel. the Arvin has equal built in speakers. The AM and FM tuners on the Silvertone, Pilot and Fisher can be tuned independently with the FM on the left channel and AM on the right channel, but does not have a Multiplex FM Stereo decoder. The Fisher does have a Multiplex FM Stereo decoder. The Arvin has a Multiplex FM Stereo decoder but does not have separate tuners. AM - FM Stereo was experimental until the mid 1960s then banned, as Multiplex became the US standard in the early 1960s.

[RadioSvit]

A little bit of positivity for the weekend ...
Test review of two beautiful radio receivers from the famous American company Zenith Radio Co. - Zenith H625 1950 and Zenith H845 1964. Battle test of radio reception quality.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4T9dW8fW4o&t=9s]

[RadioSvit]

A little bit of positivity for us on Saturday evening ...
My new video on YouTube about old radio ...
Restoration of the General Electric A-87 radio console from 1936 ... Part №1

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTg22iv0Yec]

[Arran]

Peter:
That looks like a Canadian General Electric model, which would have had a similar chassis to a Canadian RCA model of the same year, American G.E sets are different even if the model numbers are the same. Canadian G.Es also had nicer cabinets on lower to mid priced models compared to their American cousins. It also looks like you gained a couple of Rogers metal spray/spray shield tubes with your set, don't worry they are electrically the same as ordinary glass tubes of the same years, with a few exceptions. Rogers even suggested that people could try metal tubes in their sets verses the spray shield ones to see which types they preferred.
Regards
Arran

[RadioSvit]

Yes, Arran. I completely agree with you, it is truly the Canadian version of General Motors. Thank you for the information about Rogers. This company's radio tubes are also installed on the De Forest Crosley 6D632. I am ashamed to admit that I know absolutely nothing about this company and its products. It was only thanks to the Internet yesterday that I learned that Rogers produced not only radio tubes of its own design, but also radio receivers for the Majestic and De Forest. Do you have more information?

[Arran]

Peter;
For a start your DeForest Crosley 6D632 was a 1936-37 model, and I believe it had six tubes, and 3 wave bands, it also looks like it has a tuning light, I don't think they used shadow meters like Philco. Rogers-Majestic had a system of model number codes for their chassis, so even if you had not told me it was a DeForest Crosley model the letter "D" would have told me, as an "R" would have told me it was a Rogers model, or an "M" for Majestic. They are not fun to work on, that set likely has terminal boards under the chassis, and lots of rubber/gutta percha wire to deal with, but the service info does not offer any illustrations of what is on these boards so make lots of notes and diagrams.
The company was founded by a fellow named Edward Samuel Rogers, whom was a pioneer in building AC powered radios, their first model came out in 1925, and had three dials much like an Atwater Kent model 20 would have. What they did is buy a license to produce Kellogg AC tubes in Canada, but they added their own improvements, and developed their own power supply designs. So Rogers founded two companies, Standard Radio Limited, and Rogers Tubes Limited.
Around 1928 Rogers formed a partnership with Grigsby-Grunow to produce, and market Majestic sets in Canada, so there was a lot of joint engineering that was shared between that U.S company, and Rogers, including with tubes. This was how Canadian Majestic came to be, but they produced and marketed sets under both the Rogers name, and the Majestic name. In or around 1932 they bought out DeForest-Crosley, Deforest was originally a Canadian company linked with Lee DeForest, but they were mostly known for producing Crosley radios for the Canadian market, then eventually designing and building their own models, although the latter ones before the Rogers takeover may have used chassis designed by yet another U.S firm, but built under license. I have a Deforest Crosley Trirdyne Special, and it is basically identical to a U.S Crosley Trirdyne, other then the decal under the lid, and the cabinet maybe? https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/deforest_t...ecial.html
The spray shield tubes were something that came out likely in 1931 or 32, and were used in G.G built Majestics, and in Rogers built ones, but there was more divergence near the end where Rogers produced and used more standard type spray shield tubes then the U.S company did. I don't know whether Grigsby-Grunow had it's own tube factory, or contracted someone else to make them, such as Sylvania, in any event they went bankrupt by 1934, and the reorganized Majestic company abandoned the use of spray shield tubes shortly afterward. Anyhow Rogers Tubes Limited kept producing spray shield/metal spray tubes right up until the war ended, and they were even used in their 1942 models in a sort of GT style envelope. They are much better then the ones that Phillips produced in Europe, the coating does not come off of the Rogers tubes, nor do they often lose their ground connections.
Regards
Arran

[RadioSvit]

Thank you Arran, this is very interesting information. With your permission, I will definitely use it when I make a video about the DeForest Crosley 6D632.
I also paid attention to the high quality of the shielding protective coating on Rogers radio tubes, I did not find any damage or peeling of the coating on any of the radio tubes, they all look great, as if they just came off the assembly line yesterday.
And I think I was lucky with the wires, they are not with gutta-percha, but with ordinary strong insulation.
You said that this model may have a backlight. Yes, on one of the sites I found information about a strange indicator of fine tuning to the station in this model, namely - when fine tuning to the station, the backlight in the center of the scale decreases sharply. Unfortunately, in my radio this indicator has been converted to a regular backlight lamp and therefore it does not work. But the idea is great and I will try to restore the functionality of this fine-tuning indicator.
Once again, I want to thank you for the information provided, Aran.

[Arran]

Peter;
I found an old thread on the ARF, I was wrong about when Rogers took over DeForest Crosley, it looks like it was in February of 1934. The tuning light used something like a 25 volt bulb, I can't remember exactly, but the base would be the same as a regular 6.3 volt one, the Rogers 10-60 used one as well, but it was in the center of the dial pointer on that set.
Regards https://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtop...1&t=191708
Arran

[RadioSvit]

Thank you very much, Arran. This is extremely useful information for me.