[RadioSvit]

A little light Saturday positive about our hobby in our feed...
My new every Saturday video about antique radio equipment...
"Restoration of an old General Electric A-87 tube radio console. Part #3"

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYzQIUW3QHI]

[RadioSvit]

For fans of antique radio...
My new video...
How to test radio tubes on a Hickok 530B tube tester?
Test radio tubes on a Hickok 530B tube tester for a General Electric A-87 tube radio console.
A brief overview of the video instructions for using the American Hickok 530B tube tester from the USA in 1942, which was delivered to Ukraine under Lend-Lease in 1942.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZIAcVzJ3TM]

[Arran]

Peter;
I like Canadian General Electric sets, whilst the model numbers are often the same as their U.S General Electric counterparts most shared chassis with Canadian RCA-Victor models, but used different dials. What I particularly like about them is that the cabinets were often better quality, and more attractive then the U.S models, and sometimes more attractive then their Canadian RCA-Victor cousins. If you know where the Canadian province of Ontario is, there were a number of furniture and cabinet companies that supplied cabinets to the radio industry, such as that Deforest-Crosley your friend brought back with him, Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome had their own furniture factory in Kitchener (was called Berlin up until WW1 when they decided to name it after a British war criminal from the Boar War, who was blown up by the Kriegsmarine).
I'm not sure who supplied Canadian G.E with their cabinets, or Canadian RCA for that matter, or if they manufactured their own. RCA-Victor was based out of Montreal, Quebec, and there were also a number of furniture, and cabinet companies there. In 1934-35 General Electric sets, in the U.S and Canada, used identical chassis, not only to each other, but to RCA sets in the U.S (whom made them for G.E) and Victor brand sets in Canada, the main differences being the dials, round for RCA-Victor, square for G.E. However for 1935-36 Canadian G.E carried on using square dials whereas the U.S G.E models used a cylindrical shaped dial viewed through a slot shaped escutcheon.
One thing that many Canadian built radio cabinets used in that era was Australian walnut, also called Queensland walnut, the front pilasters of your friend's CGE A-87 likely used that. It has a similar colour to American black walnut, but the grain pattern is closer to a ribbon mahogany, with the stripes.
Regards
Arran

[radiorich]

Hello Peter,
Thank you for sharing your new video and looks like your weather is nice their too.

it was like 25 Celsius today here and like you I too have bench that I can work outside on in this nice weather .

the Hickok 530b is a nice tester I use a Precision brand for my older tubes and B&K for my new ones .

Sincerely Richard

[MrFixr55]

As usual, an interesting post from you, Peter. This seems to be similar to the RCA 3-BX-671 and the Zenith Transoceanic 600. They all have the same tube lineup and similar schematic, but the 600 has the Wavemagnet and extension cord for it, the spare tube clip and the "Radiorgan" tone control buttons. I have the first postwar Transoceanic, the 8G005, and the broadcast band only 6G00. For a portable, it has a nice sound but the push-pull output helps there. This set uses Loctal tubes, like the the pre-WWII Sailboat and Bomber 7G605.

[RadioSvit]

Arran. I completely agree with you. I also noticed that the Canadian consoles General Electric, RCA and De Forest Crosley have much better quality cabinets than their American counterparts. The difference is especially noticeable in the use of more expensive veneer options. And I also investigated one very interesting fact, the dials of the Soviet five-tube radio receivers Record 53 are, by a strange coincidence, very similar to the dial of the General Electric.

   

[RadioSvit]

Hi Richard. I really like the Hickok, it is very convenient to use. I have another tube tester - the Soviet L1-3. It is much larger and very heavy, has more functions for checking radio tubes, but is very inconvenient to use due to the use of punched cards in it, which takes a lot of time when checking radio tubes.

   

[RadioSvit]

Yes, MrFixr55. I agree with you, this Galicrafters is structurally very similar to the Zenith Transoceanic H500, as well as the RCA 3-BX-671, the same five miniature finger-type 7-pin radio tubes. In general, I dream of collecting at least five copies of a portable all-wave radio of the Zenith Transoceanic type and its competitors. You Americans are used to these radios as ordinary things and no longer pay attention to them as something outstanding and do not imagine how revolutionary and creative they were in their time and by what a huge distance in time they overtook European and Soviet competitors. If similar portable radios appeared in Europe in the 50s, then they were with only one shortwave range like this Philips or Accord, which is in the video below, but by no means with 4 or 5 stretched shortwave subbands.

Sorry, these are my old videos, so there are no English subtitles yet.

PS. Ok. I just made English subtitles for these two videos - watch at your leisure.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VG-Jxxc...ex=12&t=2s]

[RadioSvit]

Ok. I just made English subtitles for these two videos - watch at your leisure.

[Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQFMNCRd...x=19&t=29s]

[Vlad95]

RadioSvit
Wow
Someone has been listing two radios in my area for a few months now, one exactly the same, one similar:
Gen 1 Radio:
*AKKORD* Shortwave Portable Tube CAD $275
Gen 2 Transistor Radio:
AKKORD DELUX AUTOMATIC  CAD $225

I'm interested in this one, but the price is too high for my opinion. And maybe that's right, since this lot has been for sale for about a year now. I'm still waiting for the price to come down to a more affordable level.
Radiosvit and all, what are your advice and opinions regarding the possible purchase of this lot?

[RadioSvit]

Hello Vlad. I see the Accord only on the first link. The second one does not open. Well, this radio is structurally the same as mine, but in a more expensive version made of genuine leather and in almost perfect condition. I paid $ 100 on German eBay five years ago, I think that such a radio if you want to buy it can cost more - about $ 150... 200 precisely because of the perfect condition and genuine leather. So, if you take into account delivery from Europe, it will be the same. Can you send the seller an offer for a lower price?

[RodB]

Vlad, maybe it's a good time to make an offer. Or at least ask if they'll consider offers.

[RodB]

Looks like Peter and I have the same idea.

[Vlad95]

Strange, the second link works for me without problems. Try this direct link.
https://www.kijiji.ca/v-art-collectibles...1707803430
Or try searching for "AKKORD DELUX AUTOMATIC" from the search box in the first link you opened.

Hmm, I'm interested in your opinion.
There will be no shipping costs. This seller lives in Edmonton, only 30 km or 30 minutes from my house.

[Arran]

Ah a KiJiJi seller!
I've noticed that KiJiJi tends to be where all of the rejects from craigslist go, not that there are no delusional sellers on C.L More then once I have seen sellers that were banned, or suspended from craigslist posting there. The second set is a transistor radio, and multi band portable sets were much more common among those.
Getting back to multiband tube portables some British companies like Pye made some as well. I think the reason that they were less common in Europe was due to the power supply requirements to operate them from AC mains, in North America we only used 115-120 volts, so the B+ of 90 volts was not much lower then that, and the A+ supply for the filaments could be taken out of the same power supply circuits with a dropping resistor.
Regards
Arran