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THE RADIO REST HOME
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The Sparton 558 is the present Gem of the collection, and my last significant acquisition before leaving for Saudi Arabia (a long story saved for later). You see it here as-found at a local Antique Store, not working, yet unmodified. After a filter and paper/foil cap replacement, a basic alignment, and general cleaning, it works nicely.
There are a few scrapes and voids in the silvering, but I have the means to do the resilvering properly and safely. The radio is made from heavy blue glass and mirrored with a true-silver process.
My preference these days, given that I have too many consoles (a common problem) is in chairsides. A couple are shown here, the closer a no-model-number Coronado, the further a Motorola 6A, with eye-tube. The Coronado is an unusual radio in that it has both an internal bias cell, and the extended AM band to catch the lower end of the Police/Aircraft band. The 6A is a three-band radio, and the dial changes color when switched.
The dial to the Coronado. Back-lit, blue lettering. The knobs are half-round wooden knobs about 1-1/4" in diameter. This is a 6-tube radio driving a 10" speaker.
The dial to the Motorola. The color of the back-lights change and their position changes depending on the band selected. This is a 6-tube radio including the eye-tube, but has a large 10" speaker. Knobs are bakelite.
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Boswell supervises all radio additions and decisions.Click on him for Page 2.
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7G605 in temporary custody. Destination: London, England when the dust settles.
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The Saudi Work Bench:
Heath Iso-Variac
Eico Signal Generator
Fluke True RMS VOM
Ungar 38 watt soldering iron
Various hand tools
Also Transported:
About 200 tubes
200 caps, all sorts
100 resistors (easily found here)
Various other bits
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Radios that Came to the Kingdom
As one might imagine, few things followed me here. But some of my smaller radios did make the trip as well as the obligatory TransOceanic. Here they are.
Emerson Bakelite "Curtain Burner": c. 1936. Modified for polite society with a diode and 70-ohm, 50-watt Dale aluminum finned resistor. An excellent performer, especially with the apparently original 20-foot litz-wire antenna. A tiny little 5-tube radio with a neat little dial (the next picture).
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Bottom and Bottom Right are the objects in my Office:
A near-perfect 100% Complete and with all paper Zenith B600 Leather T/O.
An Edison 2-minute "Home" Phonograph.
An Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph
A Seth-Thomas 8-day, no-strike Office/School clock with locking front.
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This dial is for the Motorola 6T, the wooden tabletop radio below the Emerson. Neat three-band 6-tube radio with a three-position dial and a projection dial pointer. Total of four lamps in the dial, two for the band, one for the pointer, and one for the selector back-light below. Quite a complex bandswitch. I had the console version of this radio (6Y) and gave it to a good friend to put in his house, built in 1936... same as the radio. Motorola seems to have made few radios in this era, but those that they did make are gorgeous (by my measure) and excellent performers.
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Front yard, back yard and living room of the house. Annie (the Scottie) also came along with us. She likes it here, with direct access to the outside, all the Geckos she can chase, and Boswell to tease.
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Zenith 808 Tombstone: When I got this radio, it was painted white w/green wash latex house paint, including the knobs. Tiger walnut, marquettry, blond walnut... just gorgeous. Lots of work, and 7 coats of lacquer later, it was worth it. The next two pictures are of the dial.
The escutcheon was stripped and cleaned by soaking it overnight in a mixture of two heaping tablespoons of Red Devil Lye in a pint of warm water. Then it was polished with Brasso and allowed to sit in the sun for two full days. Then sprayed with two coats of matte lacquer. Instant patina without discoloration of the brass.
The Grille Cloth is original!
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