Built a table radio tonight.....

WMEX, 1510 Top 40 Rock & Roll!
Ya, I got the Aurora for Christmas FWIR '58...

What happened was Aurora was slip shod with the tuning range of the internal loopstick, not enough windings...

So, it received from about 1mhz to 4mhz, yeppers the 75m phone band. While listening for DX, (ha) I would occasional pickup one side of a Ham conversation...  I though I needed more gain so I ordered several transistors and a few resistors from Lafayette and added a transistor amp that worked on 3 volts. Heck, I just copied a schematic I found in one of thos library books.

Now I got some weaker station coming in and call letter. I listened intently every evening, then on a Thursday at about 6:50pm I kept hearing the tick of a clock. Now I slept with a key wound alarm clock. Something about the ticking gave me peace... So after listening to the ticking get loud and soft then loud again, the headphone nearly jumped off my head. I was too poor to have a pair of phones, just this single phone... The call letters W1ZE "Calling together the Old, Old Timers Net", Irving Vermilya. Now what is this? So I could only faintly hear another signal but it was a friendly discussion of Ham radio. I like this!. So  I made local inquires and discovered that the Irving was just some 3 miles away. I paid him a vist and discovered Ham radio. Learned the code, already knew the electronics. Irving tested me for a Novice in the Fall of '60. I bought a Knight Ocean Hopper and a Knight T-50 transmitter. I pounded away but I had limited success. I could not afford cable for the antenna and loaded the T-50 into a long wire, results were bad. I then had to put more time in helping my Dad. The license lapsed. I did not renew again until 1966, I discovered 6-meters and had a blast with a beat-up Globe-Scout... Then bought a Lafayette HA-460, had some initial bad luck but got the radio fixed.

So what of the radios? The Aurora, highly modified cracked case, more transistors, a speaker, was cast aside, it looks awful. I am ashamed of it, yet, I still have it. I found a pristine Aurora, mint in the box some 30 YA, I treasure it. I set it up and discovered that the 75 meter reception was not a fluke, this one does it too!

I sold my first Ocean Hopper, along with it went ALL the coils from 100khz to 30mhz It too was modified with a Japan vernier... So, again, some 25 YA found another, actually two Ocean Hoppers, I kept the best, unmodified and all the coils except the long wave... Sold off the lesser with two coils...

If or when I find myself in a home with one room that smells bad, I will keep a wind-up clock and the first radios as I knew them...

Chas

I know I wouldn't mind having my Miniman rocket radio I used to have. I do still have my Archer Globe Patrol 3 tube regen I built when I was around 16. Had to change the knobs on it a while back. Three out of the 4 started cracking around where the setscrews tighten on on the shafts. Other than that, it's original, though I do believe the caps are starting to show their age and will no doubt need replacing.

My stations in the Boston area were WHDH, WBZ and WMEX.

My First Radio was a Remco Crystal Radio at Christmas time in 1955 or so.
# of stations  WHA, WIBA,WKOW  in Madison WI.  11 Years old  

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

I actually got one a couple? of Years ago.

He, he, way O.T...

My home was new when I moved in, '73. It was one of many homes nealy all alikde, I had no control over how it was built.

The garage became my radio room, codes required that the wall common to the home have 5/8" foil faced sheet rock... during the garage conversion I used 3/8" sheetrock over foil faced wall insulation for all the walls, this was to accommodate the wooden windows I had installed.. The ceiling was dropped because It concealed additional rafters supporting the roof trusses, insulation installed and a foil barrier on top, stapled in place with thick cardboard washers, the grid ceiling some 10" below that also supports six 4 lamp fluorescent troffers, all wired with BX to the wall switched then to the panel. The florescents do have low RFI ballasts and an additional Cornell-Dublier full pi-network AC filters. Plan is to replace them with LED troffers.

Doors, windows and an 8" slider complete the room. Floor was sealed with two coats of two-part epoxy then very heavy poly sheet laid down wrinkle free. Floor underlayment was installed nailed down with concrete nails. On top of that  Tibballs's oak parquet was laid, odd bits of parquet were used to box in the perimeter footing around the room. As a garage, the floor is lower than the home floor and pitches to the slider which was once an overhead door. I don't notice the floor pitch...

All this got done by myself from the Fall of 1973 to the Spring of '76 when I moved all my radio gear in from its storage at a relatives home.

Faraday Cage? Well, lets say when I repair a radio it always sounds bad. Until I take it into the home or outdoors. But, it is great when one wants to align a radio for the greatest sensitivity.

Good luck Cliff with that portable car radio. I'm sorry to hear it is so buggered...

My quest has been to find a childhood radio. A GE J100, I found one some 10 YA but it is in very poor condition.

Also, other childhood radios, An Emerson was found as well as an Aurora crystal set, which got the life-long hobby of radio going. I still have a little FADA Bakelite that I traveled with, I recall bringing it to Lubec Maine where I Summered for two weeks, saw the eclipse of the sun. I brought a welders helmet with a 15 filter... Got to see the huge Cutler Long wave station too.

I know I will never find the books that once supported my hobby back then. They were all from the local library. They have long, long since sent those vintage books to the recycler.  Loss of the books has made me same every radio related book I could find with emphasis up to WW-II...

My Mom was in hospital in the 50's gall bladder, it was a week long stay back then. No radios, Dad bought her a FWIR a "Benson" crystal set. It had a ferrite loaded tapped loop-stick, 1N34 and a crystal earpiece. One long lead was clipped to the telephone finger hook or the radiator. Tuning was the threaded ferrite rod... It lasted until the crystal earpiece failed, the salts melted in a sunny window

That cap with the windings constitutes a resonant circuit for the shunting of coastal Maritime stations at or about 500khz. Those do not exist anymore the cap can be replaced without the windings.

YMMV

Chas

It's not aluminum but vinyl with the aluminum faced Styrofoam attached to my fake wood siding first then the applied vinyl secondly. Yes it is in effect a faraday cage, however with all my switching power supplies, LED lights, portable phones, TV and computer that all put out RF noise and it is reflected back into the house, I don't know how many times
My roof however is exempt.

Cliff,
 Aluminum siding means you are living in a Faraday cage, for all intensive purposes.

I guess Now I will try fiddling with crystal radios, a lot easier for sure.

I was at ARF and a comment was made about Zenith using capacitors with braided leads. The answer - To lower Inductance.

So on the Emerson I noticed a capacitor about the size of a pinky finger.with a  coil of wire spiral wrapped around it. Just a thought in passing.

I did find Two fairly good sized transformers inside the radio. I'm kinda thinking the smaller one may be a choke for when its used as a car radio?

I have had a problem with the speaker wires always protruding from the bottom of the case when assembling it back together, I have to remove the top back screws to be able to poke them back in. OH The Trials And Tribulations of a Radio Hoarder!

While I was working on it I decided to see how much current draw, it had 0.7 amps to 1amp. What the heck?
I used a couple of very thin big aluminum washers with a sandwich baggy as the insulator between them. The first time I tested it with my New voice DVM I had the setting wrong. I had put the leads in the 200mA to common but had my positive lead probe & selector switch in the volts position, I read about 400 milliamps, what? Then I realized my mistake so I turned it to 200 mA range and not a peep or display, OH! OH! Murphy again dagnabbit. figured I just made another paperweight. But on second thought I just wanted to verify it was toast. So I hook up my dual voltage Power Supply and at first no response. Yup deader than a door-nail.
The meter might have blown a fuse. Two of them , one for 200mA and one for 10AMPS so I unscrewed the case and with the same meter did a conduction test.and the beeper sounded for both, so the fuses were good.

Then I noticed that one test lead wasn't in the letter as far ac the other. I couldn't get it to go down at first till I really pressed it down. well what do you know it started working I finally was able to set the power supply current level to 200 mA, so the meter verified the correct current after much fiddling with the voltage and current settings. I used a couple of 180 Ohm resistors in series for the test to be safe. I didn't have the voltage high enough, so I was getting almost 1 AMP out. Once I increased the voltage I could control the current. I learned a thing or two. Set the voltage first to a reasonable level. Then adjust the fine current pot to maximum and the coarse control to approximate what is needed the move the fine control back down to get the proper current or you will overshoot every time. At that point I wrapped things up and went to bed. WHew!!!!

That's my next project. I am hesitant to take the case apart  as the task will be difficult other wise. The batteries are in two tubes. One has 3 D-cells and the other has 2 D-cells. There are wires on the ( +) end of each tube. I cannot see the ( -) ends. I will use a wire brush if I can get it in first, then sandpaper somehow. Then use vinegar. If absolutely needed I will disassemble the case if those attempts are inadequate. I have seen a lot worse.

If I can remove the case I will use some phosphoric acid on the steel rusty screw holder battery case door. And maybe on the battery contact, then see if I can leave a touch of solder to coat the steel from further corrosion. I have done this on a few projects like this before.

(EDIT) This is the news TODAY :

After receiving it I waited till today to work on it.
Decided to go ahead and tear it down. After removing about 12 screws and a lot of trying to pull the case away from the frame finally got it.
The Paper that was mentioned protruding from the sides, was nothing more than black electricians fabric tape. On end had 3 layers. The glue was white and dried. I could se during hot weather it must have started to creep.

I has a 16cm ( 6 inch ) Speaker, 5ohms, 3 watts. I did take a couple of pictures of the inside. That thing was as sturdy as I've seen. Just about every board was positioned so a lay person couldn't repair it. I did get the diagram of the tundra string map. Wow very complex, it shows the sting direction by numbers showing the Pulleys and tuning drums. It would be next to impossible to repair or even calibrate without instructions. The FM section is completely enclosed in a metal box. It has a very long Loop-stick with multiple winding's.

Got it back to gather with no serious difficulty. Installed the batteries and plugged it it. There is no activity on the marine band, a few Short wave stations, Solid AM & FM reception.

Since it can be used with its car adapter it would have to be rugged to withstand the vibrations of the car.
I noticed several holes on the bottom that allow the accessory car bracket to connect. There is a bar that extends into the radio to a spring switch that change the supply to the cars voltage when the radio is inserted. There is a clear tiny round window about the size of an LED. Come to find out it has a prism edge at the bottom that lights up from the Dial Lights. Kinda stupid when you can see when the dial is lit.

Next thing is to make a series pad with contacts to measure the current Draw. I don't remember there being any Alkaline batteries back then, so since they included a power saver switch it may have used less power on Carbon batteries. So on to Alkaline Flashlight cells. Will see how long they would last.

I opened the radio again this morning and stayed up till 4AM working on it. I took it outside to get away from interference. Turned it on and started out with short wave working but could only pick up WWV on 5&10 MHz. Nothing except a couple of local 1600 to 1700 KHz. Otherwise nothing but hissing.

back in the house repeated the procedure and started probing with a wooden skewer tapping here and there and moving wires. I could squeeze the case when together and A change in reception and volume though, Strange so that's why the second tear down.

Back out side about 3 AM and I could pick up teletype tones weakly (sometimes not connected right so back inside. Fiddling around again AHAH, Touching the antenna wire again and it came to life. Strange as touching the outside antenna before had no effect, even though it was connected. So I moved the internal antenna wire around and reconnected it. assembled the Set It Played on shortwave whilst in the house. I have insulation under my vinyl siding that has hard foam with an aluminum barrier attached so diminished reception.

Again back outside and both shortwave bands are now active, but still very few shortwave stations, I can get WWV very loud though so must be sunspots.
I still have a problem on shortwave when tuning the frequencies as it has a lot of pops from one end to the other . AM and FM bands don't have that problem. Curious.

If you clean the battery contacts with white vinegar it will remove the battery corrosion.

Well I'll be a monkey's Uncle!!!
Finally! Finally Arrived!!  

Some one tampered with the case and stuffed one-side with cardboard under the case and contact cement
, not bad though

Was double boxed, has battery corrosion on the contacts. Installed batteries anyway. It played after exercising the push-buttons. Super tone, Amazing audio output.

I'll have to see later tonight if shortwave works. It  does! WWV is strong at this time. Marine Band is Hissing but Dead as far as radio transmissions, I don't even think is used any more. It has a Phono input, A battery Saver, Dial lights OK. Tuning light needs looking into. Schematics are as rare as Hens Teeth! No User Manual.

It has a slot on the bottom, but no knowledge of what it does. there are two plugs side by side (almost banana jack size holes or very close to it) so I suspect it's for DC input. Has a switch for 6 or 12 volt operation. This was just after every car was going over to 12 volts, and there were still plenty of older cars of the 50s around. I bought my First one in 1965 while working for a furniture and appliance store. In San-Pedro. I went to Pacific Finance for a loan to buy it. 18% interest on the loan. It took me 2 months to pay the loan off. But it established my good credit. I think it was priced at $80-$100.

A under the Dashboard frame was included with new units but alas I didn't get one with it. You would hook your antenna plug, power wires and such things as mounting hardware, screws and such.

I received a note that it was sent by bikeflights, so instead of a $30 shipping fee it was only $15.

Cliff,
That doesn't sound like Priority Mail to me but rather the sender used UPS SurePost. UPS carries the package most of the way and then hands it off to USPS for delivery. FedEx has a similar service (similar sounding name) called "SmartPost". It is so bad people have started calling it "DumbPost".

The year I lived on Prince Edward Island, we had an order sent back to the UPS depot because the driver could not find the house.

Now, the village we live in has a population of about 1200 people. The road we lived on is exactly 1.5 kilometers long. There are only 2 houses on that road. One on each end with none in the middle. Plus, UPS had delivered to us 6 weeks prior to this order.

When we called UPS about it, we were told we couldn't talk to the drivers. That wasn't allowed. We would have to call the place we bought the item from, and they would contact UPS and work it out.

We talked to the seller, who was quite sympathetic with us, and he took our directions to relay it to the driver/ We also told them that the driver had permission to open the parcel. Since it was a GPS, he might use it to find our place again.

sounds like they are doing to you what they did to me. It was left in a van or mailbag several times and is just running around on a circular route.

You might think about contacting the Postal Inspector's Dept.

You are due the difference in postage back too, as it was not delivered in 2 days.

Cliff, I don't like saying this, but you might have to move to New York if you want that radio!

Still have not received it.
This was sent by priority Mail guaranteed 2 day delivery
UPS handed it off to USPS to deliver.

In Transit 05/13/2019 7:18 A.M. Hodgkins, IL, United States

Departure Scan
05/11/2019 2:34 A.M. Hodgkins, IL, United States Arrival Scan
05/10/2019 1:14 A.M. Buffalo, NY, United States Departure Scan
05/09/2019 8:16 P.M. Buffalo, NY, United States Arrival Scan
05/09/2019 6:47 P.M. Falconer, NY, United States Departure Scan
05/09/2019 10:11 A.M. Falconer, NY, United States
We've incorrectly sorted this package which may cause a delay.
05/09/2019 2:13 A.M. Falconer, NY, United States Arrival Scan
05/09/2019 12:43 A.M. Buffalo, NY, United States Departure Scan
05/08/2019 8:13 P.M. Buffalo, NY, United States Arrival Scan
05/08/2019 6:47 P.M. Falconer, NY, United States Departure Scan
05/08/2019 10:10 A.M. Falconer, NY, United States
We've incorrectly sorted this package which may cause a delay.
05/08/2019 5:28 A.M. Falconer, NY, United States Origin Scan
Past Event
Shipped 05/08/2019 5:28 A.M. Falconer, NY, United States

We've corrected the street number, and the package is on it's way to the updated address.
Past Event
Label Created 05/06/2019 1:31 P.M. United States

Order Processed: Ready for UPS

Congrats Cliff. Ya gotta love gettin something you have been trying to find for a good amount of time!

Enjoy and let us know how it works when you get it too please.

Guess What?

I found the Radio I was looking For,for about 10 years on EBay.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]



Cost $ 79.85 + Tax = Total was $87.04  

It's Mine MWAW HA_HA

I have several "rocket" & "satellite" crystal radios from the 1950's in my collection.  They have a ferrite tuned coil, fixed capacitor, diode & crystal earphone, with a red wire for external connection.  The ferrite is moved up & down (for tuning) with a small metal rod protruding from the radio.  They still work after all these years.
For the ground in my hamshack, I have (3) 10ft ground rods outside connected to a length of copper pipe which runs behind my equipment.  All connections are with 1 inch copper braid via hose clamps.  This is very effective for my location.
73, Dave ke2ge

The Rocket Radio used a RF variable tuning inductor setup. In essence an RF coil with wound very fine wire and a ferrite movable rod that was inside of the coil form. Then a crystal diode and crystal earphone. There was an alligator clip attached to the end of an antenna wire. The alligator clip could be attached to a phone dial stop or the Harp of a lamp or even bed springs.
I imagine that the "Loop-stick" was a form of antenna but it depended on the external antenna wire for capturing a signal. Without the external antenna wire it wouldn't play unless you were very close to a radio station or had a station with lots of power. At least that's my experience.

Would you believe as a teenager I lived in Long Beach California and we had a myriad of stations that I could receive. Several were rock and roll stations. I can remember an Army Surplus Store called SAD-SACKS Named after a cartoon character.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]





Anyway They had rocket radios for 99c. I bought two One had double crystal ear pieces. The first one only had one. I remember using an audio transformer and a speaker replacing the earphone. I even Used an 8" speaker that worked rather well.

Did those Rocket Radios use ferrite loopstick antennas? I had a kit crystal radio from Radio Shack that my sister Candace gave me for Christmas that used one for the antenna.

We had a question at our local ham club forum one time about the possible use of ferrite loopstick antennas for transmitting purposes. The answers mostly were that the ferrite core would saturate under any useful amount of output power and generate undesired signals.

Just as a note on Grounding, In the Calibration Lab I worked in, we had a copper bar about 4" wide and 1/2" thick that went around the entire interior wall at about 4 foot from the floor. It had binding posts at about 4 foot intervals. Since it has a Concrete and steel building for grounding it relied on the steel beams that went about 20 feet below ground for ground. We also had Current controlled voltage power regulators for the lab in boxes the were 3-3 foot high steel boxes containing them that were vented. You could sit on them and get warm from the heat they dissipated. You could hear them when they switched on and off. A big CURCHUNK. All of the Lab was supplied with 115 Vac from them. I think because there were three of them it was for 3 phase.

When I worked At the (Edited 5/06/2019) Long Beach Naval Shipyard (it's no longer owned by the Navy) they Had a grounded Faraday cage For Calibration testing of equipment. I had an Emerson Portable that received AM,FM,SW that they said wouldn't Play inside the cage, HAH! were they wrong. However my radio came with a kit to Mount it under the dash board of a car. It was very well built and even had a bass and separate treble controls. I figure it could pump out about 2-5 watts. Wish I still had it.

Being young and stupid I traded it for a Stereo playing tape player BUT would only record Mono. (I didn't realize that when I did the trade.)

THIS PICTURE ISN'T AN EMERSON BUT SURE LOOKS LIKE IT.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]


Ok finally found a couple of mine.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Well, in the case of this set I tried a couple of variants with not so good results. Every time I connected to a ground, all I got was a lot of hum. Fairly loud hum at that too. I do plan on putting a ground rod into the ground outside of the radio room and bringing in a copper cable inside. If I can get it at a reasonable price, I'll fasten a copper bus bar along the wall to have an easily accessible ground connection that is not connected to the regular electrical panel in the house.

As well, like Cliff said, I have had pretty decent luck with rocket radios as well as other types of sets with no ground at all connected. I have a repro rocket radio here that works well without one now.

I remember with a crystal rocket radio that had no ground and worked very well. Back in the 60s.

Ground tuner. That is a new one on me. Crystal sets do need a good ground connection. This reminds me of a set I picked up at a hamfest years ago. It was a short wave crystal detector followed by two steps of Germanium transistor audio. The parts were mounted with Fahnestock clips on a wooden breadboard. It actually worked fairly well in bringing in the higher powered foreign broadcasters.

It's been made CRYSTAL CLEAR on that suggestion!

Ground tuner? The radio is still on the bench, I will definitely try that and let you know how it works out.

Cool project and great on the reception!
If you hook it to a signal tracer, you have an instant amplified radio.
 BTW, if you make another antenna tuner and put it into the GROUND wire, you can tune it for max signals on reception.
 It's called a " ground tuner". I have found several references to it in radio articles from the '20s & 30's.

   One of my ham buddies lived in the industrial area of Tacoma. He had terrible noise on his receiver.
 I suggested a ground tuner. He built several experimental versions; Pi networks, etc., and the final one cut the noise better than 80%!!!   I actually listened to his radio with one and without it at his location. It made such an incredible difference it was like night & day.

Well, sort of.

Decided to play in the radio room this evening. Took my Ten-Tec antenna tuner, connected a germanium diode to it, then hooked it up to my long wire in the attic.

Managed to pick up Radio Havana for about 45 minutes before it faded out. Had a Chinese station in the background for about a minute or so before that disappeared. Not much signal strength, but if I cupped my other ear, I could hear it enough to know who I was listening to when they identified. It was kinda fun.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]