[Jayce]

Right now I am listening to a little GE table radio that was originally destined for the sale block and one I had given up on a couple years back. It's an HJ-624 that had two soldered together, shielded wires hanging out the back and a set of extra wires tacked onto the speaker terminals sticking out a (cleanly made) hole drilled into the left side of the cabinet. Also, it has a BK49B ballast tube in place of the original BL42B ballast. I bought it because I liked the design, but really thought I had a turkey. It would play, but the speaker sounded like it was shredded and after removing the extra wires, it quit playing! Would light up, but no sound, so I had to solder the stubs I left of the shielded wires back together under the chassis and it worked again. I wasn't really impressed though and seeing that the veneer on the top was cupping, this radio got set up on a shelf in storage until late last week when I dug it out to clean up for a sale on FB Marketplace. I was horrified when a bunch of crap came raining out of the back of the radio when I picked it up. Critters had been in there and left their acorn shells and seeds! Luckily, no mouse nest and a whack on the cabinet caused an ancient looking, dried up piece of tape to fall out of the speaker as well. Amazingly, the radio still worked and to my amazement, the speaker sounded 100% better. No buzz from a split in the cone and no cone rub. The sound was a bit distorted, even with good tubes and I decided a radio that survived that much deserved a recap and yesterday I got it back from my friend's shop with the new caps installed, new AC cord, and new antenna wires from the chassis. Looks like they even installed a new type 47 bulb to better match with the ballast tube currently in it. I did find out that the chassis in this radio was supposed to be in the little radio-phono version of this radio and somehow got switched into the standard table cabinet. In any case, it is converted back to an HJ-624 and all I need to do now is get that veneer glued back down. With the extra voltage the replacement ballast pulls off along with my resistor box, this thing should run forever.

[Jayce]

Quick picture so everyone knows what radio I am talking about! I just found out GE even made a radio-phono console with this same chassis, a model HJ-628.

   

[Burchjburch]

I like the design of that! Nice save.

[NostalgiaRadioTime]

Very nice, Jayce! I have the version with the phonograph. I like it because it's a nice small table top radio/phono combo that's really no bigger than a standard wood cabinet radio only table model.

   

   

   

[Jayce]

That is a very nice little radio-phono indeed! Like I said, I think my chassis came from one for some odd reason. Perhaps the chassis was badly damaged in the table radio and they had the chassis from a damaged radio-phono version? It's a straight HJ-624 now and these seem to be good little radios with a true six tubes along with the Ballast. I have seen some radio-phono units for sale this past year, but usually hours away from me. Even though the mention of one gets the evil eye from certain family members, I wouldn't pass up a nice example.

[Paul Philco322]

Has nice curves. Sharp design and sounds good equals a keeper. Enjoy. Paul