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Starting on Ron's AK10-A

I put the radio in my basement room, on top of my Cornwall speaker, where I had a little corner dedicated to Ron - personal mementos, the cards he and Debbie sent me. Now the AK10A is right there.

I thought of the antenna. I do not have good routes for it, so what I did was, I took some thin (AWG34, maybe) magnet wire and ran it vertically, 3 feet or so, to the suspension of the sewer pipe and then along it for another 6 or so feet. The vertical segment is the advantage of it. Then I tried the radio and it receives very lod and clear. WIthout GND, which I also intend to provide, as soon as I think of a good Grounding point somewhere.

Right now I am looking for some time-appropriate music collection to download into my old Apple iPod, which I will then connect to my SSTRAN and so the radio will be playing something that it could actually play at the time when it was young.

I will make a video and put it out.

People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.

Winchester Cathedral by The New Vaudville Band

Paul Whiteman be good too.

Tubetalk1

I just downloaded some 20s archive and played it.

This is the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37JCoH2e_Go



I wish I had a bit more place to set it up to show properly. Right now it has to sit on the tops of my Philco 38-690 and one of my stereo speakers. Had to move the SSTran frequency, as the old one was close to our local station, and while it was not a problem for all my superhets, it is for a TRF set.

People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.

You did good Mike, really, really good. When Ron advertised for the brass base tubes, he had planned for the AK to be a shelf queen, but that might have been due to his illness. In-any-case, he would sure be proud of how you brought that AK back to life. That was one of the radios sitting in his office that he looked at every day and it could not have found a better home.

John KK4ZLF
Lexington, KY
"illegitimis non carborundum"

Thanks John.
I hope Ron is smiling at it.

I would even try to find brass-base tubes that work, but I think the ARBE-III will not have enough oomph for their filaments Icon_smile Else I would.
One of them lights up (zero emission though).

Well, Kutztown is coming, so, if there are no distractions and impediments, I will try to go there and see if I can find a horn speaker.

People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.

Mike;
I have been meaning to ask about another set in the video, what is the tombstone set on the floor with the straw hat on top?
Regards
Arran

Arran


Three out of for (including the Chinese hat-covered one) are RCA140 or the siblings. The one under the hat is likely the GE K80, two others are RCA140s and there is another smaller GE, forgot the number on the right closer to the Klipcsh speaker.

I am trying to build the RCA140 and the same radios by GE and Westinghouse collection.
None of them has been gone through.
The empty RCA140 cabinet was restored by Fred Taylor.

People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.

Mike;
The reason I asked is that it looked like it had a brass data plate on the rear apron, so I though it may have been a Canadian built set, but it didn't look like it had the H.E.P.C decal on it like most of them have, or if it did it flaked off. You should have "fun" working on those sets, they were arguably the last of the "Superette" style deep chassis with the IF cans underneath. I never had a chance to work on one, but have worked on the C.G.E versions of the "Superette" sets, you can let us know whether the K80/140 is better or worse then that A.K set you overhauled a few years back. Unfortunately C.G.E and Victor (RCA) were not the only companies in Canada that took a liking to the construction method, there were some Canadian Marconi and Deforest Crosley sets built like that, and at least one Northern Electric model that was different, but at least as bad in it's own way.
Regards
Arran

I worked on R-73 so far. Three years ago.


There is no brass data in the rear. There are two screw terminals.
And, I stand corrected, this is an RCA140; the K80 is the opposite of it.

People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.

Hello Mike,
You did amazing Job !!
Sincerely Richard

Mike;
I must be a masochist but I actually don't mind working on those sorts of sets, though an RCA/Victor 140 or G.E/C.G.E K80 would be a challenge due to the coil box. The other problem those sets sometimes have is a bad audio interstage transformer, which I think might be a step down one like a Philco 118 has, in any event it's for that peculiar twin triode power output tube those sets have. Are you going to overhaul your sets one after the other?
Regards
Arran

Yep. One by one.

People who do not drink, do not smoke, do not eat red meat will one day feel really stupid lying there and dying from nothing.

Hello mike,
Man if I don't skip a few I will never finish I have roughly 200 radios in my collection .
Mike I should just take a bunch of my radios to work and let the students repair make it look like Philco or AK factory  Icon_lol
up to this year I did help with running after school club and some the advanced students would build electronics kits like clocks and little bluetooth speakers plus FM radios I taught them how to solder .
Sincerely Richard

Mike;
I think I should have clarified, when I was asking if you might restore one set after another, I was speaking of those RCA 140/G.E K-80 sets? I was thinking of doing something like this with some sets of mine where I have duplicates, or triplicates, it's sort of useful having one original chassis as a reference whilst you have the other pulled apart. Canadian RCA and Canadian G.E used to share chassis on some models, and not just the mid 1930s ones.
Regards
Arran




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