[Jayce]

Actually, what we refer to here as the little outhouse radio, a Gloritone 27. I have had the Mantola version for a good while, but wanted the Gloritone version to go with it. I admit, I was stalking this radio for a while at a local antique shop. I knew it had no tubes, but it looked like it had a good cabinet and was otherwise all there. Just the price was a bit of a sticking point, so I waited for the past couple months on it. Well, the price came down to something more realistic and it is now in my collection. I have all the tubes except a 27 for the unit, so at least it now has four out of the five tubes in it. Please excuse the GT style 80 I had to use. Cabinet cleaned up well and looks better than the pictures make it out to be.

   

   

[Phlogiston]

You put the tubes in upsidedown

[codefox1]

Not sure what I am looking at, but most tubes will function just as well exactly upside down, heat issues and mechanical retention issues aside, like most guitar amps have been for the last 60 years. Most small signal tubes, and many others do not care at all about their orientation to the earth's center, because they operate in a vacuum.

[Phlogiston]

This brand and early Echophone units had inverted chassis - tubes hanging down.

[Jayce]

The sets are an interesting study in early attempts at more compact table radios. What US Radio and Television did was make the chassis into a bit of an 'L' shape to make it more compact. The tubes and tuner hang under the chassis while the rest of the workings is contained inside. Actually, these are not hard units to work on with plenty of space inside. You have to be careful pulling the tubes because it is easy to whack them on the bottom of the cabinet when the come loose from the sockets. Also, the tubes can sometimes drift down out of their sockets over time. An interesting note is the date I have found on the Rider's manuals for my Mantola version of this set that lists it as 1929. If this is right, this would make these among the earliest designs of this type of radio.

[Arran]

Directly heated cathode tube types like 80s and 45s are fussy about how they are mounted. I don't think that upside down is a problem but you have to be careful about mounting them on their side, or you can end up with the filament drooping over and shorting out against the plate or grid. Some of the G.G Majestic and Rogers Majestic built sets had a clamshell design where the power transformer and rectifier was on the bottom half. It's sort of odd that these upside down mounted tubes did not have some sort of retainer to keep them in the socket like they would have used on a 7 or 9 pin miniature tube in the 1950s or 60s.
Regards
Arran

[Groundhog74]

I have one too. I've been calling it a coffin. I like outhouse better.