I was walking down the street here in Manhattan and I saw a bunch of furniture in a trash pile. As I always do, I went in for a closer look. Lo and behold, there's an old Westinghouse AM/FM radio on top of the pile.
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I see a promising sticker on the back:
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When I open it up, everything looks original:
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Pulled the tubes, cleaned them up, here's what I have:
1 50C5
2 12AU6
1 12BA6
1 12AV6
1 little guy, didn't pull - 1-30?
1 "The Standard Tuner (12DT8?)
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135767135768
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135771135773
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So what do I have? Is the unit or are the tubes worth saving? I was hoping for some 12AX7s to roll through my preamp, but if these are worth trading for some, that would work too. I realized that the print on these things is really, really fragile, that 50 years worth of dust will make you sneeze and cough a lot, and that it's really easy to bend the prongs on tubes when you pull them. Ah, learning.

Thanks.

Gosh, that might make a nice little radio. Why not fix it up? Is that a field coil speaker???

mike

Wonder how it would sound with a newer fostex or something like that?

Radio tubes in general dont have much use except in radios.

Most are odd voltages. Only the higher power ones used a couple common goodys for pre's and output.


Might be cool to restore. Or not.

Ask about it in the vintage radio forum here.

Yeh, I'd definately say it's a fixer/upper. The divide between radio and Hi-Fi can be very wide, but both sides can be equally enjoyable. There's just something about the sound of some older tube radios that just sounds right. Seems like the more tubes, the better the sound. I have an old wooden Zenith tabletop that I wouldn't trade for anything.:music:

Is that a field coil speaker???

mike

The speaker is a permanent magnet type, ALNICO V. The little transformer bolted on top is for audio output.

Field coil speakers were largely replaced by ALNICO magnets by the end of WWII, IIRC.

This is a transformerless AC/DC radio BTW. Shock Hazard involved. However, by the time this unit was made, the "safety interlock" back cover took care of this...

The big red cardboard cylinder is the power supply filter cap, and is probably bad. They dry out, and lose capacitance. Which results in lots of hum in the sound, which is probably why it got thrown out. Replace it with individual caps and the radio will likely work.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=135770&d=1234650371

I second wa2ise's recommendation.

Those little tubes last forever.

Bad filter caps were always the problem. Funny, they made the tubes user replaceable and soldered the caps in place.

I always wondered why filter cans weren't offered in plug-in sockets like tubes. I know the military did for fast replacement in the field...

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=135770&d=1234650371

That tube looks to be a 12AL5.

nice of them to label the tube so you would know what it is: "TUBE". :)

The little guy would be a 6al5 or 12al5, depending which gets you closer to line voltage. Its a dual diode, commonly used as an FM detector.

Thats probably not a bad little radio. Its no monster hifi, but I'll bet you'll find it will sound quite nice as a tabletop. With a 12av6, its probably got a RF pre-amp, though it might just be for FM.