Moving the farm radio discussion.
 

When discussing farm radios, I cited a rather obscure group of sets I acquired, including an RCA and a Setchell Carlson. All four of my sets don't have an RF stage.
BTW, Setchell-Carlson built 32 volt light plant sets well into the late 40's or early 50's.

Tube count determined battery service life. Country living in the prewar era tended to be rather parsimonious and radio a luxury, so my guess would be that a basic set that could reliably get the programs folks wanted to turn it on to hear in the evening was adequate. The owner /financier of the set likely determined when and for what it was used to get the most out of the batteries and tubes.
Avid radio hobbiest/ listeners may have been willing to spend more on something more elaborate if they had the budget margin.

I possibly have the last farm/ country home radio that Zenith made!
Four tubes, 1A7GT, 1N5GT, 1H5GT and a 1A5GT. I picked up a power adaptor of the day that fit into the cabinet. I replaced the electrolytics in the power supply. It's amazing that the originals were 1000 mfd@ 3volts, that were really large, compared with the ones of today! :yes:

Could you post the model number?
I have a bakelite 4k515 which is pretty late (1941) with nearly the same tube complement except for the audio output, which is a 1C5G.

jr

It's either a 4K016 or a 4K035, has a wood cabinet. The output tube is a 1C5GT. I misquoted in the prior entry.

On that RCA 6BT6 you mentioned with the amount of tubes in the audio stage I have to wonder how its volume and sound quality compared to a PP AC set of the day. Also it's phono input and it's optional 6V or A and B battery configurations make me wonder if there was a companion 6V motor accessory phono for the 6V sets or if both were the odd combination of wind-up phono with electric pickup.

IIRC I've only owned 3 farm sets. 1 was a bland 4 tube AM only affair I've forgotten about, another was a Silvertone 3-4 band with slug tuning and RF stage (cabinet was a mess so I sold that), and a 4 tube Coronado with a beautiful inlaid wood cabinet the size of an AA5...I've been meaning to fix that one and build a supply for it.

The wood version (4k035) dates to 1946... anyone have a newer farm radio?

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/zenith_4k035_ch4c53.html

jr

I looked up the difference between a 1C5G and the 1A5. The 1A5 has a 25K load resistance and puts out .115watts and the 1C5 has a load resistance of 8K and puts out .24watts. Twice the power! :D

Looking though Beitman's 1949 shows two models, a Crosley 9-101 and an RCA SF43. 1950 shows a Truetone D2004. Possibly a few were built later!

I'm sure that, if it wasn't for WWII, the rural areas would have been electrified a lot earlier. :yes:

This conversation had me paying attention to some of the battery sets in the early Sam's from Halser that I've been sorting in to my cabinets to fill out missing sets in my Sam's collection.
I found that RF stage Silvertone I used to have in the Sam's is a 6220 (and that nostalgia air has the riders for it). http://www.nostalgiaair.org/Resources/446/M0017446.htm

A good set to exemplify the rural electrification going on post war is the Zenith 6G038...A radio with an identity crisis. A big multiband wood table radio, with an antenna that looks like it was borrowed from the Transoceanic poking through the wood top with a nice 5 battery tube circuit and a 117Z6 as a 6th tube so it could run off battery or line voltage like a 3 way portable. In addition to assuaging fears farmers would have of a battery radio being obsolete when power came, it probably also was popular with folks that spent half their year in town and the other half off grid.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/zenith_6g038_ch6c50.html

Perhaps a reconfiguration of a TO in a fancy wood cabinet? :scratch2:
Do any of your TOs have a similar tube complement?

jr

No, the tube compliment of this set is different and smaller than the loctal TOs. Fewer bands too. This chassis was probably based on an existing octal farm set design and they added AC power capability and an antenna to spice it up.

At some point I need to set up a display shelf for my TOs. They're mostly burried 1-2 sets deep on deep shelves in the basement as I started collecting them after my display room filled, and decided leatherette was less sensitive to storage conditions than wood...

It looks like the battery pack has a 9 volt "A" section, instead of a 11/2 volt section as used in the earlier sets. The battery pack is probably the one specified for the big luggable portables. :scratch2: