Atwater Kent Model 20 No. 7570

[Winky Dink]

I like Atwater Kent TRF sets. The electronics are simple, the restorations are straightforward, and they're very attractive (to me). My oldest is a Model 30--a one-dial, battery, tabletop set.
Looking for something unique, I found a promising three-dial set on eBay for a reasonable price.



The set had a full set of five UX '01A tubes, of which three tested good. The only thing missing was a metal collar for the antenna hole in the back of the cabinet.

After pulling the chassis, I found two wire-wound grid resistors open, one AF transformer open, and the single bypass condenser open. I managed to repair the resistors, found an AF transformer replacement in a box of spare parts, and the single bypass was a paper condenser that I would have rebuilt anyway. Beyond that, all components were reasonably close to the original specifications. I have a Flickr album showing details of the restoration: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmov3ZfS


I finished restoring the chassis.




The first time I powered it up I could only find one station, but I could get that signal anywhere on the dial. The next day I tried again after switching some tubes and realigning the dials, and I could get a couple more stations. On my third try I started to get the hang of it--juggling two filament rheostats and the three tuning dials I could find all the local stations which I usually receive, but it takes a lot of adjustments to get decent audio quality.

I'm moving on to cabinet restoration, but I'd appreciate any suggestions on the electronics to make the radio even more wonderful that it is now. These are my current parts values and the voltage readings from the first time I powered up.



Thanks for looking,
Henry.