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View Poll Results: Are you still interested in antique radios?
Yes!!! I'm more of a radio guy than a TV guy. 8 9.88%
Not really, they bore me. 6 7.41%
I enjoy vintage radios and TVs equally. 47 58.02%
A few maybe, but by and large I'm more of a TV guy. 20 24.69%
Voters: 81. You may not vote on this poll

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  #1  
Old 08-23-2016, 09:38 AM
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Kamakiri Kamakiri is offline
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A member poll: do TV collectors find radios boring?

Got to thinking about this today.

I used to be a radio guy through and through...TVs were too complicated to bother with. Then, in the mid 1990s, I caught the TV bug and radios seemed very limited in scope and electronically uninteresting.

Now, don't get me wrong....I do love the few radios I have and am not bashing anyone who has a love for them. I'm just curious if, by and large, most TV collectors have much interest in the antique radio end of the hobby still?

Let's discuss
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  #2  
Old 08-23-2016, 10:36 AM
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Yes. My interest began with tube audio equipment though, then I got
Into radios, and finally TV. I still like all three subjects. In the 90s i was really Into designing and building tube Hi-fi amplifiers, probably 90% of my ideas never actually got built but at the time I really enjoyed doing calculations and drawing schematics. My RCA tube manuals have a huge amount of wear from all those exercises!

I prefer to repair and use things versus collect though, although collecting ends up happening. Main problem with radios these days is our last good AM music station switched to FM only a couple years ago, and I don't really like talk radio or religious stations or sports radio.
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Old 08-23-2016, 11:54 AM
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I started with radios (I accumulated all sorts of things some accidentally some as passing fancies) as my first serious, continuous, lasting hobby and still like to collect and restore radios. Yeah, some do bore me....How many AA5s can you restore till you start to be able to smash a few and build a new one from the remains on memory of the schematic/start sleep-restoring them. But for every cookie cutter AA5 there is an AA5 with a cool enough cabinet to merit doing the trained-monkey-ready restore or a non-AA5 with some clever or unorthodox circuit that really feeds my inner tube-gear-nerd....Case in point I just restored a Silvertone model 1954 tombstone that uses a combination of Fat-pin tubes and WEIRD early metal shell octals, and as a cherry on top the volume control is a pair of coils that are mechanically moved in relation to each other to control the volume (I really need to see the schematic to sate my curiosity).

Radios did start to loose challenge and mystery to me, which is when I got into TVs, and those gave me all I could ask for and more for a while. I'm better and don't get as much challenge now, but TVs by nature make you keep using your head for repairs.

I'm starting to get to the point of scratch building things (like audio equipment) now. It used to be I lacked the math and understanding to make much of anything that worked or was useful, and preferred to fix equipment with good designs and tech info, but now that I can design from scratch that can be fun too (though sometimes frustrating).
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  #4  
Old 08-23-2016, 12:10 PM
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dtvmcdonald dtvmcdonald is offline
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I'm a restorer of complex or "first" or oddball things. With the
exception of something like a Sparton Blue Sled radio, I'm not
really into cabinets, though Art Deco is a big big plus in anything.

I really care to make something work as well as possible, and
compare them. I see no reason to have many sets with very similar
circuits.
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  #5  
Old 08-23-2016, 12:18 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
....Case in point I just restored a Silvertone model 1954 tombstone that uses a combination of Fat-pin tubes and WEIRD early metal shell octals, and as a cherry on top the volume control is a pair of coils that are mechanically moved in relation to each other to control the volume (I really need to see the schematic to sate my curiosity).

.
Uh ... its on Nostalgiaair and it REALLY IS WEIRD

its also 175 kHz

I WANT ONE!
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  #6  
Old 08-23-2016, 12:36 PM
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One way TV sets are more interesting is the fact that while so many radios had the same layout, coverage, and performance, for decades, TV was always evolving. I don't think that there was ever an "All-American Twelve" TV where so many sets were alike.

That being said, there's one branch of radios that I spend a lot of time with: Vacuum tube portables. I was unaware of their existence until I was about 20, and I was impressed with the tonality of many of them, along with the fact that they are less likely to have RF overload issues than many transistor radios I've used.

Being portable, I can carry them to where there is not too much RF noise and I can enjoy listening to the radio.

A Zenith H500 playing Brazilian country music makes for an interesting conversation piece on the beach.
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Old 08-23-2016, 12:52 PM
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The only radios I have are in console units that also contain televisions. I know a few other television collectors like myself that have zero interest in radios, but I think we may be in the minority.
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  #8  
Old 08-23-2016, 02:05 PM
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I think Radio and TV are both historically interesting in their own right. What I find boring(on both technologies) are the mundane tasks of the restoration, like changing thousands of capacitors, or refinishing dozens of cabinets. What I really enjoy is studying the schematic and trouble shooting. So my collecting is done more so out of a curiosity of the technology than it is about amassing a large number of operational sets. I also enjoy seeing sets that other collectors are working on, which means one less set I need to drag home for my up close personal inspection.
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  #9  
Old 08-23-2016, 06:02 PM
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I got my first antique radio in winter of 2013. It was a Philco 41-231, which I'm sure some of you will remember, I attempted to do a full recap but ended up doing way more damage. After that incident, I hated radios, and I hated the though of working on them, but I still wanted to experience the joy that the old Philco once brought me. So I set out on a quest to get as many antique radios as possible in efforts to get that joy back. But on August 27, 2014, I found a Philco 42-327, and it changed my life. I became fascinated with radios once again, and since then, I have learned an inconceivable amount of information, from going to the radio club and from you guys. Time went on, the Philco kept on playing, and I started finding more radios. By this time, they were pretty much coming out of the woodwork. Then, on July 20, 2015, my life changed again when we got cable TV. All I had was my 1989 Zenith 19", and I decided "I WANT a roundie console TV." Time went on, and I found no roundie, so I settled for my 1979 Quasar that I cleaned up. Then, on January 20 2016, I got my first console TV. And my story has to end there because supper is ready...
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Old 08-23-2016, 06:18 PM
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Not so much the Radios, but what's on the Radio that bores me.
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  #11  
Old 08-23-2016, 06:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TUD1 View Post
All I had was my 1989 Zenith 19", and I decided "I WANT a roundie console TV." Time went on, and I found no roundie, so I settled for my 1979 Quasar that I cleaned up. Then, on January 20 2016, I got my first console TV. And my story has to end there because supper is ready...
Seems kinda arbitrary to let dinner end your collecting hobby...
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Old 08-23-2016, 07:12 PM
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I used to enjoy television before DTV. My forte is DX and with DTV DX is nearly useless. I swung back around to my old AM DX habit. With 15 stations running the same program, it's become much more difficult but there's still "gold to mine" just much, much harder!
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  #13  
Old 08-23-2016, 08:47 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
I started with radios (I accumulated all sorts of things some accidentally some as passing fancies) as my first serious, continuous, lasting hobby and still like to collect and restore radios. Yeah, some do bore me....How many AA5s can you restore till you start to be able to smash a few and build a new one from the remains on memory of the schematic/start sleep-restoring them. But for every cookie cutter AA5 there is an AA5 with a cool enough cabinet to merit doing the trained-monkey-ready restore or a non-AA5 with some clever or unorthodox circuit that really feeds my inner tube-gear-nerd....Case in point I just restored a Silvertone model 1954 tombstone that uses a combination of Fat-pin tubes and WEIRD early metal shell octals, and as a cherry on top the volume control is a pair of coils that are mechanically moved in relation to each other to control the volume (I really need to see the schematic to sate my curiosity).

Radios did start to loose challenge and mystery to me, which is when I got into TVs, and those gave me all I could ask for and more for a while. I'm better and don't get as much challenge now, but TVs by nature make you keep using your head for repairs.

I'm starting to get to the point of scratch building things (like audio equipment) now. It used to be I lacked the math and understanding to make much of anything that worked or was useful, and preferred to fix equipment with good designs and tech info, but now that I can design from scratch that can be fun too (though sometimes frustrating).
You have one of those things as well!
The main reason, I bought it was the novel volume control circuit. Most of the tubes were missing and the cabinet is missing some veneer. I did get it going, but it needs restoring and Aligning.
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  #14  
Old 08-23-2016, 08:59 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Electronic M View Post
Seems kinda arbitrary to let dinner end your collecting hobby...
LOL! As I was saying (I forgot to repost - instead I did convergence on my 1976 Zenith CCII) When I started getting into TV's for real around October last year, I became enamored by all the videos on Youtube. Most notably, Shango066 videos, and Drh4683 videos. I've seen 'em all. In that, I learned a wealth of knowledge which prepared me for my first ever tube TV (my avatar) that I got from my good friend Danny, whom I met back in December of 2015. At the present day, I'm eagerly awaiting my first Roundie, which is a 1963 Admiral Combination. Danny found it at an estate sale back in May.
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  #15  
Old 08-23-2016, 09:08 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dieseljeep View Post
You have one of those things as well!
The main reason, I bought it was the novel volume control circuit. Most of the tubes were missing and the cabinet is missing some veneer. I did get it going, but it needs restoring and Aligning.
I got it for $45 at the last WARCI meet. Mine is near perfect see pic, and has seemingly all it's original tubes*. Some of which are REAL odd early shouldered envelope metal types the likes of which I'd never seen before. I bought it because in the early years a console with the same dial (which I like the look of) slipped through my fingers, and this was a chance to have "the one that got away" in a nicer package.

*So when I found a P-K short in the 84 (proto 6X5) rectifier I got creative, and added diodes under chassis, cut the tips off the P and K pins and slipped spaghetti between the envelope through leads and the inside of the hollow pins...The heater is still connected, original tube in socket looking correct from topside, but no more pesky P-K short.

DSCN1992 by Tom Carlson, on Flickr
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