Atwater Kent Model 43 "coffin style" find.

[Tubejunke]

I walked into an antique store the other day and see what I recognize as a 1920s table top speaker with the wires going into this strange looking box that looks like a child's coffin. I took the lid off of the box and there like new money are all these shiny old "big pin" and "globe" tubes. Too bad I think; another farm radio or DC battery type that I always skip over.

Then I notice an AC power cord. Did someone wire in a plug to one of the A or B connecting wires? I've seen that before! Finally I could see enough to know that there was a transformer and a #80 rectifier tube. Indeed the radio was an AC/DC set. Wow! I normally cut off my collecting years in the 30s when superheterodyne AC/DC sets had become the norm & thus know very little about the early T.R.F. stuff, so I was caught off guard on this, but pleasantly surprised.

The man running the store said that the radio worked, but he said we would have to take it outside in order to pick up a station. It took both of us to move the amazingly heavy set! We ended up plugging it in and weren't able to receive a station. A point in my favor for talking them down on the $75 price tag. I was happy just seeing the set come on with a working power supply and audio section with nothing getting hot except a ballast resistor in there. The dial only went from 0 to 100 cycles, but I found out that 100 is actually 1Khz. The set is SUPER clean with all cloth wiring like new, paper labels intact on the chassis, and what I assume to be original paint on the metal body.

Got it home and was able to clearly pick up one station. It doesn't seem to even faintly pick up anything else. It's the preaching and gospel music station which is OK, but gets a bit old. I wonder if there is a way I can rig up a converter via another radio sort of like the FM converters worked in car radios. FM would be great, but I would settle for more AM selections.

So there you have it. If anyone has any thoughts, comments and/or suggestions; please let me know. Oh, and I was able to talk them down to $60. I think it has to be worth that.. What comes around really does go around I think. A few years ago I more less gave away an AK model 20 with the matching speaker horn. It needed a proper home

[rca2000]

I have always called those "bread box" radios myself...

[Tubejunke]

Originally Posted by rca2000

I have always called those "bread box" radios myself...

I have heard the older type called "bread board" but all material I have seen so far on these refers to them as "coffin style." A guy on the AK forum where I put another copy of this thread said that coffin style was what the old techs called them. The thing really is reminiscent of a bread box though more than anything. Maybe a sea chest. Who knows? It's just interesting...

[jr_tech]

Have you connected it to any sort of antenna? Even a 5 to 20 foot length of wire should help considerably.

Note: the 0-100 scale relates to the % that the variable capacitors are "closed"... The tuning range should be the standard AM broadcast band, with the higher frequency stations likely appearing near the "0%" end, and tuning to the lower frequency stations as the capacitors are fully meshed (100%).

EDIT add : If you are hearing the religious station at the dial position shown in the photo (20%) it would be near the high frequency end of the dial... possibly WFIC 1530 kHz in Collinsville.

jr

[drcarter59]

Nice radio. First bread box is the common name for these. Coffin style is longer and has a hinge lid. The breadboard style is just a flat board that the components were attached to and are the earliest style. Second try a much longer wire for an antenna and a good earth ground. For more info check out this site; http://www.atwaterkent.info/ They have a lot of good info on Atwater Kent radios.

[Tubejunke]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

Have you connected it to any sort of antenna? Even a 5 to 20 foot length of wire should help considerably. If you are hearing the religious station at the dial position shown in the photo (20%) it would be near the high frequency end of the dial... possibly WFIC 1530 kHz in Collinsville. jr

Yes, I have tried a 8 ft length of wire, a UHF "bowtie", and from an old Zenith Transoceanic 500 radio I robbed the Wave-Magnet as well as the telescopic antenna. None of these had any effect unless my body was in contact except the Zenith antennas. The Wave-Magnet only had some response, but the same sets large telescopic gave me an acceptable result. The result being a surprise to me as telescopic antennas are more suitable for lower bandwidth/higher frequency applications like F.M. transmission. A coil of wire is normally more suited to A.M. reception in theory at least.

You hit the nail on the head with length. An Atwater-Kent service bulletin I have recommends quite a bit of wire and use of an earth ground, If training memory serves me right, an AM antenna is supposed to be arranged in loops or coils, but no mention of anything like that in the bulletin. I have a 30s Silvertone cathedral in which someone ran a bunch of turns of copper around a cardboard form as a homemade antenna. Maybe I will try that one out.

As it stands I only pick up the one station out of Eden, NC or perhaps Reidsville. These would be in closer proximity to my home in Ridgeway, VA than WFIC at around 25 miles distance.

[Username1]

That is a tuned rf radio. You need to check to see that when you tune the dial
each tuning capacitor is moving, and that they are in some type of alignment.
Rough alignment might be as simple as seeing if they are all in sync through
the entire range of the dial.... Then check with a signal, and a scope at each
stage to be sure each is tuned to the same frequency when the dial is at
that point.....

Looks like a really cool radio ! I'm sure you are going to have to also put up a
good antenna for that set to work well.... Good luck !
Keep up the postings, I'm interested in seeing how it goes.....

Pretty much what jr tech said....

.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

You hit the nail on the head with length. An Atwater-Kent service bulletin I have recommends quite a bit of wire and use of an earth ground, If training memory serves me right, an AM antenna is supposed to be arranged in loops or coils, but no mention of anything like that in the bulletin.

These old TRF sets do not have the high gain that more modern superhet sets do... you need a length of wire stretched out (not in a little coil) to do the job. 20 ft of wire stretched across the room is a start, but 100 feet is better! A good ground is also necessary for optimum performance. Remember, we are dealing with long wavelengths here, the middle of the AM broadcast band is 300 meters wavelength contrasted to the FM band which is about 3 meters. Your little UHF bowtie is designed for even shorter wavelengths ( 60 centimeters or so)... not much help for the AM radio band.

jr

[Username1]

Originally Posted by jr_tech

These old TRF sets do not have the high gain that more modern superhet sets do... you need a length of wire stretched out (not in a little coil) to do the job. 20 ft of wire stretched across the room is a start, but 100 feet is better! A good ground is also necessary for optimum performance. Remember, we are dealing with long wavelengths here, the middle of the AM broadcast band is 300 meters wavelength contrasted to the FM band which is about 3 meters. Your little UHF bowtie is designed for even shorter wavelengths ( 60 centimeters or so)... not much help for the AM radio band.

jr

Yup !

I got an old SC 60, Super Het. but still works like a champ with a good
ground, and a good long antenna wire..... I had 120 feet and wow it
pulled in good am and the sw was just amazing....

.

[Electronic M]

I've got an AK 40 that I use with an RCA 100-A speaker (better volume and power than the AK units I've tried).
These are finicky and interesting beasts having strong tubes is important for decent reception...Heck you can even change sensitivity by shuffling the type 26 RF and AF tubes. The gain is low and there is NO AGC so RF signal strength translates directly to audio gain, and weak signals will have very little volume (medium ones ain't much better). One trick with these is to loosen the set screws on the end pulleys with a station tuned and adjust the tuning condensers for best volume so the caps track each other better. You will need a long wire to get any stations that are not local and or nearish 50KW flamethrowers. I use a air core loop out of a 40's knight radio as an antenna for mine, and it only gets the local Milwaukee stations with decent volume. I can get the Chicago flamethrowers but with rather weak volume. Your set could probably benefit from new coupling caps and a check of resistors on the tuner chassis.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

I use a air core loop out of a 40's knight radio as an antenna for mine, and it only gets the local Milwaukee stations with decent volume. I can get the Chicago flamethrowers but with rather weak volume.

You are fortunate to be near enough to some big city "flamethrowers" that a small loop will work on an AK-40. The area around Ridgeway VA is *not* covered with strong signals (most of the closer ones are 5KW or less). I sometimes use 4.5 foot tuned outdoor loop for AM DXing with an Icom 8500 communications receiver. Although signal strength is much lower than that obtained with a 100 foot "longwire", noise is reduced considerably *and* it can be rotated to *null out* interfering stations
http://www.videokarma.org/attachment...8&d=1280607318

jr

Ridgeway AM :

http://radio-locator.com/cgi-bin/loc...sort=freq&sid=


.

[Reece]

As stated, these sets were intended to work with long, straight wire antennas, preferably outdoor. Barring that, as long a wire as possible indoors stretched around the room will work some. Loops and telescoping antennas just look like a short wire to a radio like this. It needs length and stretched out, not coiled up in any way. Recall that AM DX signals improve at night. Also a ground connection is important for them. By the way, this is an AC radio, intended to work on Alternating Current only. Some later transformerless radios were called AC/DC, because they could be plugged into either Alternating or Direct Current. There were places particularly in large cities where some sections had DC. I don't think there is any of that left now, the whole country being on AC.

[Jeffhs]

That AK model 43 would probably get only one station out here where I live, in northeastern Ohio, unless a really good antenna were used. That station is a 1kW days/0.5kW nights talk station on 1460 kHz. I am about 30 miles east of Cleveland and some ten-fifteen miles further than that from most of the Cleveland radio stations, all of which have their towers located west of town.

That this AK radio does not have AGC doesn't help matters much, either, at least in weak signal areas. It would probably receive the "local" station here with decent volume during the day, but when the station cuts its output power in half after dark, I doubt if it could be heard unless the volume were turned up as high as it will go, and even then I wouldn't count on hearing much of anything. The 50kW stations from Cleveland wouldn't produce room-filling volume from this set either, because of the distance (about 35-40 miles) from the towers and the fact that some of the 5kW stations cut their power output and/or have directional signal patterns at night. You probably wouldn't hear smaller stations (under 5kW) at all on this radio unless you had a really good antenna.

I am convinced that those early Atwater Kent radios were designed and built for strong-signal areas, not more than ten miles from the nearest station(s). This probably wasn't a problem when these sets were new, as radio itself was in its infancy in the '20s-'30s and there weren't that many radio stations in those days, anyway. Those stations that were on the air at the time had no more than 100 watts of power or so; the big 50kW ones didn't appear until the '40s or '50s, with the notable exception of WLW in Cincinnati, which had a 500kW(!) transmitter in the mid-1930s. I bet anyone in Cincinnati with an AK model 43 probably could hear that station (and little or nothing else) with room-filling volume--and then some. That 500kW signal would swamp a TRF radio in no time flat. Of course, with that much power, who even needed a radio to hear it? I've read reports of people having heard WLW on bedsprings, on the burner coils of electric stoves, etc. until the FCC stepped in and declared a 50kW maximum output power limit for all U. S. AM radio stations. For folks living on farms near the station's towers in their 500-kW days, "seven hundred WLW" was the only station in town.

BTW, the 50kW rule apparently does not apply to radio stations outside the US, especially those near the border of Arizona and Mexico, some of which run as much power today as WLW was belting out in the '30s.

[jr_tech]

On the other hand, DXing was a fairly common activity with these old TRF sets. My parents grew up in the midwest (Nebraska) on farms in the 20s, and both related childhood memories of evening listening to stations across the country from New York (early in the evening) to Los Angeles (later in the evening). THE SECRET; BIG LONG ANTENNAS, stretching to barns and other out-buildings 200 to 300 feet from the house, as well as a good water-pipe ground. The evening news *was* actually "live from NY" and "live from Chicago", "live from Denver" and "live from Los Angeles" most every evening (if there were no thunderstorms). Fun times for early radio listeners.

jr

[Sandy G]

Yeah, I have the "Double 1st Cousin" to this set, & they LOVE BIG, LONG, HIGH-UP antennas. Give it what it wants, & it'll likely pleasantly surprise you. ESPECIALLY this winter.