Do you still use tube radios in (almost) everyday use?
 

Do you still use tube (valve) radios in (almost) everyday use?

I use a tube radio and a tube stereo amplifier pretty much every day.

Greg B

:D How bout one that's in ALL day use, 24 hours a day, every day of the week, for a whole bunch of years now ......

This Hallicrafters S-38D has been running in my workshop literally for years nonstop. I keep it always on because the constantly changing sounds of the AM news station I have it tuned to keeps the mice out. It even runs during power outages because my backup generator runs the workshop as well as my house.

This radio has survived the 20 or so year run just fine, with no mice to be seen :thmbsp:

I don't listen to the radio that regularly (except when I had a job the first 8 months of the pandemic). During the thick of the pandemic I used the AM radio portion of an RCA 8TR29 a lot since it isn't plagued by AM band noise the way my AIWA solid state bench stereo is.

I've got a green 40s silvertone that was my first recap and a tube Zenith AM/FM stereo table radio that are probably among my more often used tube radios.

The tube device that probably gets the most hours is my homemade output-transformer-less surround sound amplifier. I built that in 2013 and it has been used usually more than an hour a day every day I'm home, often more than 4 hours a day, and a few times has been accidentally left on roughly for 36 hours straight.

Some of my tube TVs used to get comparable run time to the amp but the air-conditioning vent to my room is lousy and I use my HD CRT set more than my all tube sets these days.

You bet your bippy! Philco 1936 Model 116-122 in a tombstone cabinet. It whips the llama's ass! 11 glowing tubes with 6A3 output valves.

Yeppers. I have two Telefunkens, one at least is used pretty much every day. And a Collins KWM-2 for ham stuff, use that at least once a week. And two HF amplifiers, both with tube finals.

:worthless

I start from one end of my collection and work though to the other end almost every day. I play each one about an hour. I make a cup of green tea after dinner, kick back, and listen to a period show through my transmitter, a classic TV show/movie DVD on my TV's, or some great old records on my phono's. It's the same visual and aural thrill as it was for me back when I was a teen. The highlight of my day.

:music: Daily, and when I fix stuff for people its usually a tube set so I need to run them to make sure they're good to go.

Even now, I am listening to an AM station playing Glen Campbell on a 23-tube 1963 Motorola console, one of my AM sets seemingly immune to interference.
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I had a Dynaco FM-3 tuner for my stereo that got replaced with a Dynaco A/F-6 in 1978. Had the guts of a Westinghouse console from 1948 for shortwave and the guts of an early 60's Stromberg Carlson console for AM dxing. the last two got tossed in 1980 and the FM-3 sold it around 2004...

Other than in my vehicles they are all I listen too and almost daily. I rotate them a little.

Models? :)

I use a 1937 Vintage Coronado Model 650A Battery Powered Farm Radio that I listen to off and on over about 6 hours throughout any given day, to listen to oldies stations and conservative talk radio.

It actually does great with DX'ing at night, I was able to pick up an oldies station coming in out of Ontario, Canada with it.

Did you picked up Canada stations on M.W. (B.C.)?

My radio at work is a 1934 Philco 60 small cathedral fully restored about 5 years ago. It runs several days a week all day long. I've forgotten to turn it off many a weekend and long holiday weekend. Just plugs along.

My stereo system in my family room includes a 1962 Fisher X-1000 integrated amp driving a pair of huge Legacy Classics. I use it several times a month.

My formal living room has a 1928 RCA Radiola 62 highboy AM radio that I used to use to listen to baseball games before I gave up the sport two years ago. The Radiola is 100% original other than 4 of the 8 tubes (no recap). Not getting much use anymore. Since the FLR is off the dining room through French doors, it softly plays Christmas music on Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners through an AM broadcaster, but it's semi-retired now.

John

But what kind of capacitors does that 1928 radio haves?

One is a Gavotte , 1063W I think. The other one I am blanking on the model at the moment. It is a little smaller than the Gavotte and has only the lower part of the FM band. I'll look when I am out in the shop.

EDIT: I just remebered! It is a Jubilate!

man, getting old is a bitch...

They are small radios I see. Thought you had bigger ones. Only the low part... like 88-100 M.c.'s (M.Hz.)?
Getting old... well, listeting to a radio that is 55-80 years old is something. And the fact that most thing that can broke on a tube radio can be reapired/replace is something. You don't see it today.

Yeah, they are the smaller ones. I love the styling though and they sound great. I've had a couple of millennials comment on that. Of course, they are used to tiny, tinny speakers. I still need to get the electrostatic tweeters working on the Gavotte.

A friend has a giant Telefunken he wants to give me but it is a basket case. And huge. So far I have resisted temptation...

What did the millenials commented?

Wow! That old radio sounds AMAZING! Plus they think the radios look really cool (they do). Then I put on some vinyl (on my very mediocre stereo) and blow them away!

All they have ever heard is earbuds with an MP3 player or whatever.

It has no electrolytic capacitors at all. Instead, it uses small(ish) paper capacitors and large inductors to bypass the AC power supply (this was one of the first pure AC socket line powered radios sold).

As far as the paper caps go, these caps are not like the ones from the early 30s and beyond: these caps used imported rice paper instead of rag paper. I admittedly don't have a lot of experience with 20s radios, but every cap I've ever checked has tested normally for value and leakage at full rated voltage.

John

Problably in the '30's they wanted to make them cheaper.

I thought they sayed bad words.

You got me wondering, so I did some web "research" on rice paper capacitors and found this on another forum, link to follow:

"Some quality paper condensers are still safe to use, most notably the Stromberg Carlson, Westere Electric manufactured units which were used by, among other firms, the Radio Corporation,, but, and is is a most important caveat, the only units which are truly safe are those made with imported fish and rice papers. This material spiked in price after June 17th, 1930, at which time the new Hawley-Smoot act placed a 600% tarriff on insulating papers. Condensers made after the autumn of 1930 are, I'm afraid, not to be trusted. "

It's not my information and I have no idea if it's accurate, but it's certainly interesting enough to post.

https://antiqueradios.com/forums/vie...p?f=6&t=218820

John

Oh, I rember that tariff. It was imposed during the Great Depresion to protec the U.S.A. made products. Wonder if other countries used rice paper.

YES, BC (MW - AM) band. 740 CFZM in Toronto is a favorite of mine too. 650 WSM in Nashville is also a favorite not as easy to get consistently.

***BUT*** its hard to find music at night on MW, that never stopped us from taking a radio on a camping trip, where no interference can ruin an otherwise open band.

There is no LW (150-350 Mc) in US. I have a few radios with LW for international use (bought in military px?)

SW bands are called KW1, KW2 on some of these sets as well. "UKW" is always FM

Zenith K-725 tabletop, tube radio gets used every morning.
My hifi is solid state for now.
Tube televisions see near daily use. Vacuum tube chassis Zenith, RCA, Sears Silvertone, Magnavox, Admiral, RCA, GE.

I have a Zenith K-731 table model sitting atop my refrigerator. Haven't used it in awhile, but the last time I had it on it sounded and worked great. I also have a Zenith C-845 in my bedroom, atop a chest of drawers, which I haven't used in awhile because I cannot get to the AC outlets in the wall behind the chest (the chest is too heavy for me to move). However, the last time I had the C-845 on, it also worked very well, bringing in stations right and left on AM and FM. It sounded great too, owing to the 2-way speaker system, but I'm not surprised. Those old Zeniths were built to sound great and to last, which is more than I can say for today's gutless-wonder cheap transistor radios with speakers so small it's not funny.

The above speaks volumes for these old Zenith radios. They surely don't make them like that anymore, which is one reason I've held onto my K-731 and C-845 as long as I have; that, and the fact I have liked Zenith radios and TVs for decades.

When I lived in a Cleveland suburb, I had several Zenith televisions, one of which was a 23-inch b&w model K-2739 console with, IIRC, the 16K23 chassis, which worked very well for their ages; unfortunately, when I moved to a small 1-bedroom apartment 21 years ago, I had to give up every one of those sets, but I was able to get the two Zenith radios I mentioned on ebay a few years ago.

:worthless

There is a Heathkit GR-54 that sits above my computer desk. I use it to listen to the local AM station while drinking my coffee in the morning and before I leave for work.

I also have a Zenith K731 but it needs the pots cleaned. Great sounding radio!

On my desk at work. Stewart Warner B61T2, ‘49 model

Nice Pic, Thank You for sharing it :thmbsp:

i recently picked up a 1950 Zenith Trans-Oceanic Model G-500 that I've been using on a regular basis. :thmbsp:

It gets real nice reception.

I have a 1952 (my birth year) Transoceanic H500 that has been refitted almost completely with solid state replacements. Works well but is due an overhaul.

That's cool, I looked up those solid state tubes you were talking about and I wasn't able find anything. I found a lot posts online talking about the Solid State 1L6 tubes but I didn't see anything available online.

Dunno if this site is still good or not - https://www.solidstatetubes.com/index.html

[QUOTE=zenith2134;3235695]Zenith K-725 tabletop, tube radio gets used every morning.
My hifi is solid state for now.
Tube televisions see near daily use. Vacuum tube chassis Zenith, RCA, Sears Silvertone, Magnavox, Admiral, RCA, GE.[/QUOTE

The only tube-type stereo system I ever had was a 1960s Zenith phonograph, which worked very well despite its age and despite the fact it was a trash find in the '80s, IIRC. I also patched a Knight-kit FM tuner into the audio system of my Zenith K-2739 (chassis 16K23, 23-inch) television, by connecting the tuner's audio output across the TV's volume control. It worked as well as I expected it would, since the Zenith TV had a 6BN6-6BQ5 audio system and a 6x9 oval speaker in the cabinet.

I eventually replaced both systems (the TV with the FM tuner and the Zenith phono) with a Zenith IS-4041 4-mode stereo entertainment system in the early 1980s. I moved to a very small apartment in 1999, so had to give up the Zenith system; however, I bought a new (at the time) Aiwa bookshelf stereo (AM-FM, cassette, CD) when I moved here. The system sounds great, probably even better than the Zenith 4-mode system I had at my previous residence, since the Aiwa system has a 4-channel surround-sound audio system (4x50 watts per channel). I don't and have not used the surround speakers, because my apartment is so small (one bedroom) and, again, I cannot run the system loud enough to make 4-channel surround sound worth the effort. To make matters even worse, I am almost deaf in one ear due to a brain injury at birth, so I cannot hear stereo normallly unless I use headphones; even then, I don't notice the stereo effect anywhere nearly as well as I would had I been born with normal hearing in both ears. . . . Oh, well.

There's definitely something there, but the price they want for that solid state 1L6 tube is about as much they want for a NOS 1L6 Tube over at Vacuum Tubes, Inc. Which they have some NOS 1L6 tubes for $35+Shipping last I checked, which was last week, and they want $44+Shipping for the solid state 1L6 tube, so it seems that depending on who you go with the difference comes out in the wash it seems. :scratch2: