Airline model 62-377 tele-dial farm radio from '37
 

This is my latest flea market find, a '37 Airline "farm" battery operated tele-dial radio. Unfortunately, the cabinet has some problems and it's missing two knobs; but, I'm sure it can all be fixed. This is a seven tube radio, with four of the tubes being in the audio circuit and this radio receives SW, as well as standard AM. The three voltages required are 2 volts for the filament, 6 volts for the bias, and 90 volts for the B+. I think this was actually made by Belmont or Wells-Gardner; but, I could be wrong.

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...airline003.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...rline001-1.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...rline002-1.jpg

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...airline004.jpg

Oops, I stuck this in the wrong place. Could someone please move it to the antique radio section? That's what I get for posting something when I'm sleepy.

That's definately a Wells-Gardner sourced set.
For a set that was privately labeled, It's very impressive. Chassis, tube shields and IF transformers are brown crackle painted.
The W-G's are some of the best radios in my collection.

Wards was kinda fussy, even had chrome-plated chassis on some.

Maybe they were fussy about the chassis, but some of their cabinets were just plain ugly. I have the model 63-177, which is an
early chassis that used some metal tubes.
There's a picture of it in Shorpy's. Don't remember which page.

Sure thing!

I all but did a double take when I saw that radio's tiny chassis in a large cabinet, not unlike the 1990s Zenith TVs with their small chassis in a huge console cabinet. Didn't realize radio manufacturers were doing that as early as 1937. Perhaps that's where Zenith may have gotten the idea for its 1990s "last gasp" CRT TVs, with all that air space in the cabinet and a ridiculously small PC board chassis.

No, wait a minute. That Wards Airline radio is a farm radio, which means it is a battery set originally designed for use in rural areas not yet wired for electricity. The extra space in the cabinet is for the three batteries it uses, with the 90-volt B battery probably being the largest; that accounts for all the empty space to the right of the small chassis, looking at the radio from the back.

Yep, they were designed that way on purpose in order to have a place to hide the batteries, since the lady of the house would probably not tolerate visible batteries. Since these battery radios did not use a power transformer, rectifier tube; and, in many cases, top mounted filter capacitors, they were able to make a smaller chassis. Also, take note that many of the farm radios had bigger cabinets than an AC radio.