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Old 07-15-2015, 01:37 AM
Captainclock Captainclock is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2013
Location: Elkhart, Indiana
Posts: 1,189
I have one of these radios and the one issue I had with mine (which were some of the same concerns as yours) was that the power cord was dry rotted (which is very typical of late 1940s vintage radios that used the early "rubber" cords
and its size and the fact that it had a single speed 78 RPM only record player, but there are a couple of other things you need to be concerned about, this is an AA5 style chassis (with an extra tube thrown in for good measure) which means its a hot chassis design meaning that there's no isolation from 110v AC which means that you have to make sure the unit is unplugged when working on it, otherwise you'll get a severe shock, the other issue is that with mine the Tuner was dead on the spot with no explanation whatsoever as to why it failed and I'm afraid that might be the case with the one you're looking into as well, the record player on this unit uses a crystal cartridge (which albeit it worked on mine surprisingly enough) there's no guarantee that the cartridge will be in working order because Crystal Cartridges were notorious for "dry rotting" over the years which made them non-functional (which was due to the fact that the cartridge's element was made of Roschel Salts which when they got slightly damp they would expand and then dry out and shrink and then crumble to pieces.)

Mine I paid $20 for and even after a full recap and an unsuccessful attempt at replacing the IF Cans the radio still didn't work and the only thing that worked on it was the record player and to be honest I don't even think that the unit is really even worth paying $20 for with as many issues as this particular model can have go wrong with it.

By the way this unit DOESN'T have an RF Section its just a plain old IF circuit, and also it uses a 7w Nightlight bulb for the pilot lamp which is powered off of the AC Line going into the unit so the pilot lamp is a source of electric shock in the radio because its a 110v AC pilot lamp with no isolation of any sort.

So if I were you I would pass on this radio.
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