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#1
04-21-2010, 10:26 PM
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Weekend pickups!
Got these at an auction this weekend. Grand total, $17.50. I spent another $15 just on an Atwater-Kent horn with no driver (not pictured).
GE J-83 (built by RCA). It has a bit of veneer damage on one side and some scratches, but is in overall nice shape. The white wire coming out of the middle has a factory-installed tag that says "Ground" - does anyone know what the black wire next to it is for?     Electrope. I have no idea who made this. The antenna coil is just laying loose on the chassis. The tuning capacitor is currently frozen, that will take a bit of work to fix. I have the other knob, but it's currently sitting on my dining-room table. Anyone know anything about it?     The tube sockets are all marked for Cunningham CX-xxx series tubes, but it has the old two-digit globe types installed. Utah speaker, might be an A-100? Copper-oxide rectifier for the field coil wiring. Do they go bad like selenium rectifiers?    Anyone know where I could find an Atwater-Kent driver with no horn or a cone for the Utah?
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Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying, And dying to me dont sound like all that much fun... -John Mellencamp 
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#2
04-22-2010, 01:08 AM
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Wow, you got some good deals
 Lots of nice old globe tubes.The red paint on the GE is wild. Sorry, never heard of Electrope. Looks like quite a challenge to bring it back to life. I suppose you could repair that Utah cone like I did for my WR8. Until you find the proper cone anyway.
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#3
04-22-2010, 02:17 AM
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Great deal. If you decide to tackle that Electrope you might have the last one left!
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#4
04-22-2010, 08:23 AM
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That Utah is a fine example of an early big honkin' electrodynamic speaker and it ought to be restored. I believe the copper oxide rectifiers are pretty reliable. First order of business would be to determine if the field coil and the voice coil are OK and not shorted or open, and that the voice coil is not rubbing on the pole piece. You could send it to Hank Brazeal for a professional reconing:
(205) 403 6243, E-mail [email protected] Or you could try to recone it yourself with one from Mat Electronics. http://matelectronics.com/acatalog/M...ories_208.html Don't know if the cones they have would have the same depth as the Utah's. Might take some cutting and fitting. What some have done is to use a piece of the new cone to repair the old, or cut the old cone out except for an inch or so around the voice coil and then cut and fit the new cone to glue there. BTW I don't think the red paint inside the G.E. was original!
__________________
Reece Perfection is hard to reach with a screwdriver.
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#5
04-22-2010, 08:49 AM
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__________________
Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying, And dying to me dont sound like all that much fun... -John Mellencamp
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#6
04-22-2010, 10:53 AM
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Red paint: well that's a new one on me!
Speaker size: so not so big, but some of the first ones, like in the RCA RE line of sets, early ED speakers, were only about 9" or so IIRC, but sounded so good and so loud compared to what was available before (horn speakers and pin-drive cones) that the sets sold like hotcakes, in spite of their price.
__________________
Reece Perfection is hard to reach with a screwdriver.
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#7
04-22-2010, 01:04 PM
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Re the J-83's black wire: perhaps it's for the antenna. I don't see any other antenna connections on the back.
Even though the red paint was an attention getter, what I found really nifty about that set was the indentation in the left side of the case to make room for the globe tubes. It's those little details I find fascinating.
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#8
04-22-2010, 01:10 PM
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#9
04-23-2010, 02:47 PM
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I'll bet that indentation was a way of fixing an "oops!" when they hadn't allwed for the tube dimension but the cabinets were already made.
__________________
Reece Perfection is hard to reach with a screwdriver.
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#10
04-23-2010, 06:12 PM
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With the exception of that large coil and small transformer in the front-left corner of the cabinet, that "Electrope" looks exactly like my Apex model 36 Neutrodyne set. Maybe yours is a short-wave version of that. I will try to post pictures later.
--Bob
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#11
04-23-2010, 10:19 PM
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__________________
Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying, And dying to me dont sound like all that much fun... -John Mellencamp
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#12
04-25-2010, 08:34 PM
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Both coils on the Utah are OK, but all of the wiring is somewhere beyond shot. I'm going to have to take the bell off of the transformer to run new wires inside of it.
That extra transformer on the Electrope/Apex is attached firmly and has wires running under the chassis. I still haven't pulled the chassis out of the box.
__________________
Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying, And dying to me dont sound like all that much fun... -John Mellencamp
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#13
04-25-2010, 09:25 PM
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These radios pre-dated electrodynamic speakers, there should be a pair of jacks off near the left side of the chassis (again, underneath that large unrelated coil). You could plug in headphones or a horn speaker, or a pin-drive cone speaker. I have a nice Rola-cone that I will use with mine, once I repair it (broken drive pin). FYI, the schematic is available at Nostalgia-Air, but it's under the "US Radio and Television" heading (which is what Apex became shortly after this model). --Bob
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#14
04-25-2010, 10:21 PM
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The large hump is there, as well as the speaker jacks. The data plate I've seen in other Apex 36 photos isn't. Would it work with a self-energized electrodynamic speaker? Any idea what that AC socket is for? Also, do you have any suggestions on freeing up the rusted gear mechanism in the tuning system? I don't want to mess up the varicap.
__________________
Growing up leads to growing old and then to dying, And dying to me dont sound like all that much fun... -John Mellencamp
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#15
04-26-2010, 12:08 AM
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Ooh, I didn't think of a self-energized electrodynamic...I suppose if the impedance is in the ball-park you'd be good to go. Perhaps, as you theorized earlier, that is what the AC Socket was added for.
By the way, it's cool that yours has all "S" envelope tubes. Mine had a full set of Philco "S" envelope tubes (with paper stickers) except for the 227 detector. I found an RCA globe 227 in my stash of tubes so it would have a complete lineup. Mine had already been restored by the previous owner (RIP, it was from an estate sale), but I pulled all the tubes out for cleaning and testing, before reading about Neutrodyne sets and that the tubes were "neutralized" for their particular sockets. I need to re-neutralize it now, as it howls terribly at one end of the dial. I've made a neutralizing tube-socket adapter, just need to sit in front of it and do some methodical twiddling. As for the rusted tuner, I would just be dribbling a couple drops of Liquid Wrench on the shaft where it goes through the frame, probably several times over the course of several days. Let it soak in. Be patient and gentle, I think it should be able to be freed up with penetrating oil and care. At least we are not dealing with pot-metal! Oh, and mine has a sheet-metal panel for a shield between the rectifier and the rest of the tubes. I'm still looking on various computers for those pictures I took... One thing I notice about yours that is different is that it has frequency markings on the dial. Mine just has the typical 1 - 100 logging numbers. That has to be an early implementation of that type of nomenclature...I wonder if it was a retrofit? Any way, have fun, this particular type of radio was only around on the market for a couple of years, things were changing so fast. --Bob Last edited by Bob E.; 04-26-2010 at 12:11 AM.
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