Adorable Zenith clock radio - info?

[nasadowsk]

O,k, I'm going to inherit an adorable Zenith clock radio - Model C624 - 6 tubes : 12BA6, 12BE6, 12BA6, 12AV5, 35C5, 35W4. Anyone know the approximate vintage of this sucker? It looks 50's or 60's - I was kinda surprised by the 'conventional' tube layout, since most Zeniths I've seen used bonkers tubes.

I'll try to get pics ASAP. btw, anyone go a scan of the schematic for his thing? It still works *but* it'll need a recap and fixing up - I might decide to use it as a weekend clock radio...

Thanks!

[radiotvnut]

It's from around 1959-60.

[wa2ise]

Most radios using these tubes pretty much used the same schematic.
Though yours has an RF preamp, which should use a 3 gang tuning cap. Thus it will have an extra tube in front of the 12BE6 in the above schematic.

[Sandy G]

With an RF amp like that, it oughta be a reasonably good DX set, especially if you could hook up a nice antenna...

[Tom Bavis]

The schematic is online here: http://techpreservation.dyndns.org/schematics/ (seems to be down right now...). It's also in Sams folder 480-15 - POSSIBLE that I have it...

[Jeffhs]

This has to be one of Zenith's best 1960s clock radios. It should pull in stations like crazy once the chassis is properly overhauled. In addition to the RF amp stage, this also has a shielded antenna, so that noises from auto ignitions, sparks, thunderstorms, etc. will not interfere with reception; it was probably designed this way for use in RF-deprived areas miles away from local radio stations, although it would be a great AM DX set today. The radio probably sold for over $100 when new -- a bit much, IMHO, for a radio that was probably only used a few minutes each morning. Then again, I have a Zenith H480 AM/FM/stereo FM clock radio that sold for close to double that much when it was new in 1980. That set was, IMHO, overdesigned for a clock radio, with stereo and a headphone jack, but that's material for another thread.