Got a 1926 Freshman Masterpiece Today...

[Sandy G]

Lauriann & I were bummin' around an antique shop & came upon this ANCIENT radio, a 1926 or so Freshman Masterpiece. One of the tubes-an '01A-has obviously gone to air, but there are several spares included w/the set. Lauriann got me the set for my birthday, which kinda assuages for turning 50 <grin>... Anyhow, anybody here know anything about these REALLY old guys ? I know it takes 2 or 3 kinds of batteries that aren't easily available anymore, & I can check the tubes on my TV-7, but beyond that... Case isn't too bad, but I have an EXCELLENT refinisher here who is also VERY reasonable. It has a speaker integral to itself, everything LOOKS like it oughta work... What sayest y'all ?

[wajobu]

Very cool there Sandy...can you post a photo?

Oh, oh--perhaps this is close enough?

[Sandy G]

Yep, Walker, that's it...Mine don't look ANYWHERE that good, however...But all the tubes are the old "Balloon" style...Hope they check good...I ain't gonna fool w/it til tomorrow though..You don't need to be messin' w/this stuff when you're wore-out...<grin>

[wajobu]

Nice Sandy--what a beauty...it'll look that good in time...I love an old radio or Victrola.

[Sandy G]

Dug a little more into it today. 3 of the 5 01As are good, one I tested as an 01A, it tested fine, but it had no ID. The radio LOOKS like it would work if I had a suitable power supply for it. I think I'm gonna take it & have it refinished, though. I found a tag inside think it was from 1926. This radio prolly wasn't used too long, just judging from the general condition its in. The old battery TRF sets ate batteries up pretty good, people sent them to the attic pretty quickly when AC sets became available in '28-'29. This one's unusual in that it has an integral speaker. Listening to the radio was sort of a PITA back in the day-you had the radio, the smelly, dangerous batteries, you had the speaker, you had the 17.5 miles of aerial, speaker wire, power wires, & then you had to have the finesse of a safecracker to tune one of the dern things, w/their 3 dials. They weren't too sensitive, you picked up the signal, the Model T starting next door, the powerlines, etc, etc....But that was THEIR internet, Ipods, Blackberries, 80 years ago. It was Majick...Hearing voices thru the air from somewhere far, far away...To some of us, hearing an 80 yr old set, it STILL is...

[Chad Hauris]

We have used a regulated power supply kit from www.tubesandmore.com to power these kinds of radios. It comes with a wooden board to build it on but we used a Radio Shack project case for better safety and a more professional appearance.
There is not much to go wrong on these sets...maybe a few mica capacitors and a few resistors.

Back when this was built there would have been so much less sources of RFI...now there are touchlamps, compact fluorescent lamps, computer monitors, etc. Just about every electronic device now has a switching power supply which can radiate RFI.

[tubesrule]

Nice set Sandy. I've had one of these for about 25 years, and they work fairly well. They are considered the Muntz of early radios since they are so simple in design. The integral speaker is very unique and one of the reason I like the set so much.

There are no resistors in the set except for the grid leak detector. This is the part on the right hand side of the board that looks like a fuse. You need to try different values until you get the best results for the detector tube you are using. (typically between 1 and 20 meg) There were adjustable ones made that had a little slider coming out one end that made tweaking it in very simple. You can still find grid leak resistors from places like Play Things of the Past, or ebay, or you can just use a modern rheostat.

The only thing that may give you tropuble are the interstage transformers as they sometimes go bad. These sets are relatively inexpensive so even if that is the case you should be able to get a parts set.

Here's a schematic (for what it's worth): http://www.nostalgiaair.org/Resources/982/M0040982.htm

There are few battery eliminators as already mentioned if you don't want to build one of your own. Another one is the ARBE III.

Enjoy!
Darryl

[Dan Starnes]

That is a neat ole set Sandy, and sure will be fun to listen to when you get it goin. I will catch you at the big 50 in a couple months myself.
Dan