Woo Hoo! 1939 Majestic 130 Portable Radio

[batterymaker]

This one's been another of those ten-year journeys.

I got this radio over ten years ago. I asked the seller where he found it.

He said it was from Robert Young's estate...

Can't prove it, but I can't imagine why he'd make that up, especially after the sale.

Anywhoo, got the radio--and found that Mr. Young had left the batteries inside.

Found a prewar graphic Eveready 467 battery inside, nearly new...
Also found a hearing aid LT battery--and it had leaked all over the place....

On top of that, I tried recapping the set, and promptly screwed it up!

So, I set it aside until I had the patience to sort it out.

This is a three-tube superhet--the smallest one that could be built in 1939 using octal tubes.

I decided since there were so many problems with the radio, I would tear it completely down and rewire it like a kit.

Here are the results. There were a few glitches--part of it is from the fact that it's a crammed chassis, and there were a few pins touching where they shouldn't have. Once I sorted that out, the set began to play, albeit weakly. Turned out one of the antenna lines had a break in it, deep within the loop...

Fortunately, I had a parts radio with an intact loop. I had to CAREFULLY peel back the leatherette, remove the loop and installed the good one.

Then it played up a storm!

It motorboats on the low end of the dial, bur for now, I'm going to leave that alone.

After ten years, I could hear a Majestic 130 play.

It's running on a 467 HT battery and a D cell for the filaments. I'm going to be building the proper-style batteries for this set shortly....

Chassis pix are from the donor set--wired when I was younger and more stupid....

Video added:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhrNX9HVt5o