For a while now I have been thinking of getting an old radio and restoring it back to life. The reasons are because I love the look of old radios, it would be a fun electronics project, and a good excuse to learn how more about how radio broadcasting works.
I finally took the plunge a few weeks ago and bought an old Philco 80 Jr from eBay. The radio is in great physical condition, especially for a radio made in 1933:
The internals also looked good (the seller made it clear that the radio was not plugged in and may or may not work upon arrival):
Upon closer inspection, the radio had a number of issues:
- It is missing two tubes: the power pentode (tube 42) and the full-wave rectifier (tube 80).
- The cap connector on one of the oscillators (tube 36) was detached and had come off.
- It had no power plug, and there were two strange wires coming out of the back of the radio.
You can see the real state of radio from this photo I took from my workbench (notice the missing tube sockets, and the broken cap):
Before getting the radio, I'd done some high-level reading about how to restore an old radio, in particular Phil's excellent guide, so I knew roughly what to expect, in particular not to plug it in until I can run a few tests.
One of the things I find amazing about such old radios (besides the fact that they're 80 years old) is the fact that this particular radio may well have played broadcasts from WW2, from the lunar landing, and other momentous times in history. I think there is something incredibly cool about that.
This post will be the first in a series that will document how I'm going to restore this old radio and what I learn along the way. Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I will enjoy writing about it!
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