1920's Kit Radio

This 1920's Vintage Set was found in a garage down the street. It has been hanging out on a cabinet for 20 years. Will it come to life?

[alangiles]

I'm speechless - what a fantastic project.

[paulschmolke]

Good walkthrough on getting it up and running...always fun😃

[tstahlfsu]

I've never seen the wires set up like that before -- the hard strands of metal just precisely placed and connected. It's just amazing

[BillyLapTop]

Great explanation of a kit radio. Especially the patent work arounds to avoid legal issues. One can only imagine what was going through the mind of the builder back then. I'm sure they must had been very excited. I can recall the first radio I built with a Gillette Blue blade back in the days when AM was king. I outputted it into a 6V6 mono amp and 8" speaker. I know the mind can play tricks over the ages but it played all the NYC music stations in glorious Hi Fi. I can still feel the bass notes. Pure ether.

Excellent presentation. Thank You.

[walk-tall-hikes]

I definitely enjoyed that look at this radio very much. It's amazing the quality they used back then that this thing fired right up and worked!

[BoBjjjjs]

Amazing bit of kit, oh that's right, it was a kit. :-)) I would have loved to have sat down and put that together, if I had been able to that is. However, I was not around for a long time after that was thought about. Whoever built it made a good job of it. Still in good shape for its age. Surprising the valves/tubes still work after all those years!

[sincerelyyours]

Beautiful old TRF radio! Beautifully constructed and restored, too! Thank you for the excellent explanation of what a "kit radio" was. People often don't realize how expensive early radios were to the average homeowner so some self-sufficient types built their own from parts kits using schematics published in early electronics magazines. My great-grandfather built such a radio and a transmitter back in the 1900s. He was an avid ham operator before there was an FCC or even its predecessor, the FRC (I still have the certificate honoring his entry into the Old-Old Timers Radio Club for which he had to prove he was operating a wireless set before the year 1909). Most people, of course, preferred to buy ready-made radios from neighborhood radio shops who built them with no names to avoid patent limitations or the high taxes imposed on the name-brand models. This was especially popular In Japan just after WWII as shops could then sell the new superhet radios, fully built and at half the price of the name-brands. That drove up demand which helped spark the comeback of their electronics industry.

[terryblackman]

That was well worth watching. Thank you for sharing.

[CB-RADIO-UK]

Really enjoyed the video. Great to learn about these almost 100 year old radios.

[jimgiordano]

A very simple circuit. It works really well, I'm impressed, I might have to try to build a bread board version. Thanks for sharing.

[stephenwilliams]

My "Toledo duck." Is a loose coupler. That had a slider . It was owned by a gentle man ham he told me to take care of it for him. It's mfg date was March 1921. Hard to think 100 year old radio. De kv4li. Ps for several years I've listened to base ball/ foot ball . Still works well for what it is. Thanks for your good show

[xXDJllamapttrXx]

Beautiful radio! I love these old things, I've got an awesome Philco 511. Been looking for the matching speaker for a few years, right now I just use a modern speaker and an impedance matching transformer meant for utilizing large high-impedance horn speakers for communications systems in churches. 73.

[greggaieck]

Mikrowave1 the cabinet of the kit radio Receiver is in good shape I like the darker color it is cool

[Steve-GMHUU]

Brilliant video thanks. I wonder if whoever constructed this set in the 1920s imagined it would still work nearly 100 years later and that it would still be able to receive plenty of AM broadcast stations? The construction methods used back in the early days of radio like this are amazing - works of art. Although a kit radio and of basic design compared to superhet sets that became the standard in the 1930s, this set would have been state of the art in it's day and very expensive.

[julianvalenti]

Hello! Is impressing the simplicity and the working result of this kind of sets. Thanks to share and 73's!

[uncleruckus]

Sounds good !
Looks great
I bought a atwater kent 20c
For 75 dollars
No tubes in it so
I will convert to ZPR
(crystal radio)

[Jeffrey]

24:00 The main difference between a variocoupler and variometer is that the latter has an electrical connection between the two coils in series. And a variometer can often be a slider arrangement.

[JasmineTea]

This is the kind of nerdy niche stuff that makes life interesting and wonderful. 🤣

[stevegriffin]

Definitely enjoyed the video and the explanation on the electronica parts I know this may sound strange but the tubes were absolutely beautiful. And the audio was wonderful to me just can’t beat a tube receiver for audio. WD5ENH Steve

[DAVIDGREGORYKERR]

Can you use 10x PP9 9V batteries to get the 90V B+ and a PJ996 6V battery which can be adjusted to give 5V for the heaters.