Radio Wyatt - How I got Started.

How I Got Started

January 8, 2010

Back in October of '08, I ordered a small Japanese 3 tube regenerative radio kit off of the internet because I had always wanted to see what vacuum tubes were all about. During the 2 weeks it took for the arrive in the mail, I looked up vacuum tube radios and tube radio repair videos on YouTube. I got really excited and the 2 weeks for the kit to arrive felt like two years!

The kit finally arrived on Halloween day and within an hour and a half of opening the box, I had the radio finished and ready to power up. I couldn't dig out 5 - 9v batteries from around the house so I had to wait until after school the next day to walk to Radio Shack and buy some batteries.

When I got home I put in all of the batteries and stuck the tubes in their sockets. I flicked on the power switch and...... nothing. Absolutely nothing. I was disappointed. I had the tickler the right way according to the directions. After trouble shooting I found a bad speaker and a bad 3S4.

I replaced the 3S4 and replaced the speaker with an 8 ohm 1.5 inch speaker from radio shack and the little thing fired right up. I listened to that little radio for weeks straight. Day and Night.

That Thanksgiving as we were driving down to the beach to spend Thanksgiving week at a friends house in Bethany Beach, my mom wanted to stop at an antique store to find a nice vase. I casually strolled into the store and looked around. At the corner of the store sat a cathedral radio, in very nice condition. I went over to take a look and found it was a solid state repro from the mid-80s.

In the corner I came across a small brown radio with 2 cream colored knobs that looked to be in decent shape. I called the woman over and I showed her the radio. She asked if that was what I was looking for and I answered with an excited "YES!!!" I carried it over to the counter I glanced at the bottom to read the paper label. It said:
General Electric
Bridgeport, CT.
Superheterodyne
AC/DC 50-60 cycles
25W
Model 419

I didn't know it at the time but it was a 4 tube transformerless radio, but I was way to overcome by excitement I could care less. I set the radio up on the counter and the woman plugs the thing straight into the wall and is about to turn it on when I stopped her. I said it could have a short the could ruin the radio or even worse, injure you are me. She said alright and I asked how much she wanted for the radio. She said $30 but she'll call the owner and ask if they will go down. After a 10 minutes wait, she says she'll sell it for $20 which I was quick to pay and run out of the store with my newly found treasure.

I was so excited in fact, I removed the chassis in the car just to inspect it!!!

I didn't see any shorts and I had brought my dim-bulb tester with me so I could fire up the radio when I got to the house. Another 2 hours and we arrived at the house and I was quick to set up a small bench outside on the porch and I was ready to fire up the radio. I plugged it in and saw that there were no shorts with the dim-bulb tester so I just plugged it straight in afterwards. After 30 seconds, the radio came to life pulling in stations from everywhere.

At the time I didn't know about DXing so I was really exited. I got KDKA a couple stations from Chicago, Cincinnati, New York and Toronto. I listened to that radio every second I could on that vacation.

A few weeks later back at home, I had the chassis out of the radio out, on the bench and I was tracing it with the scope. all of a sudden, it goes silent. The tubes were still glowing but the radio was out. I tore that radio apart to find out it was the tapped section on the filament of the 35W4 that went out.

That Christmas I got a LARGE RCA AM/FM/PHONO and from then on I just got more fascinated with old radios.

Its like a sickness, that cant be cured. You get sucked in and you can't get out.

Wyatt Circo