what do I look for when buying a radio project?

[Donny]

Now that my philco is done I'm looking for more! I hit ebay and noticed lots of cheap radios,somehow most of these are stated as working (I doubt it) I went ahead a won a teletone wood radio (dead the way I like em) but now I'm thinking maybe off brands are bad! parts and info might be hard to find. So zenith?philco? 40s?50s?60? I've just been shopping for cool looking cheapys.

[sean]

Hi Donny,

I have one Teletone bakelite set that I purchased from ebay because I liked the looks of it. I have not been able to determine an exact model number for it but have found some similar circuits. My experience with working on a couple of other Teletone sets is that they would build their radios depending upon what parts they could get. One model radio may use all miniature tubes and be documented in Riders or Sams that way. You may come across a radio with the same chassis layout and circuit as that model but it uses all octal tubes.

I don't think there are a lot of off brand models that don't have documentation somewhere. Just thumbing through a Riders you will come across numerous no-name models. A number of larger radio manufacturers also produced house brand sets that you may have never heard of but electrically are exactly the same as the manufacturer's branded set. If you are going to do a lot of buying on ebay you should have the time to get some more info on the set being sold and do research on whether a schematic is available or not. I guess what I'm saying is don't be scared of off brand radios.

[Chad Hauris]

Most American made radios use fairly straightforward circuits...especially the 5 tube AM radios. Just a working knowledge in general of the circuits is sufficient to troubleshoot most problems....usually just a replacement of old caps and wiring gets the sets going.
The only ones that seem to be more complicated/difficult or use more unusual tubes are some of the foreign makes like Grundig or Telefunken. The performance on these sets is great...they just can be more difficult to work on.

[Donny]

thx guys I'm still looking and just missed a big one from the 40's(I think)by like 20 mins at a garage sale thats like the 2cd one in 2 weeks