# 01 2016 Vol-22

Next NMRCC meeting: January 10th 2016

— Atwater Kent tube radio sets —

‘Sparton radios were not you usual run of the mill sets, they were high quality in every respect. The late 20's models were unique in several ways, not wanting to be a slave to RCA, they had their own line of vacuum tubes that did not require the RCA license. Most significant was the unique tuning circuit as used in the above and other "Equasonne" models.

1929 Sparton Equasonne Model 301 by Richard Majestic

T his 1929 latest Sparton model is similar to its predecessors except for a few refinements in coil construction. The

receiver consists of three separate chassis’ one containing the audio power amplifier and pow-er supply. Six Cardon 484 heater type tubes are employed in the RF and detector circuits, two '50s (now 2-2A3s) in push-pull in the audio power output stage and two '81 rectifiers for B+ power. All tuning is accomplished in the selector unit which precedes the first RF amplifier tube. This unit consists of four tuned circuits and is controlled by a four-gang variable capacitor and an antenna trimmer. The four circuits are inductively coupled by a small section of the third winding, thus operating on the theory of the band pass filter selector. Trimmers are lo-cated on each section of the tuning capacitor gang and each circuit is properly balanced be-

fore leaving the factory by bending the rotor plates. The RF amplifier unit is untuned, right to the detector. The full responsibility for selectivity depends upon the band pass tuning selector, allowing the amplifier to be operated so that maximum gain may be obtained without affect-ing the frequency of the selected signal. The idea is not new but is very interesting in the way it has been worked out. All RF amplifier stages are coupled by RF chokes, as shown in the circuit diagram. The "feeder" choke in the plate circuit of the first tube is wound single with a reversal of direc-tion in the middle, and a resistor is included in series with it in order to equalize the reactance of the parallel winding. The latter is the prima-ry of another choke, which is wound like a

(Continued on page Four)

1957 Emerso n model 1232 t el evis ion by John Estock At the June meeting I was fortunate enough to be the sole bidder on a cute little piece of elec-tronics, this time an Emerson 1232 TV, from 1957. Except for missing telescoping antennas, 1 knob and handle, it appeared to be complete. Lars walked away with the astronomical fee of one dollar. The first step in vintage TV restoration is testing the CRT; if bad, you either have a box of

(Continued on page Five)

2A3

Two

The NMRCC Meeting Minutes by John Hannahs

John Hannahs…. Secretary Richard Majestic. Director Ron Monty……... Director Ray Trujillo……... Director John Anthes…… Director notes; Lynn Toppo will assist Mark with his duties. Chuck Burch will normally serve as as Auctioneer and Richard Majestic will publish the NMRCC Newslet-ter on a discretionary basis. Your ratification of the above and com-ments regarding alternatives is essential for the best perfor-mance this coming year. We've come a long way. The occasional "Guess What" club exercise consists of mem-bers bringing some obscure de-vice to the table for identification. Chuck Burch brought a precision casting with a central coil of wire that moved left and right on a bearing surface. It was all very precision and looked like it was quite expensive to manufacture. Turns out it is the actuator mech-anism from a DEC RA60 hard drive, circa 1983. It is basically a "speaker coil" that moves the read/write heads laterally across five stacked and rotating data discs. The platter is removable. I should have known this, as I did work for the company for13 years. Duhh! I brought what ap-peared to be a gold plated tran-sistor with a clear window. It was owned by a scientist named Op-penheimer at the Labs ( not the crusty J. Robert one, but still re-lated to the father of the A bomb). I knew it had to be more than just a photo cell. According to John Anthes it was actually a quadrature detector that could sense light coming from a direc-tional source. I thought that was pretty exotic, but Chuck won. Anyway, mark your calendar 1 pm, January 10, NMRCC. Consider bringing a guest who has an interest in yesterdays radi-os and electronic equipment. Happy Holidays, John Hannahs

NMRCC 2016 MEETINGS

JAN 2016 - Atwater Kent tube radio sets FEB - Homebuilt crystal, tube, and transistor sets MAR - Mirror radios, all years APR - Test equipment and classroom demon-stration equipment- tube testers, signal genera-tors, oscilloscopes, bridges, meters and etc MAY - Spring Picnic JUN - Television sets, 1946 through 1970 (anything you can carry into the conference room) JUL - Early TV cameras, camera tubes and CRTs AUG - Foreign Radios SEP - Field day/radio reception contests OCT - Fall picnic, ribeye steaks Las Cruces NOV - Wild Card Sunday” (nifty science giz-mos, novel science toys, or non- radio collec-tion, electronics, or science related that you think will dazzle your fellow members DEC - Holiday party – theme: Little-known radio man-ufacturer and rare radios

Subject: December NMRCC It's 1 pm Sunday the 13th and every-one is already present at Mark and Lynn Toppo's home, Radioland USA. The contingent from LasCruces all came. The house was full of members and sig others. Food and goodies were everywhere, including liquid libation. Now I am a museum going freak; been to science museums all over the US, Paris, Munich, London, and so on. No-body does radios from the 20's into the 50's better than the Toppo's. None are so gracefully restored, cate-gorized, and displayed. The junkers are hidden somewhere in the garage. Some members, like Richard, help Mark with the electronics. I get excited looking at those magnificent chrome plated Scott chassis and the fine wood restoration, some looking new, except they may have been a former basket case. For certain some were formerly infested with fly specs, spider webs, and even worse. Usually capacitors and flakey components have been re-placed and a total re-alignment has been done. Not always, but rest assure Mark will disclose the condition. He seems to remember all of the details regarding each unit. So, another great year is shot. We had no great presentations at this meeting, just a great social get-together where members could ask each other ques-tions like "how does a grid-leak capaci-tor work, or how can I go about re-winding this power transformer, or who re-cones old speakers." President An-thes always saw that interesting infor-mation sessions always were part of the content of each meeting. Of course he got lots of help from the other mem-bers. We are so much more than just a bunch of techies getting together and trading each others "stuff" back and forth and BS'ing. For 2016 we have decided to not raise the dues, but instead attract new mem-bers. Our January meeting will be on Sunday the 10th at 1300. Our new home at the Quelab, 680 Haines Ave, near I-40 and 6th street serves us well. Please, all members come to the Janu-ary meeting as we will determine who the 2016 officers and directors will be. Nominations from the December meet-ing are as follows: President:………. Don Menning V President…….. John Estock Chuck Burch…... Treasurer Mark Toppo……. Membership

NMRCC Officers for 2015

John Anthes: President

John Estock: Vice President

Richard Majestic: Treasurer

Chuck Burch: Secretary

Ron Monty: Membership

Mark Toppo: Director

Ed Brady: Director

Ray Trujillo: Director

John Hannahs

Richard Majestic: Newsletter Editor (President pro-tem)

Three

NMRCC Holiday Party meeting photos

Four

radio frequency transformer, the prima-ry and secondary being coupled as tight-ly as two coils can be coupled. In fact, just as the diagram indicates, each turn of the primary and secondary lies side by side. This system, of course, is de-signed for maximum gain and can only be employed when selectivity in the RFamplifier is of no consequence. The coupling between the second and third stages is accomplished by another paralleled pair of chokes, although in this case the windings have not been reversed in the middle. The following two stages are similar to the first except that no "feeder" circuit has been sup-plied, the d-c flowing direct through the primary. The coupling between the last RF stage and the detector is accom-plished by means of a pair of paralleled chokes in which four reversals are made, plus an added choke, also re-versed, in series with the secondary. Plate detection is used, the grid being biased by means of a 20,000-ohm resis-tor in the power supply. This resistor is replaced with one of 1000 ohms when the detector tube is used to amplify the output of the phonograph pickup. A 1.0 uF capacitor is used to bypass the first two cathodes to ground, while another capacitor of the same size bypasses the remaining three RFcathodes. The latter are isolated from the first two by means of an RFchoke. The detector cathode is also bypassed to ground through a 1.0 uF capacitor, while the RF plate lead, common to all, is bypassed through a 0.25 uF capacitor. An RF filter is con-nected in the output circuit of the detec-tor, and a 50,000-ohm resistor serves as a volume control by varying the bias on the grids of the RF amplifier stages. The power transformer has four second-aries; one supplying three volts to the filaments of the 484 tubes, one 7-1/2-volt secondary for the '81 filaments and another for the '50s now not used and a separate 2.5VAC filament transformer for the 2—’2A3s. The high voltage sec-ondary is wound for 600 volts on each side. This voltage is rectified by the two '81 tubes and filtered through one p (Pi) section, the choke of which is shunted with a 0.15 uF ca[acitor. The field coil of the dynamic speaker and a 2.0 uF capacitor constitute the remainder of the filter circuit, while a 7000-ohm resistor is shunted across the entire high voltage output for stabilization. Reproduced from the September 1929 issue of Radio magazine My Sparton Equasonne model 301 radio sold for about $300 when new which was a lot of money for 1929, the 1929 Grigsby Grunow Majestic model

90B, also a TRF radio sold for $168 and both had a 9” electrodynamic speaker. The Sparton 301 uses a 4 section passive RF tuner front end while the Majestic 90B used a 5-section variable tuned stages with

four 27 triode RF amplifiers between each tuned circuit. Both use a triode ‘power de-tector’ which means the grid does the RF carrier amplitude detection (rectification) and the triode offers some audio amplifica-tion too, in both the detector stage incorpo-rates a RF filter and is coupled to another triode audio amplifier via a transformer for both radios. Another triode drives second transformer with a center tapped secondary that drives the push-pull pair of output tube grids. In the Majestic 90B a pair of 45 tri-odes but here’s where the Sparton leaps ahead of the Majestic. The Sparton used a pair of 50 (250 or 586) triodes which are electrically similar to a 2A3 except for fila-ment voltage and current. The Majestic 80B has 300 VDC on the plates and the Sparton 301 has 400 VDC, both use un-bypassed common cathode bias resistors. Both radios have complicated beautiful cabinets the Equasonne has many fancy

repwood pieces that look like hard wood carvings. The number 27 and 485 triode tube are very similar and I’ve seen 27s in the Sparton 301 RF amplifier stages. I purchased my Sparton 301 November 2011 from an eBay sale and paid $200 for it, Mark Toppo did a great job on the cabi-net repair and refinishing and I restored the electronics. The Magnavox speaker’s sur-round is made from thin leather and was completely unglued from the cone. I care-fully re-glued the leather to the cone using TiteBond 2 wood glue and used a food dish to hold the leather in place for 24 hours. The speaker works and sounds great, the Magnavox speaker is a very good speaker and sounds very clean. In going through the tubes, the two 50s were missing and the two 81 rectifiers did-n’t move the needle on my Hickok tube tester and the six 485 triodes were no bet-ter. I had two NOS 81s and AES had NOS 485s. The NOS 50 or 250 output triodes are going for $250 each today, so I made the decision to use 2A3s ($28 each new from China) and I installed a 2.5 VAC 6 Amp filament transformer for the 2A3 heaters. In the power supply amplifier chassis I replaced the three section 4uF filter capaci-tor with three 10uF 550VDC electrolytics. I really should have replaced the four 1uF bypass capacitors in the broadband RF amplifier chassis but the old caps had no leakage and measured good and with new tubes does work well. The passive variable tuner RF front end required alignment and a special tool to adjust the compression trimmer capacitors. I set the tuner dial and the RF generator to

(Continued on page Six)

Five

parts, or possibly a long process of searching, begging pleading for a replace-ment (or buying junkers and hoping for a good jug). The 8DP4 tested OK. All old TVs will need a re-cap; paper caps that check OK, and may function in a radio, will almost always cause picture problems, like jitters, rolling, sync un-lock, etc. Just replace them. Same for electrolytics; the TV "worked" with all the original caps--the horizontal was very unstable and installing some new tubes actually made the problem worse, even when some previous surgery to modify the sync circuit was corrected. TV re-capped; selenium rectifier subbed (although it worked), the usual cleaning, etc. A rotary switch for TV-radio-phono had a damaged contact--repaired. The TV uses 13 tubes and also has 2 for the AM radio--very economical. And a recipe for trouble; only 2 IF stages where most TVs have 3 or 4; fewer tubes in the sync, verti-cal and horizontal (thus forcing these tubes to work harder). A previous "tech" had been inside; not unusual--most sets needed servicing every year or two. He added a 15k resistor to a 100k that measured 89k (?)--then he clipped leads to two 100pf caps in the sync circuit that caused a severe horizon-tal instability. Corrected. The vertical circuit isn't anything to praise either; I found that changing a 220k resis-tor to 270k improved vertical lock. From the start this TV had a tiny 'click' sound about 5 seconds after powering up; after repairs and alignment the audio would just cut out completely. The origi-nal 6AQ5 had an intermittent connection to the screen grid; it waited 53 years to fail. Had to make a handle out of 3/4 inch alu-minum bar stock. Couldn't find the right antennas, so I modified a pair. The vol-ume knob was a problem; had to make one out of two. Now it probably works as good as it ever did.

Eat your heart out Lars; this set is now worth at least $4.50.

~~ John Estock

As John mentioned, replacement CRTs are a problem and it’s gotten worse with Hawkeye closing its doors this year …(2010) Dear Customers, and Friends of Hawk-Eye Picture Tube Mfg. As you all know, our industry has changed, and it is with great reluc-tance that I have decided to retire the business after 53 years. My father,

Frank, started the business in 1958. He continued to own and operate Hawk-Eye until I took over in 1975. It has been a wonderful family business and career. An actual date has not been set, however it will be by year's end. I am in the process of liquidating stock, and beginning to prepare for the storage of the equipment required to rebuild CRT tubes. My goal is to find someone who is willing to inherit the equipment, and continue the re-build process. I can make myself available to set-up shop, teach the in/outs, and answer questions as they arise. Since I really do not know how soon it will be before I have to shut down, I would ask that all collectors and any-

body thinking about getting your old or antique tube rebuilt NOW is the time to send it in. It has been a great 52 years of busi-ness. My family and I thank you all for your loyalty, and dedication you have shown to Hawk-Eye Picture Tube Mfg. Sincerely, Scotty

Six

1,200 kHz. and peaked the four sections. The homemade alignment tool is a ¼” hex nut driver but it had to be fully insulated and 6” long. Observed Comments The radio performs exceptionally well, it has good sensitivity, for 20dB of quieting at mid band with only a few microvolts are required, the selectivity at the lower fre-quencies is good but poor at the high end; adjacent stations can be heard along with the 10kHz. whistle. The audio quality is exceptional for a 1929 radio and plays very loud with those 2A3s and 400 DC on the plates. Audible distortion is very low and sounds as good as any 12 tube Zenith ra-dio. The bass response is so good, the 9” speaker cone moves a good ½” on low bass notes. This radio’s design is very interesting; passive RF tuner, four stage broadband RF amplifier, power detector, dual 50 (250 or 586) triode audio outputs with 7.5VAC heaters and 81 half-wave rectifies leads me

to believe that Sparton was determined not to pay any royalty fees or license fees to RCA or Hazelton or anyone else for any part of their designs. There was no 2A3 in 1928 but there was the 45 power triodes but it would have taken four 45s to do the job of two 50s and RCA probably held a patent on the 45. There were 5Z3 rectifiers but RCA probably held a patent on that tube too. Spar-ton had a tube manu-facturing plant so they designed and made their own tube designs, good for Sparton. ~Richard Majestic

Seven

Richard: Beautiful restoration of that Chairside. I am amazed at what you can do with a basket case like that. My first wife’s aunt had one similar to yours, which she gave to me to dispose of because she had no use for it anymore and needed the space. This must have been in 1962 or so. I loaded it in my car and was on the way to Goodwill when a guy on foot at a stoplight spotted it through the back window and offered me $50 for it. He didn’t have any cash on him and was trying to figure out the logistics of how we could proceed when I simply gave him the radio (“...and good rid-dance,” I thought). I don’t think that Aunt Winnie’s radio had motorized tuning, and I don’t recall a sliding door over the dial, so it was probably a lesser model Zenith than yours. In immaculate condition, however. I never thought about that day until your article reminded me of that radio, but now I wonder how that guy made out, on foot, with a heavy radio, at a downtown San Jose inter-section. Sadly, this is testament to my lack of youthful enthusiasm for fine old relics. I cut my electronic teeth on old radios and, later, TVs from the Goodwill As-Is Store, most picked up for a dollar or so. But ever reach-ing for the cutting edge of technology, I al-ways let the present woo me with miniature tubes, transistors, integrated circuits and DSP, and I have never looked back... until recently. Now, of course, I could kick my-self. If anecdotal things like this are something you’d want to share with your group, by all means feel free to do so. I have another sto-ry, which you might already have heard, about one of my Goodwill trips, which even has a picture that goes with it. ~ John Hannahs In 2012 Apple has $100 Billion in hard cash. Now, November 2015, Apple has $200 Billion in liquid assets. They can see the future where computer related products become less expensive and more saturated. They are thinking very much like Google. These companies are seeing where au-tomotive is going. Good-by the internal combustion engine is coming slow but sure. The switch has opened the door for the all electronic/electric vehicle. Even my 2005 Jaguar has four or more on board computers and a dozen or more sensors. Battery development is proceeding fast with super lithium batteries on the way.

E-Mail from Members and Friends

Conventional auto companies are hamstrung with combustion tech-nology and a glut of the wrong re-sources. The handwriting is on the wall. US manufacturing could pos-sibly upstage Europe, Japan, and Korea with all electric cars ..maybe. At least that has to be the Boardroom chit-chat. The big investment will be more in bat-teries and software. Companies like GM are transitioning from Volt to Bolt, but they have the wrong resources and way too much "bad baggage" consisting of govern-ment compliance, recalls, and yes-terdays thinking. We know what Apple and Google are thinking. Sad in a way. Look at this:

http://calacanis.com/2015/02/14/apple-will-buy-tesla-for-75b-in-18-months/ footnote: when you see battery charge stations at restaurants in a town like Albuquerque you will get the picture. They are here now! ~ John Hannahs Re: Dave Brubeck That's what I thought. What motivated me was a comment John Atkinson makes in his review of a high-rez port-able player, the Questyle Audio QP1R in the current (December) Stereophile (p.139) : "…I could hear deep into recordings. Alto saxophonist Paul Desmond's clam in the second verse of "Blue Rondo a la Turk" from the Dave Brubeck Quartet's "Time Out" (DSD64 file, CBS Legacy/Acoustic Sounds), was more audible than I'm used to ----- I HAVE NEVER

UNDERSTOOD WHY THIS TAKE WAS USED FOR THE MASTER, GIVEN THIS PROBLEM, NOR HAVE I READ ANY-ONE COMMENTING ON IT." I think (emphasis added) you should enlighten him. I'm sure he will get a great kick out of your story, especially the sonic effect of the glass wall: that will give him some-thing rarefied to listen for when he evalu-ates $$$$$ gear. On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 10:05 PM, Rich-ard M <rmajestic@msn.com>

wrote: They, Columbia records decided to use my two hours of rehearsal tapes for the Blue Rondo A La Turk cut because it was live and raw jazz. They edited the rehearsal takes into the cut on the Take Five record. If you listen to the two cuts, Take-5 and Blue Rondo A La Turk you will hear the brightness of the reflections from Dave Brubeck’s sun room which had a long glass wall and the brick of the house opposite all the glass. All 8 microphones were B&O ribbons on stands on the concrete floor. A portable three track ½” Ampex 350 recorder, three Ampex three mic input mixers in a portable case and three Ampex 8” playback amplified speakers that I used for playback for Brubeck and the others. I did the mixing using headphones and the VU meters on the three mixers. All the portable equip-ment was on the fireplace hearth that ran the depth of his sun porch. Best regards, Richard Majestic

Eight

The New Mexico Radio Collectors Club is a non-profit organization founded in 1994 in order to enhance the enjoyment of collecting and preservation of radios for all its members.

NMRCC meets the second Sunday of the month at The Quelab at 680 Haines Ave NW , Albuquerque NM Tailgate sale at 1:00PM meetings start at 2:00 pm. Visitors Always Welcomed.

NMRCC NEWSLETTER

THIS PUBLICATION IS THE MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE NEW

MEXICO RADIO COLLECTORS CLUB. INPUT FROM ALL MEMBERS ARE SOLICITED AND WELCOME ON 20TH OF THE PRECEDING

MONTH. RICHARD MAJESTIC PRO-TEMP NEWSLETTER EDITOR, SEND ALL SUBMISSIONS IN WORD FORMAT, PICTURES IN *.JPG

FORMAT TO: RMAJESTIC@MSN.COM

N E W M E X I C O R A D I O

C O L L E C T O R S C L U B

New Mexico Radio Collectors Club Richard Majestic (Membership inquiries)

5460 Superstition Drive Las Cruces NM 88011

E-Mail: ronmonty@comcast.net Phone: 505 281-5067

E-Mail: rmajestic@msn.com Phone: 575 521-0018

FOR INFORMATION CHECK THE INTERNET

http://www.newmexicoradiocollectorsclub.com/

USPS Stamp