# 05 2018 Vol-23

NMRCC Field Trip May 20th at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque on May 20th. We have rented a room at the museum to hold the picnic event, which will start at noon and then members will take a guided museum tour starting at 2 PM. The tour will last around an hour.

Try to Be Proud of Your Soldering Job — Others Will or Won’t by John Hannahs

Back in the day when I was servicing radi-os and TV’s I was always curious regard-ing what I would see once I turned the chassis upside down. If it was 15 or 20 years old chances were that you would encounter some bat-tle scars. Worst was when one end of a capacitor was cut free for the techie to test. Then it was either re-soldered or replaced. Sel-dom was it tested in circuit. Many times, this was the indication of future prob-lems. Otherwise you en-counter something that just looks nasty; not always though. Our club has some perfectionists on board, me being a half way guy. I had the pleasure of going through radio factories back in the 50’s in Chica-go. The assembly lines were all women. Most car-ried big Drake soldering irons that were heavy and had a tip about 5/8’s wide. At the end of the line there was a foreman that would crank up the speed until the women started to scream — trust me, this was how it was. Still it was amaz-

ing as to how well things turned out, proba-bly because there were stand-by workers to allow for a break for the close-by rest

rooms. These were sweatshops, though. I was the floor sweeper with a high school summer job and thus collected all sorts of interesting items to put back in the bins. Many radios with labels like RCA weren’t

built by RCA at all. They were farmed out to places like Warwick Industries. After years of laboring with Weller type

irons I finally graduated my-self to a soldering station that serves my purposes along with the other tools quite well. For many uses the pencil type irons were good because they created little damage and were small enough to get into tight places. The downside was you never had the right heat and so your job might look like something a berserk welder might create. In this case it means cold sol-der joints or some form of destruction to the part you are inserting. I recently purchased a soldering station that will, for $50 (they are now $250 ed.), allow you to set a perfect tip heat as displayed on the 7 segments displays, one for the tip which comes with six dif-ferent shapes to select from.

The other display is for the hot-air gun used to pre-heat an area for soldering, es-pecially printed circuit boards. This does a great job at several things.

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2A3

A schematic of a single tube regen-radio from 1926 Chicago newspaper

International Radio Corp. story

Weller temperature controlled soldering station

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The NMRCC Meeting April 15th 2018

Normally we do meet on the second Sun-day of the month. Occasionally, because of holidays (NAB), we postpone to the third Sunday. So keep that in mind as a holiday could conflict (a word to the wise). Lars Roose a club charter member was present; he is a busy guy and needs to come back whenever he can. Welcome new members and guests: Don Henry (new NMRCC member), Art Barron, and Tony Marshall. Don Henry collects music boxes, old pho-nographs, and some radios. Art is in the TV broadcasting business for channel 13.2 We will work with Art to do a 4 minute televised segment before May regarding our restoration of antique radios and how the club functions. President Dave Wilson will meet with Art and set the agenda. The club is growing, and this would allow us to attract new collectors. We will have tables at the Saturday, April 28 Amateur Radio Caravan Club Tailgate at the Stoneface Tavern, 8201 San Pedro Dr. (see "caravan radio.org") Remember, this is mostly show & tell, and sell. It starts at sunrise to 10:30 am .. yikes. Don't forget the Sunday May 20 club pic-nic at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, 601 Eubank Blvd, SE., 12:00 noon to 3:30 pm. Food and drink will be catered by the club for the club members. A tour of the museum is includ-ed. David and Richard are working on the bronze plaque project to commemorate Goddard's 1912 start in radio (KOB), lo-cated at NM State University. The NMRCC will get mention and cost will be around $500. We still need to get the de-tails resolved for the exact location, per-mission, vendor, and wording etc. Our April meeting Theme was for Home Built crystal, tube or transistor radios re-ceivers, however, we do deviate a little. John Anthes presented a Crosley kit radio with a beautiful 3-01A type tube TRF re-gen-detector with a glass front panel that his dad built in 1925. The tubes were ei-ther genuine or replicas that had secret solid-state innards. John's dad was the person who invented the "drug store type tube testers" and had it patented. Richard the Majestic presented his 1963 transistor FM radio creation, also a thing of beauty. It had 4 IF stages a stabilized Colpitts local oscillator and a new class-D power amplifier for output. It was a one-of-kind but could have been commercial-ized. The front panel was superb. It worked well for the demo and Richard

NMRCC Officers for 2018

• David Wilson: President

• Mark Toppo: Vice President

• Richard Majestic: Treasurer

• Secretary: Chuck Burch

• Membership: John Anthes

• Ron Monty Director

• Ray Truijillo Director

• Open - Director

• Richard Majestic: Newsletter Editor (President pro-tem)

won the ancient tube theme award. Chuck Burch brought his genuine crys-tal radio that had three tuned stages. One of the stages acted as trap to block-out overpowering local broadcast trans-mitters. Also a Knight kit two tube re-gen receiver using a 6AW8 triode/pentode. Don Menning brought back his collec-tion of trapezoidal antenna radios with the artistic cabinetry. Inside is a mini jungle of little people; strange but a fine touch. The auction was another mixture of electronics and radios. Most was from a storage shed that needed to be emptied. Many phonograph/radio combos, table radios, large outdoor speakers, cables of all sorts, collections of radio screws and nuts, a paper tape code practice antique, some test equipment. As always, some members bring things to be sold as a donation to be added to our club treas-ury. This has been a great help for the club; many thanks. John Anthes, 2018 NMRCC Member-ship, and Jim Hanlon, NMRCC member and long standing DXr on his vintage Ham gear, are coordinating with the or-ganizers of the Duke City Hamfest Sep-tember 21-23 at the Isleta Resort and Casino's convention facility. Jim has been asked to present two back-to-back presentations titled "122 Years of Ama-teur Radio Innovation" that will include Jim’s vintage hardware and John’s Pilot Super Wasp. We will have NMRCC tables for a demonstration and a display. Rick Harris has agreed to coordinate the HamFest tailgate activities for NMRCC. Mark Toppo conducted the days meeting as President Wilson was unavailable. Good job Mark. ~ EOM John Hannahs

NMRCC 2018 MEETING DATES January 14th Old loudspeakers and mi-

crophones February 11th Pre-1930 radios March 11th Early FM Stereo receivers,

amplifiers, and other vintage audio equipment April 15th Homebuilt crystal, tube, and transistor sets May 20th National Museum of Nucle-ar Science & History June 10th Atwater Kent tube radio sets July 8th Store-branded radio sets (Airline, Trutone, Airchief, Silvertone and etc August 12th Wild Card Sunday September 9th One-tube radios October 14th Fall Ribeye Steak Picnic (Majestic’s) November 11th Old test equipment, tube testers, RF signal generators, oscil-loscopes, bridges, meters and etc December 9th Holiday Party

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The President’s Column

From the President’s Desk I welcome all our recent new members and our older members we have not seen for a while and I hope to see you all at our club spring picnic at the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History in Albuquerque on May 20th. We have rented a room at the museum to hold the picnic event, which will start at noon and then members will take a guided museum tour starting at 2 PM. The tour will last around an hour. Our club pays for this event and I welcome you to bring a guest who might be interested in becoming a new member of the club. I thank John Anthes for his good work in reaching out to our membership and encouraging them to attend our meet-ings. Also, a special thanks goes out to Mark Toppo for running the April meeting in my absence. I look forward to seeing you all at next month’s meeting! ~ David Wilson

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Sparton 558 Sled

One I like best is for correctly heating shrink tubing. The air temp is set with a pot to anything below 480 degrees C. Several different diameter nozzles are provided. The soldering tips, themselves, seem to last longer, perhaps from the alloy used, but my bet is they don’t go into a semi-thermal runaway while setting idle. The photo shows my soldering tools. Atop my sol-dering station are various tips that are easy to change, some webbed copper wire to remove excess solder, and liquid rosin flux to prep the area for soldering. it has a hollow needle appli-cator on top which is quite handy and only $5 on eBay. I have 2 solder suckers; the bulb type is worthless and the spring-loaded version below does the job. For solder itself I have used mostly the skinny rosin core 60/40 type of yesterday but will experiment with others I have. We “twigit” types ( navy for electronics tech ) use dental type tools and hemostats for get-ting in close. Diagonal and long-nose pliers are essential. I dis-covered some fine hand tools at the Boeing Surplus Store in Seattle. The items by name Sandvik or Lindstrom have the best and are sometimes on eBay also. The Sandvik “dykes” I have with the spring-loaded handles are the best in this world. I use the syringe shown for opening circuit board holes and dispens-ing liquids in tight spots. The double ended probes with split end on one side and sharp point on the other end are essential for removing wires from tube sockets and other items like ter-minal boards. The dental mirror is great for inspection; they come in various sizes. Not shown are the trigger operated sol-dering guns that are essentially a one-turn transformer second-ary that punches a bunch of amps onto the tip. They can get too hot for me but are useful for quick fixes. Weller made these along with some others. Remember, your soldering job is somewhat like a Trademark. Here is information on various types of soldering stations: wiki.ezvid.com/best-soldering-stations

~John Hannahs

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As editor, I get to put things in the newsletter that relate to the articles and that help tell the author’s story. The radio underside shown is one that I designed mechanically, elec-trically and built in 1963 while working at Brookhaven National Laboratories located in Long Island NY. We technicians used Weller temperature controlled solder-ing irons, 35 Watt heater. I don’t know if my soldering skills are still this good, but I try to keep the quality good. ~ Richard Majestic

Try to Be Proud of Your Soldering Job — Others Will or Won’t by John Hannahs

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Charles Verschoor, a young man in Ann Arbor, Michigan didn't make his mark on the radio world until 1931 when he started the International Radio Corporation. One of his first radios was a little radio with a plas-tic case called the Kadette. The compact size of the radio was possible by using an inno-vative new circuit, one of which was to string all the tube’s filaments in series like Christmas tree lights. These early sets were AC or DC and had no power transformer, and that made it lighter, smaller, and cheap-er than the other sets on the market. Its plastic case was noteworthy as well. Manufactured for International Radio by the Chicago Molded Products Co., it marked the beginning of a new era in cabinet design by being the first set housed in plastic. The styling was rather tradi-tional, having a strong Gothic look with arches on the front of the case. The radio was a hit with the American public, and its popularity led to the almost immediate profitability of Interna-tional Radio. Within two years, International Radio was the only Ann Arbor corporation that was still paying divi-dends to its shareholders and this was the depth of the depression. Other innovative sets followed in rapid order. The following year the Kadette Jr. appeared. It had two dual-purpose tubes and was the world's first pocket sized set although a coat pocket sized one. By this time the first Kadette model had been refined into the handsome Kadette Jewel model 44, the one I recently acquired and pictured which appeared in five stand-ard color combinations. As with some other Kadette models, Chicago Molded Products made a few cases in other, often unusual, color combinations. In 1936, just as Sears was jumping on the bandwagon with its first Bakelite set, the "Streamliner" in basic black plastic, Interna-tional was releasing the Kadette Classic a set with a cabinet molded in three different plastics. It was ultimately available in seven color combinations, among them an ivory case with contrasting grill and green, yel-low, rose, or blue top and a jet-black case

with an ivory grill and a bright vermillion red top. The set resembled a colorful room heater, and the front and the back looked basically the same allowing the radio to be placed away from the wall and still be at-tractive from behind. This Incredible Kadette "Jewel" Model 44 with a marbled Tenite Art Deco grill insert tube radio was manufactured in 1936 by the International Radio Corp. in Ann Arbor, Michigan. This set is considered a midget sized table radio model. The stepped design with molded ridges and the Art Deco geo-metric designed Tenite grill insert make this radio a standout. This combination of plas-tics and cabinet style make it very popular and sought after by collectors.

This radio is in original, untouched condi-tion, with a beautiful and natural gloss. It is just a superb example of this Deco radio, see photos. The Bakelite case and trim have no cracks, chips, burns or repairs. Truly an ex-ceptional tube radio that looks like it has been well cared for showing small light scratches consistent with light use. The coral toned Tenite grill with the Art Deco Geometric Egyptian eye design is in perfect original condition. Radio retains the original metal dial, and volume escutcheons. The textured fabric grill cloth on the radio is a period correct replacement in excellent condition with no holes or tears. Radio measures: 7.5" wide by 5.5" high by 3.75" deep. I acquired my Kadette Jewel

model 44 a few weeks ago from eBay for less than $150, it’s in perfect condition, the bakelite case polished and free of any de-fects and the Tenite grill is in perfect condi-tion. The radio was made mid-1936 and is a three tube TRF with a 6C6 pentode, the only RF amplifier and the second 6C6 the grid detector and first audio amplifier with a 12A7 dual purpose half-wave rectifier and pentode power amplifier. The 500k volume control has one end in the cathode circuit of the RF amplifier and the other end is the grid resistor of the audio power pentode, with the wiper at ground. Typical of these early radios the speaker field coil is part of the power supply filter circuit. The line cord has a built-in resistor (300 Ohms) to drop the voltage to the series string filament cir-cuit. Performance is typical of a single am-

plifier stage TRF, not very sensitive, but this example does work well. My other Kadette, the model 150 from mid-1937 was acquired when I cut a deal to clean out a families dead relative’s home, gar-age and storage shed. I found the Kadette 150 on the floor in the shed cov-ered with an inch of dirt and after dusting it off became an instant Interna-tional Radio fan and col-lector. It was missing one of the solid silver inlay Cadets but the rest of the radio cabinet polished up looking like new again. The radio’s back cover, as is the radio case molded Bakelite and not plastic since my arbor polishing

wheel didn’t melt the case, only polished it to a smooth high gloss. The Kadtte 150 is basically an AA5 (All-American-Five) superheterodyne; a 6A8G pentagrid converter (local oscillator and mixer) with a variable tuned MW grid cir-cuit and the mixer plate driving the 448kHz. first IF transformer. A 6K7G pentode is the IF amplifier, a 6Q7G triode first audio am-plifier and double diode second detector. It’s a very modern design with AVC on the grids of the mixer and IF amplifier stages. The 25A7 dual purpose tube, audio power output amplifier and half-wave power sup-ply rectifier. The speaker field coil is part of the power supply filter and a K-72 ballast tube for dropping the line voltage in the se-

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International Radio Corporation

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ries string filament circuit. I replaced the bad tubes, all capacitors and aligned the radio before cleaning and polishing the case. Both the elec-tronic and mechanical engineering of this radio is excellent, the radio performs better than most ‘50s AA5 and the care taken in the finish of the chassis is better than all tube radios late ‘30s through the ‘60s. The IF transformers must be ex-ceptional quality since the radio has good sensitivity and selectivity and sounds very well. If you ever run across one of these min-iature beauties pick it up and get a taste of the quality and beauty from the ‘30s. However, one additional item I found while researching International Radio Corp. In 1937 they introduced a coup in the radio retailing world. A 10-tube set for the price of an ordinary cheap 4- or 5-tube model. When other manufacturers were producing 10-tube radios with price tags that started around $100, the low $19.95 tag on the Kadette line were nearly a miracle. Inter-national had actually pulled a fast one on the public. The sets contained three ballast tubes among the ten. Their only purpose was to drop the voltage enough for the tube fila-ments to work properly. One would have been sufficient. The sets weren't really very good ... they worked as well as other $20 sets, and that's all they really were ... $20 sets with extra ballast tubes thrown in. The 10 tube Kadettes had a rapid turnover, but they carried profit margins of 15% or less. Radio dealers had to move around a dozen of the ten tube Kadettes to equal the profit they could get selling one premium radio. International began making the deal-ers take additional slower selling Kadette models in order to get the 10-tube sets. Dealers had to offer under-the-counter dis-counts to move the radios, and their aggre-gate profit on Kadette radios could drop to as low as only 5%. This led to dealers drop-ping the Kadette line in favor of other manu-facturers. International scrambled to rectify the problem, but they were too late to fix the damage they had done, so in 1939 Interna-tional sold the radio manufacturing business as well as the Kadette name to W. Keene Jackson, who had been the International Radio's General Sales Manager. ~Richard Majestic

(Continued from page Five)

International Radio Corporation

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Attending the Houston (TX) Vintage Radio Association (HVRA)

40th Annual Convention February 9-10, 2018

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Fellow NMRCC member John Anthes and I attended this conven-tion. This was my second attendance at a HVRA Convention and John has been to a number of them. There is quite a full program over the two-day event held at the Houston Marriott North. They include a swap meet, technical session, three auctions, an old equip-ment contest, awards banquet, and the annual members' meeting. The technical session was a program entitled "Myths, Legends and the Real Story About the Big Four Founders of Modern Radio - Marconi, DeForest, Armstrong, and Sarnoff" by Jeff Heller. Jeff is also the editor of the club's outstanding quarterly newsletter "The Grid Leak." It was an informative and entertaining presentation. The old equipment contest allowed members to showcase items from their collections in a number of categories. Some of the cate-gories were 1920s battery receivers, crystal receivers, hi-fi equip-ment, transistor or other portable radios, table receivers (wood-tube); cathedrals, tombstones & consoles (wood); ugly radios, for-eign radios, etc. All entries were judged and prizes awarded. The guest speaker for the banquet was Jim Sargent - a Professional Auctioneer and the President of The Vintage Radio and Phono-graphic Society of Dallas. He presented an entertaining program on early radio magazine covers entitled "Those Wonderful Covers... and the stories they tell." Of course, the highlight for many attendees was the auctions. Two were on Friday and the main one was on Saturday. Auctions one and two featured paper items, tubes, speakers, test equipment, plastic radios, parts and other items. Considering the size of the auction - over 500 lots - and the condition of many of the items, it appeared that many workspaces, storage facilities, and garages had been throughly emptied! A number of "flats" of tubes were auctioned. Most sold in the $10-60 range although several went for over $100, a couple over $200 and the highest lot for $310. This lot had four 2A3 tubes among others. Saturday's auction included wooden table and console radios, rare or unique speakers, and other vintage radio items (the "good stuff"). The vast majority of lots (probably over 200) were radios from the 1920s to the 1940s. There were very few items from the 1950s and later. No catlins were sold. A number of items came from the es-tates of four HVRA members. A few radios were described as hav-ing some water damage from Hurricane Harvey. Many of the radios sold from $10 to $75. For some reason, there were also a number of miniature steam engines which were highly sought after by some of the bidders for an amazing amount of money! Here are some of the more notable lots and the prices realized: 1931 Scott All Wave 12 in "The Warrington" cabinet - $260 1925 Glass front radio - $425 1924 Zenith 3R-L (Late) - $550 1921 R-3 B Magnavox horn speaker - $100 1940 Zenith push-button - $45 15 tube RCA console w/15 inch speaker - $85 1925 Grebe MU-1 - $160 1930 Crosley "Buddy Boy" Repwood (Flat Top) - $65 Swan Cathedral - $110 AK original lamp w/reproduction shade - $180 1924 AK 10C Model 4700 Breadboard - $675 A fully restored 1924 Zenith Super Portable Companion - Mini-mum bid of $ 1000; no takers

1937 Scott Philharmonic 32 receiver only - $ 125 for an unnamed NMRCC EH Scott enthusiast! Photos: 1. A few of the items for auction 2. Auction in progress 3. Early A-K items 4. 1931 Scott All Wave 12 in "The Warrington" cabinet ? 5. 1930 Crosley "Buddy Boy" Repwood ? 6. 1924 Zenith 3R (left foreground) with miniature steam engine behind; Crosley wall speaker and restored 1924 Zenith Super Portable Companion on right 7. Checking out the Magnavox horn speaker Our members should consider attending the HVRA meeting and joining HVRA, the dues are $20 per year and more information about the club and its activities can be seen at hvra.org - check it out! Special thanks to John Anthes, Mark and Lynn Toppo, Jim Sargent, and Jeff Heller for their assistance in preparing this article.

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Attending the Houston (TX) Vintage Radio Association (HVRA) 40th Annual Convention February 9-10, 2018 By Rick Harris

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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 ,1:00PM meetings start. Visitors Always Wel-comed.

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/

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