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1930's Radios

Here is my collection of radios built in the 1930's. Missing here is the Fairbanks-Morse radio that belonged to my dad. That is on the main page. The decade began with the large scale use of superhets with TRF sets falling by the wayside. AGC (automatic gain control) was an example of the big steps forward during the 30's. The end of the decade saw the wide use of loctal tubes. I don't have a lot of these radios in my collection. They tend to be higher priced and don't work quite as well as the 1940's sets.




DKE-38 Volksempfänger


This is an example of a political radio. This radio was made for the german mass market so everyone could hear what the government wanted them to hear. They were built cheap and sold cheap and on very easy credit. I have wanted one of these sets for a long time. This does work, but I only played it for a few minutes. This one is for looking at. I paid a lot for it but it is in excellent condition.


Midwest 17-39



I always wanted a Midwest radio in the worst way. I used to see the ads for them in the old magazines. This might not be the best example of the Midwest brand but I am liking it already.

This is one of those ebay deals where perhaps after I bid, I figured I better get my head examined. But the price was right and this gave me the big chance to work on a 17 tuber. I wasn't disappointed. It did come with a partial cabinet but I am not sure how this looked when it was new and all together. Starting with the AC cord and going through the power supply, much had to be changed. I found a circuit and got to work. Since this set didn't come with a speaker, I used a couple of resistors to make up for the missing choke. I replaced all the filters and about half of the paper capacitors. A section had been blackened and it was found that a coupling capacitor was the culprit. I fixed that along with replacing a resistor that looked pretty bad. Nearly all the tubes checked real good, so I was ready to go. I plugged it in and it worked! I spent another day adjusting the power supply resistors and did a full alignment. This set covers long wave, medium wave and short wave all the way to 30 mhz, all in 5 bands. There is a motor tuning system, but the motor leads have been cut. I might see if I can make that work but I don't hold any big hopes.

Since the speaker was missing, I used a Hammond 15 watt push pull audio transformer and one of my Polk Audio speakers. The original set had a 2 way woofer - tweeter arrangement. This radio has the big sound. This is how AM radio was meant to be received. I will put it in it's cabinet and figure out where I will put it. I will listen to this one on Saturday nights.

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