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Got my first antique shortwave radio!


gonzp

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Glenn, Very nice looking radios Amigo! Just what I need, another hobby! I will look for WXYT tonight



GO WINGS!

Thanks, Patrick! I'm worried that your window of opportunity may close tonight before you get to hear the game:

Tonight's game begins at 7:00 EDT and you live in Mountain Daylight. So, that's only 5:00 pm at your place and it needs to be dark both where you are listening from and where the transmitter site is before the DXing can take hold. It begins to get dark here in Detroit around 8:30 pm EDT and assuming the same is true for you, that would be 10:30 pm EDT by the time your area starts to get dark and the game will be long over before conditions are right for you to tune in WXYT. [:(]

So, here's a thought: In Canada, CBC will be airing the game. Maybe there is a CBC AM station nearer to Wyoming than Detroit, and you may be able to tune it in likes it was next door. Let's just hope it isn't being broadcast in French! LOL Regina, Saskatchewan is about the nearest large Canadian city to your area of Wyoming. They have a CBC AM Radio station CBK which broadcasts in English and is found at 540 kHz CBC Radio-1.

The Calgary station is CFAC "The Fan" at 960 kHz AM. They are in your time zone. Their website is: http://www.fan960.com/ Their site also has a "Listen Live" link in case you can't tune them in! They broadcast at 50,000 Watts.

Next Tuesday's game (April 17th) is in Calgary and it begins at 10:00 PM Detroit time, so sometime during that game, it will get dark by you and you'll be able to try and tune in WXYT. Good luck!

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Again Glenn,

    Thanks for doing all of the leg work for me. I really do appreciate it. You are right I prolly won't get reception until after the game is long over.  What do you that the Wings chances will be getting out of the first round?  I hope that we don't run into another hot goalie yet again unless its Hasek!
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Patrick: You are more than welcome, my friend! Hot goalie? Was that REALLY Kiprusoff out there? [;)] Man, the Wings looked good. The Flamers sure got pissy toward the end. Based on last night: I don't want to jinx them or get too cocky so, suffice it to say: I think they've got a good change of advancing. GO WINGS!

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I don't want to speak too early either Kiprusoff is very capable. If the Wings win this series the Ducks and JSG are possibly next up and, we know what thet means. Hopefully this season is a season to rid some monkeys off of some backs.....

Go Wings!!!!!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey Patrick: Have you had any luck tuning in any of the Wings' playoff games?

Here is a picture very simliar to the 1946 Detrola Model 571 that I just inherited from a good friend who recently passed away......

post-10177-13819330549644_thumb.jpg

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Glenn, another nice radio! Too bad you had to lose a friend to receive it. As far as the games, no I have not had luck picking up a station. I am planning to put up an external radio antenna this next week (weather permitting) The Wings made it out of the first round!!! Whats the talk in Hockeytown about Holmstrom? I have just been reading that he is day to day.

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Patrick: Yeah, thanks. Roy (my friend) was a great guy! He was 87 when he passed away a short time ago. He was a life-long smoker so you can only imagine how sick with cancer he'd become. But he lived life on his own terms and lived a long time. He and I used to sell antiques togther on Ebay for the last few years. I taught him how to use a PC when he was 84 and got him his own PC. He loved emailing his friends and our antique customers. I got him into antique radios about 20 years ago. The Detrola is such a nice rememberence of Roy for me as it was one of his favortites! God bless him! I sure miss him. My dad (who I also miss dearly) passed away back in 1978 so Roy kind of became his stand-in for me. I will be eternally grateful for his friendship.

The Wings looked pretty shaky last night in game one against the Sharks. If you missed the first 10 minutes of the game; you missed the whole thing. The Sharks scored twice within 24 seconds of each other. That took the wind out the the crowd's sails for the remainder of the game. The Wings were totally outplayed by San Jose's defense last night. Tomorrow's another game. They'd better bring their "game faces" with them!

As usual, the Wings aren't divulging much information about "Homer". We're hearing that he's day-to-day, too. A few more details is that the cut is actually in the eyelid, which can certainly be a real "dicey" thing to have to deal with. There is still blood and swelling around the eye. Below, I've posted a photo of when the injury occured (game 6 against Calgary). From this angle it appears to be the right eye. OUCH! It also looks like it's his own stick that hit him!

post-10177-13819330581136_thumb.jpg

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Take a look at www.antiqueradios.com for a wealth of information. I found the forum to be particularly helpful. I just finished my fourth major restoration. I have done two table models and two floor models, all Zeniths. The large ones have been particularly satisfying. Zenith used a major furniture building concern for their cabinets. They are solidly constructed, made of excellent woods carefully matched to grain. I tend toward a true restoration as opposed to refinishing. I cut myself more slack on the electronics using modern electrolytics and "orange drops". I slip into apostasy when it comes to the sound reproduction gear. Loud speakers and output transformers were in their infancy in the '30's. My last job had 6L6s in P-P with about 12W of clean output. So I went with a Hammond output transformer. Since the motorboard was already cut for 15" (although they used a 10" dynamic speaker with an adaptor ring) I used a 15" Jensen and a horn tweet/squawk properly crossed over. Wow. Nobody believes it is AM. Stunning. I keep my conscience clear by convincing myself that this is what Zenith would have done if they had had the parts! As a footnote. This is a 1937 model and has the words HIGH FIDELITY on one position of the "tone" switch. Has anybody seen an earlier use of Hi-fi? (This one is my "keeper.")

This is a very addictive hobby. My wife has the solution. As one comes in the garage door another goes out the front door. Harmony preserved.

DRBILL

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Here are a couple of tips that may be of use. Vintage radios are wide open to noise. Dimmers, fluorescent lights, etc. can spoil a good listening session. The cures for this are fairly easy. You can bypass both sides of the power line to the chassis with .001 capacitors. Also, try reversing the plug in the outlet. I use a "powerline scrubber" (Furman?) which does the above bypass but also has a torroid choke and a spike clamp all mounted on a small PCB.

Vintage power transformers tend to fail upon turn-on with our modern power-line voltages. A simple inrush thermister is well worth the 15¢! And nobody was ever sorry they placed a fuse inline. All of this could be mounted outboard in a little aluminum project box if you didn't want to find space on/under your chassis.

Finally, I get excellent reception with a home-made electrostatically shielded loop antenna. They are easilly made out of 20' of old two wire mike cable. If there is interest, I'll try to post the instructions.

Not only have I hogged this thread, this has nothing to do with the objectives of this forum. My bad.

DRBILL Zenith 10-S-153_1

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Where have you been???,,,,Now I know what you have been doing.....I love that old 1920 Art Deco look to that floor stander....Ive also been on that antique radio site....Boy some of those rare radios command a good price....But the AM band was really something in the great 30s 40s & earley 50s the king of the airwaves....The programs i can still hear in my memories.....Nothing like that today visually...like what the mind can conjour up.

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Maron-- We are terribly fortunate here in the Fort Worth/Dallas "metroplex" as far as AM stations are concerned. There is one in particular KAAM 770, that has a very clean signal and a commendable bandwidth. It plays music from the '30's-'50's. It creeps some people out to hear 30's music coming from a 30's radio. Try www.KAAMradio.com for a sample.

DRBILL

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Not only have I hogged this thread, this has nothing to do with the objectives of this forum.  My bad.

DRBILL  Zenith 10-S-153_1


DRBILL please don't feel that you hijacked the thread.  I found your information quite valuable and much appreciated.  As well as sharing my Wings passion with Glenn, I hope that you are a Dallas Cowboys fan! 
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Patrick: Yeah, thanks. Roy (my friend) was a great guy! He was 87 when he passed away a short time ago. He was a life-long smoker so you can only imagine how sick with cancer he'd become. But he lived life on his own terms and lived a long time. He and I used to sell antiques togther on Ebay for the last few years. I taught him how to use a PC when he was 84 and got him his own PC. He loved emailing his friends and our antique customers. I got him into antique radios about 20 years ago. The Detrola is such a nice rememberence of Roy for me as it was one of his favortites! God bless him! I sure miss him. My dad (who I also miss dearly) passed away back in 1978 so Roy kind of became his stand-in for me. I will be eternally grateful for his friendship.

The Wings looked pretty shaky last night in game one against the Sharks. If you missed the first 10 minutes of the game; you missed the whole thing. The Sharks scored twice within 24 seconds of each other. That took the wind out the the crowd's sails for the remainder of the game. The Wings were totally outplayed by San Jose's defense last night. Tomorrow's another game. They'd better bring their "game faces" with them!

As usual, the Wings aren't divulging much information about "Homer". We're hearing that he's day-to-day, too. A few more details is that the cut is actually in the eyelid, which can certainly be a real "dicey" thing to have to deal with. There is still blood and swelling around the eye. Below, I've posted a photo of when the injury occured (game 6 against Calgary). From this angle it appears to be the right eye. OUCH! It also looks like it's his own stick that hit him!


Glenn,
   Memories are all we are left with. I find it refreshing that an 84 year old is still challenging him/her self to new challenges.  The reason he lived so long was probably because he was curious.  I had to replace the hard drive on my mac mini already 1.5 years???? I have not been online for a week.  Homer just scored the goal in game 4 right before 2nd intermission.  I'm glad he's back!!!

EDIT;  were you able to watch the end of the game pickey?  They have got to stop spotting SJ a 2 goal lead!! Great game though.  Holmstrem left the game again [:(]
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Patrick: I have to agree that his curiousity help to keep my friend, Roy young. My mother is the same way now at 88. She's is so young and vibrant; you should hear how amazed so many people are with her condition. I am so lucky to have her here. She was a Shanahan fan and she even has his jersey, which she sometimes wears on game nights. Now that he's a Ranger, she calls him a traitor! LOL. She said the other night that she believes she's going to pick either Datsyuk or Bertuzzi as her new guy. Looks like I'll have to buy her a new Jersey for Mother's Day! LOLOL

Yeah, thank goodness for "Homer" being back last night! My buddy Dan and I are here at the office on our lunch hour scouring the web trying to find out what happened to Homer's foot last night and if he's still in for Saturday's game. I just discovered by reading the 'Detroit News' site that Homer had broken the blade of his skate, so it looks like he did not get injured after all! THANK GOODNESS! [:D] I must admit that I did not see much of the game last night. Verna and I are avid 'Lost' fans and it comes on at 10 pm here, which is the same time the game started. I caught the tail-end of the first period and the first half of the second. When SJ scored their second goal making it 2-0, I had to turn it off as it was already 11:25 pm here and I get up at 5 am. [|-)] I could have stayed up through the whole game and still went to work if I was 10 years younger, but not now! Man, do I ever agree with you: They'd better stop spotting SJ the 2 goal leads!!! And Hasek needs to learn to stay in the crease! Holy crap!!! He's gotta be the luckiest goaltender in the league! He scares the heck outta me sometimes! [:o]

DRBILL: Thanks for all of the antique radio information. It's nice to hear someone, that's obviously spent some time in the hobby, share their knowledge with us neophytes!

-Glenn

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  • 10 months later...

Well I'm resurrecting an older thread! On Saturday, in Denver, the "Vintage Voltage Expo" along with the Colorado Antique Radio Club held it's annual show. I went to the show with hopes of purchasing a floor console. I did find one that I liked and I purchased it! It too is an AM/Shortwave Model 80??? Sparton 8 tube radio. It too has had the filters and tubes replaced. It looks and sounds awesome!! Did I say that these old radios are addictive?

post-17366-13819367142002_thumb.jpg

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