Any Radio Buffs in the crowd?

[saltysam]

Hello everyone. Wanted to see if any of you all are familiar with old radios. I picked up this sweet looking unit last Monday. It has a Silvertone tube Radio with Am/Fm/Shortwave 1 and Shortwave 2 it also has a Silvertone Turntable and kicker here is a Silvertone Recordable Wire Recorder/Player. I had never heard of a Recordable wire recorder until I came across this unit. Everything still works even tried the recordable wire unit and it plays also. Whoever had it before kept all the wire spools in their metal storage containers and they are in perfect shape. When I was digging around in the cabinet that's when I found the wire spools. Each one has a number written on it and there was a little green notebook that had a number written at the top of each page with what was recorded on the wire. I did a little research and these are all old radio shows from the 30's and 40's. they are awesome to listen too. The previous owner also wrote down who the actors were on the radio shows. I have included a picture and hopefully someone here will be able to fill me in with some information on this console. Thanks in advance for any information you all might have!
Mark

 

[athanasius80]

Wow. Rarely does one find a complete setup in working condition. Please transcribe the wire recordings to something more stable. (They tend to turn into birds nests easily.) But thats awesome!

 

[little-edie]

wow!

 

[pdub]

very cool Mark!

That is a very nice radio / phono/ wire recorder. I've never seen one of those before and it sure does look well preserved. Congratulations!

I just picked this up:

 

[pdub]

1951 Philco radio phonograph

Here it is opened up:

 

[pdub]

the radio:

 

[pdub]

the phono

It had 1 bad tube. I replaced it and it came to life. The sound is good and it was in 1 family it's whole life and well taken care of. The phono will need some cleaning and oiling to bring it up to speed as it's a little slow. I love it!

 

[sudsmaster]

That's quite a find! I agree, digitize those wire recordings ASAP!

I have what looks like a late 40's Silvertone manual record player console with AM radio and wire recorder. None of it works, unfortunately. It will need some new tubes and probably capacitors etc to get it going again. I did get a new cartridge for the tonearm, though, and a blank spool of wire off eBay.

Do you have the microphone that came with the wire recorder? I'm told it's sort of Flash Gordon in styling. Never seen one, though.

 

[pdub]

Here is another one I have but it's the cabinet only. When I got it the insides had already been removed. It's still a beautiful piece of furniture though.

 

[qsd-dan]

Here's an old Zenith and Silvertone of my grandfathers that I finally got around to restoring. Sadly, there's nothing worth listening to on the AM frequency anymore. AM around here mostly consist of talk radio and Mexican music. Whatever happen to "Magic 61" and the like (Ok now I'm REALLY dating myself, lol)

 

[qsd-dan]

Silvertone

 

[saltysam]

Do you have the microphone that came with the wire recorder?

Hey sudsmaster, yes the microphone was in with all the wire spools and such. In the picture is it sitting on top of the console with all the wire spools.

qsd-dan and Pdub - those radios are absolutely beautiful! WOW. Probably the one thing I like about older appliances is well obviously the quality but the craftmanship. Back then items like the one pictured here were actually a piece of furniture that would last for decades......what a shame we got away from the and into this throw away society.
Mark

 

[davek]

Wow.

Some of those are really nice. I've long wanted an AM/SW radio with a tuning eye. That Zenith console is incredible. I've also always wanted a Trans-Oceanic, either an early one with the round tuning or a transistor one.

I have many radios, but the two that see the most use are my Grundig Satellit 800 and Grundig S350. Batteries seem to last forever in the S350! I mostly just use them for local stations and Arnie Coro. Someday, I'd like to have a Satellit 600, 650, and/or 700.

 

[polkanut]

Mark,

Transcribe those recordings to digital media, and then possibly donate the original wire recordings to a media archive. In this way they can be preserved for the future, and possible research. Donating them might have some tax advantages as well.

 

[saltysam]

Transcribe those recordings to digital media

I am going to need a little guidance with trying to "digitize" these recording. What would be the best way to go about doing this?
Mark

 

[whirlcool]

I collect those large German radios. I currently have a Saba, a Nordmende, a Telefunken and a Grundig. I don't have any photos of them yet. I love those lovely highly lacquered cabinets. I have a SW antenna in the attic so sometimes I can listen German and British programming.
I have started to work on them replacing the capacitors and resistors. I only had to replace a tube or two on them. Those vacuum tubes last a long time!

 

[davek]

German

If you're down for the German radios, I saw this Loewe Opta Hi-Fi stereo at a used electronics store up here a while back. The store has since closed, so I don't know where this radio is now. Sorry about the quality...all I had on me was a 35mm P&S with B&W film, and I didn't want to use the flash. I had to use a gumball machine for a tripod.

I'm sure that it is an amazing radio, but I couldn't afford the price they were asking. It has a pretty narrow cabinet for stereo as well.

 

[whirlcool]

The tabletop radios usually go for a pretty penny if they are in top condition, but the consoles as you shown in your photo go for much less just like their American counterparts. Nobody wants that style of furniture anymore. But the usually sound VERY good with top notch electronics inside.

 

[sudsmaster]

How to digitize music/audio

You can get a free digitizing software over the internet. It's called... Audacity as I recall...

Then you'll need a line-out from your wire recorder... which you can usually simply plug into the microphone or line-in jack on your computer's sound card. Most computers today come with audio built in, esp notebooks.

If your wire recorder console doesn't have a line-out, things get more interesting. It might be safest just to put a microphone on the computer and record the output of the wire recorder speaker. It won't be as good quality as a line-out feed, but then we're talking 30's AM radio, right?

Audacity is quite good but it does take a learning curve. If you're computer savvy it shouldn't be a problem, and after a while you'll get used to its quirks. It beats the pants off the software that came packaged with my ION USB turntable, for example.

I've digitized a number of my vinyl records and a few tapes using Audacity. Eventually I hope to digitize my entire vinyl collection. But I'll need to tack on one of those new terabyte external drives onto my notebook system to do that.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

 

[rp2813]

Just this week the 100th anniversary of the first radio broadcast was celebrated by AM station KCBS in San Francisco. They are the successor to the original station KQW in San Jose, where the first broadcast in history was made in June of 1909, and have a bureau in the building that stands on the site of the original building where the broadcast took place.

Interesting that in the space of the same week, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of a technology that is still being used, and saw the end of analog television broadcasting after 81 years.

Ralph

 

[j2400]

I don't know anything about wire recorders, but I'd be a bit cautious with any old line out to make sure that it would work electrically with a modern line in. A number of standards have changed since that radio was made. A good example is with the turntable--records of the 78 era have many differences from modern LPs, and not just the speed.

 

[alr2903]

I just posted in another thread the other day, never think something NEW will not come up on this site. I have never heard of a Wire recorder. i truly enjoyed everyones pics. thanks

 

[jakins]

1935 Crosley

Hi Guys
Just happened upon this thread. here is a pic of my 35 Crosley. It has been restored and plays great. The AM stations in the Orlando area has gone the way of most areas, Talk Talk Talk. I am also a big fan of OTR ( Old Time Radio )and have a great tool for this that many do not seem to know about. It is the Talking House. This broadcaster is an AM transmitter that is easy to use. it will broadcast over any am frequency. 530 thru 1700. It will record up to 5 min message and is used by realtors to give info on houses they have listed. However it also has a LIVE INPUT that you can play your ipod, mp3 player, cd player, or any audio through it. The only problem I had was my computer gave a strong buzz when I plugged it directly into the talking house so I transmit from computer with a fm transmitter to a radio and plug the talking house into the earphone jack. a little more work on the setup but I now have a very clean signal. The Talking House can be found on ebay almost any time you log on. and what fun to listen to what you want over your antique radios.

 

[jakins]

Talking House

The talking house

 

[tolivac]

Right now at my workplace I am running short wave AM transmitters over 60yrs old.Its a job keeping them going--rebuilt tubes and parts made up by a machine shop.Like the idea of a "talking House" transmitter being used to broadcast shows to your older radios-some YOU would want to hear.
Wire recorders are the forerunners of modern analog tape recorders-wire recorders work on the same principles as tape recorders-but use the steel wire as a recording-playback medium.Up to WW2-BBC used machines known as ribbon recorders to record and playback their shows.These machines can be dangerous-the transport was in its own room and operated by remote control.The medium was steel ribbon instead of wire or tape.The edges of the ribbon are sharp enough to cut-esp if the machine was in Fast forward or rewind mode.And if the ribbon broke in the fast modes-it was like a flying bandsaw blade!Somewhere at home I have pictures of these machines in a book.They were very large-the reels of ribbon were a couple feet in diameter.The playback and record speeds were faster than modern tape recorders that use plastic oxide coated tape.

 

[jbuscemi]

INteresting that there are so many different collections other than washers on this site. That's what makes it so interesting. I have a Victor Radio with ELectrola from 1929. It really is a great radio /phonograph combination with AMAZING tone and clarity. I also hitched in an FM receiver to enable me to play FM stations through the system. I am able to get some pretty wonderful stations...one being Radio Classique , Montreal. The horseshoe magnet electric pick up ( while I am sure it eats the records as it is very heavy and unes steel needles which must be changed after every record! ) allows one to really hear how the first electrically recorded discs sounded...and they are pretty impressive.

 

[whirlaway]

Radiola with Electrola

I have one also,it still has a few of the original blank recording discs with the jackets.Mine has the orignal oil in its balsa wood container.I paid 130.00 dollars for it 25 years ago at an estate sale,that was alot of money then.Still works well with no repairs other than rebuilding the horseshoe magnetic pickup.Thanks Bobby