The Mississippi Historical Radio and Broadcasting Society

Vol 3 #2 May 7, 1993

News Letter

Our regular monthly meeting was held April 11th, 1993 at the usual place and time. Our next regular meeting will be Sunday, May 9th - 3PM at 2412 C St. Meridian. Hope to see everyone then!

Next weekend is Alabama Historical Radio Society's Annual Show. It will be held in conjunction with the Birmingham HAMFEST at the Birmingham Civic Center Exhibition Hall. Saturday, May 15, the show will be open from 9AM to 5PM. Sunday, May 16, the hours are from 9AM to 3PM. They are planning a mini-museum and display area, and have tables available for the swap meet / flea market area. For more information contact Don Kresge at (205) 595-2856. They are hoping a bunch of us will attend. I may not be able to make it this year (I've attended the last three years), but I hope many of you can and will attend.

I've received another complaint about Puett Electronics in Texas, which I'll pass on without comment. Seems orders aren't getting filled, and when they do it's 4 - 6 weeks. They are charging for schematics even when they can't find the schematic to send - they call the charge "research time".

We print addresses and phone numbers here as a service to our readers. The appearance of a company is not an endorsement of any kind. We will try to avoid including any business that we have heard unresolved complaints about. So if you do have a problem with someone -- and they don't make it right -- let us know.

Fair Radio's 1993 catalog is out --- right on the front page: TV-2 tube testers $100 - $150 depending on condition etc. These are considered by many to be the best tube testers ever built. Tons of other goodies --- including tubes at reasonable prices. Check 'em out:
Fair Radio Sales
1016 E. Eureka St.
P. O. Box 1105
Lima, Ohio 45802
(419) 223-2196
Speaking of odd things in strange places: QVC got into the old radio arena a few days ago --- seems they came across a bunch of Marconi Stock Certificates from the late '20's. They had them nicely framed: yours for a mere $100.

We have been getting some pretty good feedback about our ongoing series on dating radios - and about the delivery time on the (Very) overdue membership cards. On the cards: The stock paper to print them on arrived yesterday: I'll try to get them out in a week or so. About the articles: Glad you all seem to like them, and we'll continue them along for a while.

We had an interesting radio come through our repair services department a couple of weeks ago. It was an Emerson compact with a fairly common chassis. No model numbers evident, though one of the brass labels did have Emerson Radio and Television Company on it. The tube line up is: 78, 78, 77, 43 & 25Z5. These are typical 5, 6 & 7 pin tubes (pre Octal i.e. 1935) and the 25Z5 wasn't in common use until 1934. So 1934 - 1935 was our first guess. Checking in Riders Vol. 4, we found that the "H-5-A" Chassis was identical -- but then so is the "H-5-L" chassis (though a later H-5-L chassis has a 6A7 converter tube instead of a 78. The only difference is the "L" chassis uses an IF of 132KC -- while the "A" chassis uses an IF of 456KC. Once the radio was working, a quick check of the IF showed it was tuned to 456KC. So this has to be an "A" chassis. These chassis are listed as being used in the following Emersons:
30 AW
33 AW
250 AW
321 AW
350 AW
Now we're getting somewhere -- Right?
WRONG! --- turns out that Blast from the Past shows a model 30 AW as a nice little Midget, but certainly NOT this radio. The same page also shows a model 250 AW -- Also not the right one. Bunis lists the 30 and the 250, but not the others. So we STILL don't know what model it is.
By the way, I haven't described this little jewel yet, have I? It is in a black lacquered case HEAVILY decorated in oriental style, with fish and other designs in thick paint. This thing is gorgeous! It covers the AM band and the old police band (1.5 to 3Mhz). But we still haven't absolutely identified it nor found out what it is worth! We're going to send pictures of it to Marty Bunis (of the Bunis Book fame) and see if he can identify it through some of his resources.

From a dating perspective, however, it turns out that we were EXACTLY right:
1) Riders #4 covers 1934 stuff.
2) When we replaced the speaker, (the old one was VERY shot) we found the date of August 1934 on the part of the rim of the speaker where it bolted to the chassis.
Again, this was determined by the tube complement, and the dates those tubes were used.
That's about it for this issue:
REMEMBER Classified ads are free to members!

The Mississippi Historical Radio and Broadcasting Society Newsletter is published monthly by:
The Mississippi Historical Radio and Broadcasting Society
2412 C Street
Meridian, MS 39301
601 693-5958

© 1993, The Mississippi Historical Radio and Broadcasting Society.

Back to Archive Page