Thanks for everyone's help.

The radio is not working perfectly now but it is working. Part of the problem is bad connections I think. It was working pretty well before, I was getting lots of strong stations. but then it would cut out. Now I can only get one station (the strongest in my area).

Being that there is no circuit board and the components are simply wired to terminal strips, makes it very hard to work with it. There are components piled on top of one another.

Also as others have pointed out, many components have probably seen their end of life after 35 years.

Probably the best thing to do would be to rebuild it from scratch but I really don't want to do that. This was the first major thing I ever built and I wanted to make ot work. I got part way there. And I would have not gotten that far if it was not for the help of the people that posted suggestions. Thanks again.

 

What Battery? Your schematic shows the radio being powered by a 1/2 wave rectified AC power supply.

 

What Battery? Your schematic shows the radio being powered by a 1/2 wave rectified AC power supply.

Duh posted to the wrong thread

 

There isn't a battery shown in the circuit.

What type of battery are you using for power right now? The charger will depend on that.

As for only receiving one station, what changed between when you could tune in several to when you could only receive one? Could it be another loose connection?

 

There isn't a battery shown in the circuit.

What type of battery are you using for power right now? The charger will depend on that.

As for only receiving one station, what changed between when you could tune in several to when you could only receive one? Could it be another loose connection?

See post above it was meant for another thread for a battery charger I am working on.

And yes probably a loose connection. Finding it will be difficult. I think this radio was meant to be built but not very fixable after that with the way all of the components are stuffed in there.

 

Can you post a couple photos of your radio, do you have a high resolution digital camera? Cell Phones don't usually work so well.

 

Update

I could not stand the fact that I was almost there so I picked the radio up once more. I found the loose connection! It a resistor off of TR1. It works great now! Now the most sensitive receiver in the world but it picks up several local stations with a nice strong signal!

It really feels good to get this old relic working.

Thanks again everyone!

 

Can you post a couple photos of your radio, do you have a high resolution digital camera? Cell Phones don't usually work so well.

See the above post but yes I will go ahead and post them anyway.

But maybe tomorrow, it is late.

 

Glad you got it working!

The photos might help you fix it in the future as well.

 

I for one am looking forward to the pics. However, I don't think your receiver will be able to claim the title of most sensitive receiver in the world. In the 1940's the Hallicrafters SX-42 sported two 6C4's serving as RF amps at the antenna jack. Most AM radios have no RF amps at all, including yours. Hey, that doesn't mean your radio isn't great though!

http://www.k4lrg.org/Projects/K4MSG_SX42.html

 

I for one am looking forward to the pics. However, I don't think your receiver will be able to claim the title of most sensitive receiver in the world. In the 1940's the Hallicrafters SX-42 sported two 6C4's serving as RF amps at the antenna jack. Most AM radios have no RF amps at all, including yours. Hey, that doesn't mean your radio isn't great though!

http://www.k4lrg.org/Projects/K4MSG_SX42.html

Actually, Ye Olde Pentagrydde Converter, used in the All American five radios DID have R.F. gain....cleverly hidden in the same tube as the converter.

In our friend's transistor, the first transistor is actually an "autodyne" converter, which is actually capable of considerable gain too. It was sort of a "stable regenerative" affair, if you can believe such a thing could exist. The Feedback loop is actually between collector and emitter.

Transistors were pretty expensive in those days, so designers were actually pretty clever getting a lot of performance out of few components. The "6 transistor" radio was a major acheivement!

Eric

 

OK you guys asked for it. Don't laugh.

Looking at this thing I kind of expected to hear old radio broadcasts when I turned it on.

I am also attaching the build manual as a PDF.

 

Actually, Ye Olde Pentagrydde Converter, used in the All American five radios DID have R.F. gain....cleverly hidden in the same tube as the converter.

In our friend's transistor, the first transistor is actually an "autodyne" converter, which is actually capable of considerable gain too.
Eric

I didn't say that receivers that used the IF converter as the first stage didn't provide gain, but it's hard to compare that with two (grid & plate) tuned RF stages.