Antique Radio Page
Welcome to Gray's page of old wireless sets. You will see here mainly sets that were manufactured between 1925 and 1940 and reproductions of these early sets. Though I have some radios made in the 40s it is the earlier ones in which I am particularly interested. I have restored all of these radios to something like original condition even to the extent of them all working.
Browning Drake This is a reproduction of the Browning Drake c1925. Very popular in its time due to its alleged superior performance. Many thousands of these radios were manufactured commencing in 1923. By 1929 the craze was over and the Browning Drake Corporation had virtually closed.
(The speaker is an RCA 103 "tapestry" speaker- late 20s.)
This superior performance was attributed to
the Regenaformer. This component was a variation on the usual RF coil as it had
a variometer reaction coil. Reaction was controlled by
rotating the coil. Frederick Drake and Glen Browning claimed that by keeping
the capacitance between the resonant winding and the aerial coil and reaction coil to
a bare minimum (by using
fine winding wire) the "maximum step up" can be
achieved. Refer:
Alan Douglas "Radio manufacturers of the
1920's"
Graymavox The "Graymavox"
reproduction of a c1925 superheterodyne. It
uses 8 valves, all triodes, 55kcs IF and for the most part used 1925
techniques of construction.
Note: Comprehensive contruction articles "Building the Graymavox Superhet" appeared in HRSA "Radio Waves" magazine in July 1998 Issue No. 65 and next issue 66.
AWA Radiolette model 27 This radio manufactured in 1934 was
rescued from the cellar of a derelict house. Why you say? Pick the image to
see what a bit of TLC can do.
Pick the images for more information.
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In the early twenties xtal sets were all the rage. Large numbers of people were enthusiastically engaged in making and installing crystal sets along with experimenting with aerials, circuits etc. in an endeavour to get the best performance out of their amazing little machines. It is interesting to note that even now, over 80 years later, there are clubs that cater for enthusiasts who build and experiment with xtal sets. For those interested an excellent site is at the VE7SL Radio Notebook This set is a repro of a set made by AW Gamages of London. It uses a Pericon Detector which is a semi fixed unit which is much more stable than the ubiquitous cats whisker . |