I have been working on building the one tube regenerative detector from the plans over at Max Rominson's most excellent site, FunWithTubes.com. Max provides very detailed instructions on how to do things like wind coils and build this simple detector. Once I had this unit built right, it worked great, pulling in a Rochester NY york station (300+ miles from here) with just a short wire antenna. I had to make a few substituions from the plans but I am very satisfied with it.

Thats a hand wound coil, a 6AU6 tube and a tuning cap salvaged from a National SW-54 (uses only one gang).

Yeah, its a bit of a rats nest in there, that little breadboard isn't excatly ideal for this but it was on hand.

This is another radio I picked up at the NEARC meet last year (Jan 2004). I think I paid $40 for it assumed dead and missing a knob (that included a head set and I found a knob later on). It sat on the shelf for a while and I finally got to it last week. Heavy hum. Replaced three 20mf electrolytic caps (black cardboard tube on top of the chassis, pic below) and it played extremely well... That is, until I cleaned the tubes and controls... The hum was back again!

I had drpped the small 6AL5 tube (not far) when I was doing the cleaning so I subbed in a new one, No help. I subbed in replacements for each tube. No help, so it looked like I was in for more trouble shooting. While searching for the substitute tubes I had picked up an unmarked box that I proceded to mark. Takning the tube out of the box, I found that it was another 6AL5. Hmmm... I had to try it and it fixed the hum!

I went back to the other 6AL5s and subbed them back in. The hum was back with each. Strangest thing. Someone was watching over me (thank you).

A Deloc R-1157 which has an unusual and troublsome tuning mechanism. I have recapped it and it is performing very well. I lubed the tuning mechanism and it is working well enough for now but I think it will give me trouble in the future. I got this radio at the Jan 2005 NEARC winter meet for $30 (at the end of the day).

A shot of the tuning mechanism. Set presets by loosening the screw at the end of the shaft and pushing the preset (after tuning the station to be set). Then tighten the screw.

Detail of the friction drive, the small beveled rubber wheel on the left is attached to the tuning knob via a short shaft. I think that rubber wheel will soon need replacing but it is working reasonable well for now.

Here's the Atwater-Kent Model 80 Chassis I have been working on. This radio came from an estate sale in a very old Groton Mass home in 2004 for $60 and will remain in Groton.

Before and after pictures on the chassis. This is the one where I had the very low B+ problem. The problem turned out to be a short between one of the new wires connected the the 2nd IF coil and its shield (back left side on bottom picture).