Hi folks, I've been asked to resurrect an old radio, the owner found it in his fathers shed & before I was told about it he had powered it up. Don't think he left it on long enough to do any damage. A circuit is not mandatory but would be nice if anyone can help. He said it has General Electric on the cabinet but I haven't seen that I think it is between 1932 & 1935 by the valve types. The line up is, 24,35,35,35, 80 & I don't remember the output valve (it's out in the shed.) It's a superhet with most of the capacitors in 4 metal cans screwed to the wooden end of the chassis. I will replace all of the electro's & intend to try & make it look original by installing the new caps in the old packaging. I'm concerned that the power transformer, speaker transformer or the field winding might be suspect. Any advice greatly appreciated.
Ian.

Hi Ian and welcome to the Forum.

Are you sure its a super-het? Going by the valve line-up (output 47?), I can only find a GE 66E & a AWA 55E, which are both TRF's. GE's of that vintage would be rebadged AWA's.

24 & 35 from memory are Tetrodes and there is a Sentenial auto dyne on the American forum with a 35 as the autodyne mixer. Output 47.

All the electrolytics (if used) and wax papers will need to go and resistors tested. A circuit may be procurable as it may be an AWA clone. This could mean that its an RCA, or GE from the US & appears in "Rider".

The Americans love burning out transformers by turning the thing on to see if it goes. Probably why many of their sets never had them? Australia had some fairly tight regulations back then & I find transformer failures rare. However, when considering powering an unknown apparatus like a radio, one needs to appreciate that it was likely abandoned due to a fault, which was................?

There is a post here on how to insulation test them but it is preferable to get a circuit to see what we are dealing with.

It probably has an electrodynamic speaker? There may be, since a powering attempt was made, enough residual magnetism to get sound. So the idea is to get a nine volt transistor battery & crack it across the primary of the OP transformer & see if it makes noise (crackle). If it does its likely OK.

If it has electrolytics the tick, tick, is likely an arc and often precedes, or is the countdown clock for an electrolytic that has lost form and is about to explode like a mortar.

I would think it a 55 series OP47 spkr 2000 ohm field circuit of model with turntable; Circuit on Kevin Chants site.

We probably should start with a photo of the front of the receiver and, if possible, a photo of the rear showing the chassis. Then a list of any identification markings which are usually on the back of the chassis. AWA and most other manufacturers used a mix of stencilled paint, stampings and compliance plates for this sort of thing, depending on the model and when it was made.

GE's branding changed over time too. Their radios were always made by AWA, as mentioned before, though the first sets were badged GE and then later AGE. Model names for the latter included Bandmaster and Hotpoint.

If you are able to take a couple of photos you can e-mail them to me for inclusion in your posting. Click on my username for a page containing my address. If possible, try to take the photos in good light and bring them into focus as much as possible. I sometimes get underexposed blurry photos and they generally can't be used.