Like the one that is this week's "radio of the Week", a Tasma Baby 1001. What I like is the little map of Australia in the center of the dial. That radio of the week:

Mine is in transit right now, and looking forward to receiving this receiver. Seller says it's been fully restored and receives stations well.
Once I get mine, I'll take some nice pictures of it.

I thought I recognised that one.

I've had that set since 1991 and because I bought it so many years ago it didn't require restoration at the time and it worked a treat. Not any more though - the condensers have dried out and will require replacement before she gets fired up again.

These radios are very popular as collectors items. They fall into the area of not rare but also not easy to obtain. When they become available they are expensive. The handful that were made in mottled maroon, marbled white and mottled green (same colour as the Dulux colour, brunswick green with a bit of grey and black thrown in) are VERY rare and expensive. These radios were also available under the Skyway brand.

The Model 1001 has four valves and the 1005 has five. The one above is a four-valver. They came with an inline power switch though if the previous owner replaced the cord they may well have left the inline switch out of the equation.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

This probably goes without saying to the aficionados, but don't ever pick them up by the top with a hand through the back.

An ignorant mate of mine did just that with an otherwise good Tasma Baby that he found and immediately cracked the top of the case.

A good rule to live by, that one. As tempting as it is, I don't even pick up an Astor JJ like that and the cabinets on those models are built like double-brick reading rooms.

The Tasma Baby, along with late-model Airzone Cubs and AWA Radiolettes are very thinly built. Strong enough for being left in a permanent spot and listened to but not strong enough for lifting.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

My radio arrived Saturday, and here it is:

My Australia map is in yellow, where the radio of the week's is in red. As well as the seperation markings between regions of stations.

It uses a 6A8 converter, an EBF2GT IF amp and detector, and an EL33 audio power output, and 5Y3 rectifier.

Added an inline mains power switch, as the restored radio's replaced mains cord had no switch, as mentioned above I might need to do.

I wonder why they didn't use a power switch on say the volume control. Instead going with an inline cord switch. That seems kinda inconvenient, as power cords tend to be hidden behind furnature. And as at least in America outlets (powepoints?) are usually mounted about 40cm above the floor, so the use of the powerpoint's switch to turn the radio on or off would also be ackward. American outlets usually do not have switches other than the circuit breaker in the house's distribution electrical panel.

I wonder why they didn't use a power switch on say the volume control. Instead going with an inline cord switch.

Two reasons: Cost and the law. If a radio (or any electrical appliance at the time) was fitted with a bayonet plug instead of a three pin plug a double-pole power switch would have to be fitted to the appliance and these were quite expensive. More than 50% of mantel radios made at the time were fitted with bayonet plugs which, like a light globe, could be inserted either way around, causing the neutral wire to be switched instead of the active.

There were so many radios and kitchen appliances fitted with bayonet plugs in the years surrounding WWII that people resorted to having lamp sockets fitted alongside the three pin sockets in the kitchen so they didn't need to have flexible cords dangling from bayonet double adaptors plugged into light fittings.

In drawing rooms (lounge rooms, living rooms, etc) powerpoints were often fitted just below the chair rail which was a bead of timber about one metre off the floor in older homes. Today the standard height for a powerpoint in non-wet areas is 300mm, otherwise just above bench height. As a bloke with a sore back some of the time, I wish chair rails were still in vogue!

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

See the schematic
here. Too big to directly present the image here, and a small size would be unreadable.

I changed the output tube to the EL33 as found in my set, from the EL3 the diagram orginally had. The two valves are electrically identical, only the bases are different. I also added the component values next to the components in the schematic, I hate diagrams that just say "R11" in the schematic and you have to look in a table to find its value. Also added a leading zero before decimal points so one can see that there has to be a decimal point, as they tend to get lost. .1μF can easily look like 1μF, but 0.1μF is clearer.

I noticed that the tuning range is specified as 540 to 1550kHz, which is consistant with what my radio actually tunes. The set tops out at about 1570, just above the local Disney kids' radio outlet. And WMTR Morristown NJ 1250 comes in at the location on the dial as 2NC, which is listed at 1233 Newcastle, but Wikipedia says was at 1245kHz. Did they actually use 5kHz offsets, I thought they only used multiples of 10kHz back in this radio's day?

The frequency of 1245kHz was probably allocated due to a reported clash with a station near the same frequency that was broadcasting in New Zealand.

An article here confirms the issued frequency but not why it was allocated.

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A valve a day keeps the transistor away...

I replaced the dial lights (which look to have been #40's, screw threads) with some bulbs I got at Radio Shack (in the USA nowadays a cell phone retailer mostly "Whatever you came here for, we have a cell phone for you!"), 7.2V 220ma for flashlights. These have round glass globes, a little less than 8mm diameter. These are physically smaller, and thus are no longer too close to the plastic disc that holds the pointer. The old bulbs were the elongated shape. Makes for more even distribution of light (still not that even, the top of the dial is still brighter than the bottom), and being 7.2V instead of 6.3V should make the bulbs last longer. The old bulbs made for really uneven lighting, nearby corner bright and the rest of the dial dark.