Garage sale radio: Crosley F-5CE
 

You rarely see tube radios at garage sales anymore. But this sale was at a house that dated back to the 1930s, and it may have been used there back in its day. The guy said that it works, but I think "sure...". $5 later took it home and it hums loudly, needs caps, I would have been surprised if it didn't need new caps. Works well once I changed the usual suspect caps.
http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/crosley-f-5ce.jpg

I have one of those, actually the very first tube radio I ever owned. it's a good performer for an aa5 and has a nice metal chassis. It has a PEC in it, but the balance of capacitors are paper. I used to use it to listen to AM DX when I was a kid.

They generally always need 'lytics and other paper caps. The radio is about 64 years old. Good thing, it didn't have silver mica disease in the IF's.
Were all the tubes original? :scratch2:

I'll have to look, but at least some are the originals, or at least say "Crosley" on them.

You can kind of tell the history of the radio, by how many of the tubes and other parts were replaced through the years. When that radio was new, many people used their radios for many hours a day. :scratch2:

My identical Crosley had zero Crosley tubes in it. Every single one was replaced, and by all different brands at that!

Most of the radios of that age, the 50C5 and 35W4 was replaced and the other three were original factory issue.

Just took a look. The 12BE6, the 12BD6 (yes, BD) and 35W4 were Crosley branded. The 50C5 was an RCA, and the 12AT6 a Motorola (I don't think Motorola made tubes, just had some OEM label them "Motorola").

Far as I could tell, I'm the first to change out any other parts. I did a recap.

The 12BD6 seemed to be a tube used around that time!
IIRC, they used a 150 to 180 resistor in the cathode circuit. Motorola was another one that was fond of that tube. Why???
The Motorola tubes made for replacement use had green printing on them and most were made by GE. :scratch2:

I've got that same radio. It was picked up from the basement of my great aunt after she passed back in 2000.

It's a standard AA5 chassis, and the only thing odd about it is how it mounts in the cabinet. I remember I replaced the paper caps, but the filter caps are still original. Even though my Crosley lives on a shelf in the kitchen, and only gets turned on a couple times a year, it's a nice sounding little radio.

I'm always amazed how much interest a smaller, simpler radio gets on this forum, which is fine! :thmbsp:

I suppose the only thing unique about the whole "All American 5" genre is the cabinet, as the circuitry varies little between the different brands. Plus, they're still plentiful and can be found for a decent price.

They're easy to restore, and they usually perform quite well despite the cost cutting designs.

The only poor performing AA5's were the GE's that used the Autodyne converter circuit. They seemed to do that so they could use the same osc and 1st IF coil, as in their cheap and nasty 4 tube sets.
They only did it for a few years, as their customers found, that they didn't receive as well as the competitive makes. :sigh: