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Old 07-09-2017, 11:33 PM
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Tubejunke Tubejunke is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Martinsville, VA
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Back to life Airline 14WG-806A1

Hi folks! Several months ago I found this beauty rather cheap with the cord cut for not more than the tubes would be worth without considering the ever pricey 6U5 "magic eye" which seems to be all the rage in vintage radio these days. I got it home and on the Variac which was quick to reveal that the power transformer was shot. It heated fairly quickly at around 60 VAC with or without the 5Y3 rectifier inserted and finally completely removed from circuit.

The chassis is an 8 tube with dual 6K6s as a push-pull audio output. Up to this point I didn't know that the WG designation when seen on Airline models stood for Wells-Gardner, which translates to higher quality builds and engineering. Just a glance at the radio told me that it wasn't a poor mans radio and when I yanked the chassis it was plain that it was really well made. We cant blame the period manufacturers for "upgrading" to now hardened rubber insulation on often bare conductors. That can be one awful mess and in this case I lucked out and they used a combination of that and the more common cloth covered wire. So jumping forward, I did have to replace several sections of wire. The main problem was the power transformer and a problem it was.

First, a guy contacted me that had a radio with the same tube count based on 6.3VAC tubes with a 5VAC secondary tap for the rectifier. I sent him the physical dimensions and he said they matched. I paid for the unit, and upon receipt it wasn't even close to the size I said I needed specifically. I wound up stuck with it. Luckily, a member here had a transformer that he felt would accommodate my needs. I will let him chime in if he wishes to be named. Just a courtesy thing I do. The problem faced with his transformer was that it had no 5VAC tap for the rectifier. He recommended I consider using a common 6V rectifier such as a 6X5. Now I'm not too bad with electronics repair and such, but I've never been one to customize things much, if at all. In this case I would be completely changing the power supply circuit by adding an indirectly heated tube with a bad reputation where a trusty 5Y3 which is filament or directly heated tube was and obtaining the same result.

I've long thought that I wanted to step up my game into REALLY understanding how and why various tube circuits work as they do and pull further away from often banking on the obvious or most likely causes of circuit failure & replacing parts isolated through the use of test equipment. Before that I often did shotgun restorations meaning just change the capacitors, check resistors (at least the ones that look odd in some way), clean tube sockets and pins, switches and potentiometers and power up fingers crossed-eyes on ammeter. That works for self professes techs all around the world. Again, I wanted dig deeper. And deeper I went!

It was a great learning experience in the end I will say studying schematics of both scenarios and even pulling other chassis of radios in my collection and comparing things. My radio had no filter capacitors for some reason. They were cut out. I did cheat and did a little guessing as opposed to doing the math. So, even with a couple of weak tubes which I don't have in stock, I would up with a really good sounding and very sensitive radio with Broadcast and Shortwave bands working just fine after replacement of the wax paper caps which all tested bad on my Heathkit IT-28 cap checker AND just for fun my Solar CE Analyzer (gotta love the mA/V gauge!).

The radio has probably the neatest looking dial and escutcheon config I've ever owned. However, it is cracked at two corners where tiny screws hold it to the wood. If anyone has a similar parts set or just the dial glass and plastic and would like to sell, I would like to buy. Just PM me or mention in this thread. I hope the pics come out OK in size and all. At around 80Kb after upload, I'm afraid they may be small. I'm lost with properly sizing pics....
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Airline 14WG-806A1.jpg (81.5 KB, 38 views)
File Type: jpg Airline14WG-806 Chassis.jpg (73.5 KB, 26 views)
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