'57 Westinghouse & '61 Silvertone transistor radios

[radiotvnut]

Here are radios 2 and 3 of that ebay purchase. Radio number 1 is a late '50's tube GE portable that I spoke about in the antique radio discussion forum.

The first radio is a seven transistor Westinghouse model H602P7 from '57. It is AM only and the case is made of genuine top grain cowhide. The only real cosmetic damage is some damage to the knobs. The circuit is built on a PC board chassis and is dead when tested with my bench power supply. Probably bad caps.

The next radio is a Silvertone model 1217 "700" AM seven transistor portable with a tuned RF stage and two IF stages. There is also a tone control. This radio plays; but, the audio is weak. Again, probably due to bad caps. This radio uses several of those black electrolytic caps that are usually bad by now. When I opened the radio, the original owner's manual and service information was still inside. The chassis number is 528.53920, which indicates that it was built by Warwick for Sears. This radio also looks nice. This looks like one of their better models and will probably be a good performer.

With shipping, I ended up with less than $10 in each radio. This was one of those ebay deals where there was only one picture and it wasn't good. This batch actually turned out to be better than expected.

[zenithfan1]

Those are some neat radios Bryan! I like that Sears the best.

[bandersen]

Nice radios
I like that stylized Seven. I suppose transistors cost quite a bit back then.

[OvenMaster]

At least the Silvertone uses "D" cells... those battery connectors on the Westinghouse look like a pair of cells will be on the tough side to find. Nice haul.

Tom

[radiotvnut]

That Westinghouse uses two large nine volt batteries in parallel. They probably did that for longer battery life.

[radiotvnut]

The Silvertone is now fixed for the exception of repairing the battery box. The main culprit was one 6 uf cap. There are a total of 5 electrolytic caps in this radio. The single 6 uf and two dual section caps (50-50 uf and 50-20 uf). It seems to be a good performer

I replaced a total of 13 caps in the Westinghouse. About half were wax paper and the other half were electrolytics. I left one orange cardboard tubular 100 uf cap in place because it was still good and I was out of that value. There were two dead smaller value electrolytics preventing the radio from playing. The radio plays fairly well; but, the tonal quality and it's sensitivity are not as good as the Silvertone. Judging from date codes on the old caps, this radio may have actually been built in '56.