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  #1  
Old 04-23-2004, 11:03 AM
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dsk dsk is offline
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Worthington, Ohio
Posts: 23
I'm in!

Hey look at me! I bought my first old radio! Does this suck? Did I overpay? Is it worth like a gazillion dollars and I will be appearing on Antiques Roadshow?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...EBWN%3AIT&rd=1
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  #2  
Old 04-23-2004, 12:30 PM
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Sandy G Sandy G is offline
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Join Date: May 2003
Location: Rogersville, Tennessee
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You did alright. Not a great bargain, but I don't think you got hosed, by any means. Pretty sure that uses the K731 chassis, I have it's blonde wood cousin. Be careful, tho- Tooob radios are ADDICTING. Next you'll be wanting a Big Black Dial Zenith, a Scott 800B, an RCA Radiola, a Grebe Synchrophase MU-1....<grin>-Sandy G.
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  #3  
Old 04-23-2004, 12:33 PM
RocknRoll
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I used to collect these exact type of tube table radios before I was into these SS gear now. Zenith was one of the best. Just don't touch the metal part of the chassis when it's plugged in and everything should be fine.
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  #4  
Old 04-23-2004, 12:41 PM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
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Re: I'm in!

Quote:
Originally posted by dsk
Hey look at me! I bought my first old radio! Does this suck? Did I overpay? Is it worth like a gazillion dollars and I will be appearing on Antiques Roadshow?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...EBWN%3AIT&rd=1
Hi, and welcome to AK.

I don't know about that (that you will or won't appear on PBS' Antiques Roadshow or that your radio is worth as much as you said), but I do know you now have a very nice Zenith radio, and yes, it is an antique. I have a slightly newer model here (K731, from the 1960s; yours is model M730 from the '50s), an ebay score last year. My set worked as soon as I received it here, and I still use it regularly. Works great, as do all Zeniths. I also have a 1951 Zenith H511Y "racetrack" model in a black bakelite cabinet that works rather well for its 53 years, but needs a bit of work (the speaker cone is torn, the set could use a recap although it still sounds good, and the dial cord is broken; it probably could use a new line cord as well).

I just scored a NOS (new old stock) 5" Zenith loudspeaker on ebay yesterday which should arrive here by UPS or perhaps USPS in a few days, so I'll be able to replace the speaker soon.

I like anything and everything manufactured by the original Zenith Radio Corporation of Chicago. Used to have a basement full of old Zenith TVs, radios and even one early-'60s vintage Zenith stereo phonograph when I lived in suburban Cleveland in the late '60s and '70s. However, I moved to a very small apartment four years ago, so must be content with collecting small radios (my small collection presently consists of the two sets I mentioned above). I still enjoy looking at and reading the posts by others here on AK about their TV scores (b&w and color--all my old sets were Zenith b&w portables and one 23" console); I also like reading about those of our members here who have the big 1950s Zenith 3-way console entertainment units, especially the Great Circle sets with the 19" round tube. I hear those were excellent sets when they were new and still are today, once they are gone over electronically (new tubes, caps, etc.) and the cabinets shined and cleaned as necessary.

Again, welcome to AK. Enjoy that "new" Zenith of yours; as I said, it is an excellent set (the cabinet looks great as well), and should serve you well for many years, as Zenith's early tube sets were built to work well and to last.

Kind regards,
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Collecting, restoring and enjoying vintage Zenith radios since 2002

Zenith. Gone, but not forgotten.

Last edited by Jeffhs; 04-23-2004 at 05:58 PM.
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  #5  
Old 04-23-2004, 03:26 PM
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Paula Paula is offline
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Posts: 110
Nice radio!

I think you did okay on the price. Zeniths of this general type were very well made, and so there are still a lot of them around. Depending on condition, they generally go for around $15-45, so you did alright, assuming no major problems once you receive it.

I picked up a K731 not long ago (like jeffhs's, but the more modern style with legs). This is the same model that my dad gave my mom for Christmas back in the early sixties, and has a lot of pleasant memories for me. It is in excellent original condition and plays beautifully. I'm in the process of re-capping it, and giving it a detailed cosmetic restoration. Also, I'm replacing the selenium rectifier with a silicone rectifier, something you should also consider, as they are a ticking time-bomb (or, ticking stink-bomb! )

One thing you can do, re: rocknroll's warning about the hot chassis, is replace the original non-polarized plug with a polarized one. You just need to determine which of the two line-cord wires goes to the chassis, and wire that side to the neutral prong of the plug. Another good thing to do, if you plan on using the radio a lot is to install an in-line fuse on the hot side of the line (about 1/2 amp).

Congratulations!!

Paula
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  #6  
Old 04-23-2004, 07:05 PM
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dsk dsk is offline
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Location: Worthington, Ohio
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Thank you all for the encouragement and sage advice. Where can you buy those rubber/leather gloves lineworkers wear? I'll report in when I get the thing. My hope is that it will allow me to listen to the Indians games on my screen porch, just like I used to do with my Grandfather. I think he may have had a selenium core watchmathingy.
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  #7  
Old 04-29-2004, 09:26 PM
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dsk dsk is offline
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Update on my first old radio. It arrived today and it works just fine. I little cleaning (which we all like to do anyway, right?) and it's sittin pretty. Now I kinda wish the dial lit up.
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  #8  
Old 04-30-2004, 02:18 AM
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Jeffhs Jeffhs is offline
<----Zenith C845
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Fairport Harbor, Ohio (near Lake Erie)
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Quote:
Originally posted by dsk
Update on my first old radio. It arrived today and it works just fine. I little cleaning (which we all like to do anyway, right?) and it's sittin pretty. Now I kinda wish the dial lit up.

I have a Zenith K731 (1963) and an H511 (1951). Neither of these sets have dial lights, although the H511 has a pilot light behind the Z crest on the cabinet. Dial lights are nice, but not absolutely necessary for proper operation of the radio; however, a lot of sets (particularly AC/DC series-string receivers) use them as inrush current limiters, as my H511 Zenith does. The radio will play OK with the bulb burned out, but it puts a strain on the tube filaments as the bulb takes up part of the line voltage (usually 6.3 volts). If it burns out, the extra voltage it ordinarily takes up in the filament string is placed on one or more tube filaments; of course, this will eventually cause at least one of the filaments to burn out. The inrush limiter function of the bulb may be observed when you turn on an AC/DC radio and the pilot light comes on very dimly at first, then brightens as the tubes warm up. When the tubes are all warmed up and operating, the pilot light will be shining at normal brightness.

Note, however, that a deformed or shorted filter capacitor or rectifier tube can and often does cause the pilot light (if used) to burn out immediately after the radio is switched on. Replace the bulb, but be sure the capacitor(s) are properly formed before switching on the power again.

An awful lot of people just leave the pilot lights alone in transformer-powered radios and TVs when the bulbs burn out. I have seen and even owned old TVs which are supposed to have pilot lights behind the channel selectors, but the bulbs had long since burned out, so the sets' owners just let it be as long as the radio or TV still played. Many sets also used pilot lights behind colored jewel lenses for on/off indicators, function indicators (Zenith and others were famous for this in their early console radios and, later, AM/FM stereo console units--the illuminated Z crest is a hallmark of the Zenith H511 series of AC/DC radios) and so on. These bulbs can be safely ignored if they go bad in a transformer-powered set, as they are just for decoration or as on/off or function indicators, but again, if they burn out in a series-string receiver, replace them ASAP, for reasons I outlined in the preceding paragraph. You will save a lot of tubes this way; as expensive and rare as vacuum tubes are becoming these days, that's very important (to be sure the tubes in our old radios, TVs, etc. last as long as possible). Toward this end, Zenith incorporated a device it called a "tube saver" in many of its table-model AC/DC radios of 1950s vintage. This was simply a surge protector which limited the inrush current at initial switch on. The surge protector was designed with a special thermal switch which cut it out of the circuit once the tubes were warm and conducting. A specially designed surge protector was marketed in the '50s and '60s for TV receivers, which worked on the same principle as the ones in AC/DC radios. The only difference I could see in the surge protectors for TVs was the current rating (many if not most large-screen televisions of '50s-'60s vintage were rated as high as 300 or even 400 watts; some early color sets, especially three-way theatre consoles, drew even more current from the line).
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