Florida ? what did I get ?

[Bigun]

This is what happens when you don't know what you are doing in a junk shop and have space in your car for something...

[Pano]

A Florida radio? That's cool! Does it pick up Radio Havana, too?

[wakibaki]

It's a radio, aka wireless.

Does it work?

w

[Bigun]

Originally Posted by wakibaki

It's a radio, aka wireless.

Does it work?

w

No idea, I don't fancy putting a wire into this thing until I learn a bit more about it - like is it isolated from the mains for example.

There's a phono input on the back.

It has two separate tuner dials as if there are at least 2 radio's inside, one is FM the other is AM.

It looks too darn complicated for me to fix it if it turns out not to work.

[wakibaki]

What self-restraint! I'd have plugged it in by now. I do have a couple of posts in the 'Stupid Things I've Done' thread tho'.

It'll have two separate front ends, with independent tuning. The AM sections will, in all probability, use the same tuning cap, although there may be some gangs switched in and out. The shortwave band is fairly limited, from ~5.8 to 6.2 MHz. Shortwave by definition runs ~3-30 MHz. I see there's also a PU selector, this is to allow connection of a turntable or other pickup. You can test the audio section by injecting a signal with PU selected. Shame about the missing volume knob. Be careful there, it's not impossible the protruding metal end of the pot is live.

It won't be too difficult to debug, it's tubes after all. It's a fairly recent radio since it's got FM. You'll be able to figure out a lot by looking at the tube datasheets.

w

[Bigun]

self-restraint is the other side of the coin from lazy too - I don't have a power cord for it and it's not matching any kind of modern power cord I've seen. No doubt it was designed for a two-prong power cord and I'm more accustomed to an English plug where the earth pin is a whopping hunk of copper and a fuse inside the plug. Mind you that didn't help me the last time I had an old tube radio (about 15 years ago). It was a Heathkit from some dodgy shop in Cambridge. My friend and I plugged it in as soon as we got it back to our digs, and low and behold I discovered what 240V ac actually feels like !


I challenge anyone to find a schematic for this guy - seems nobody ever heard of 'Florida' as far as I can tell.

[Cal Weldon]

I bet it picks up Radio Margaritaville really well.

[Wavebourn]

This receiver has nice power tranny, and nice output tranny. Also, it has 3 AM bands and FM band. It should receive everything. LW band is very unusual for USA. The whole thingy looks like designed by Telefunken.

[Mr. Zenith]

Hey Bigun,

Nice find! It just so happens that restoring old radio sets got me into this DIY stuff.

Just looking at it, I would say it is a European radio made for the american GI trade sometime in the mid 50's to the early 60's. There were millions of these sets built during that era with 120 V mains to be sold at military PX's.

It would be most helpful to know the specific tube compliment. On these euro-style sets there's usually a tube placement diagram on the back of the cabinet cover.

The best advice I can give you in the meantime is to follow the same common sense rules you would apply to any piece of old hi-fi equipment. You've already followed the first rule by not plugging the thing in until you know what's going on "under the hood", so to speak. You just don't know what has happened to the set before you got it. I've seen several that had all the tubes "rearranged" - guaranteed to give an interesting surprise when plugged in!

Wavebourn is quite correct about these old receivers. Even the most humble sets were quite well-engineered and usually had excellent performance.

[tubelab.com]

Just looking at it, I would say it is a European radio made for the american GI trade

I came to the same conclusion. If any of the tubes are original the numbers and brands may give a clue to the radios origin. Is there any information on the back panel? Tube chart? The two prong plug receptacle isn't too uncommon and looks a lot like the one used of just about every TV set made from the late 40's through the 70's.