Belmont model 6-D-111 painted Bakelite table radio from 1946, popularly known as "The Rabbit."
This installment will be an overview of the consumer radio market, focusing mainly on the golden age of radio (late 1920s to late 1950s.) In that 30-year span, the technology and style of home radio equipment evolved dramatically, reflecting technological advances, shifting consumer tastes, and a changing culture. Nothing exists in a vacuum, and the radio receiver was shaped by society as much as society was shaped by radio.
In order to set the table, though, I need to briefly dip even further into history.
A Blondel coherer / Guarini decoherer. Not found in most living rooms.
The strange-looking apparatus on the right is a coherer / decoherer, circa 1890s. The earliest wireless broadcasts were nothing more than clicks, i.e. Morse code. Wireless telegraphy had serious advantages over maintaining a system of poles and wires, and of course broadcasting information to locations where poles and wires couldn’t go, like ships at sea. Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi founded a company that made the first commercially-manufactured wireless telegraphy equipment in 1896 (the company would go on to be a major player in radio manufacture, mainly in the European and Canadian markets.) But clicks aren’t all that fun to listen to.
In 1900, a Brazilian priest named Roberto Landell de Moura successfully broadcast his voice wirelessly over a distance of five miles. Now that there was something to listen to…
A crystal radio set, manufactured by Marconi, early 1900s.
The crystal set appeared in the first decade of the 1900s. Crystal sets are still around today. How many of you out there built one of these as a kid? There were pre-made ones like the one on the left, plus articles were appearing in magazines instructing people on how to build their own.
Commercial radio broadcasts began in 1920. At this point, radio was still a curiosity, something your weird neighbor puttered with in his basement lab. Radio receivers were finicky and unreliable, as anyone who’s tried to tune a crystal set knows.
No, I can’t come down right now… I think I’m picking up Pittsburgh!
Two refinements to radio tech would cause the boom that would completely change the nation, and the world.
The first of these was the perfection of the thermionic valve, or, as it was known in the USA, the vacuum tube.
Vacuum tubes were developed side-by-side with the electric light bulb, which makes sense, because light bulb makers had the equipment to blow the glass envelopes and evacuate the air from them. Vacuum tubes were developed through the 1910s, and during WWI, the needs of the conflict drove further refinements that would show up in the commercial market afterwards… one of the usual (and few positive) side-effects of warfare.
I’ll write another one of these just on vacuum tubes, but for now it can be said that tubes allowed radio receivers to pick up fainter signals, from further away, far more efficiently. By the early 20s, the home radio receiver looked like this:
“Breadboard” radio by Atwater-Kent, using those newfangled “tubes.”
The boom was closer, but still not on. Sets were still very expensive, as were the tubes. They were powered by big, heavy, short-lived batteries that had the bad habit of leaking acid all over the place. They were still difficult to use. The three knobs you see all had to be tuned exactly to receive the station you wanted. The circuit principle, the TRF (Tuned Radio Frequency) was prone to overloading and howling on strong local signals. The second innovation, however, would change all of that.
The Radiola AR-812, the first commercially available superhet. It cost $286 in 1924, which is almost $4000 in today’s money. Yow!
That innovation was the superheterodyne circuit, which, with only very minor tweaks (and smaller components) is still the basis of almost all radios today.
Not delving too deeply into the technical, the superhet was an improvement because instead of trying to tune the frequency directly (as a TRF does,) the superhet mixes the incoming signal with another generated by the radio to form an intermediate frequency (IF) that can more easily be tuned, amplified, etc. This means better performance and stability, plus greater ease of use. With stacked tuning condensers, there was now only one knob to turn to get your station. Even a child could use it!
The Philco model 90 in the “Baby Grand” cathedral table cabinet and in the “Lowboy” console cabinet, circa 1931. This is what a lot of people picture when you say “antique radio.”
By the late 20s, the separate speaker had moved into the box with the rest of the radio, along with a transformer and the ability to power it by plugging it into the wall, and you had what’s on the left. As the industry grew, prices fell. A radio was still a major acquisition, perhaps the third-most expensive thing a family would buy after a house and a car, but it was the center of home entertainment. Manufacturers began to pay much more attention to cabinet design. Some contracted with furniture makers, others bought them out or built their own cabinet facilities. Beautiful woods and veneers were used, and many styles, from plain to ornate, were offered to the public.
Top left: 1934 Stromberg-Carlson 60T. Top right: 1935 Sparton 616. Bottom left: 1936 RCA T10-1. Bottom right: 1937 Detrola 147. Notice what’s getting bigger… and bigger...
The market grew massively throughout the 30s. Companies tried new features, copying each others’ successes. The “keyhole” dial of the early 30s gave way to larger and larger dials, usually round, with “propeller” style pointers. Shortwave capability appeared on more and more sets, bringing the world into peoples’ living rooms, live and immediate, for the first time. Eye tubes and shadow meters to assist with tuning appeared on many models, and extremely precise, geared tuning systems reached their apex by about 1937-38. A radio was still expensive… a modest console or middle-quality table set would set you back $69, or over $1000 today. A top-quality console could cost $200, or around three grand.
In my humble and not-at-all-objective opinion, 1937-38 was the high point for radio design and engineering. Things started to slide after that… specifically, the introduction of the slide rule-style rectangular dial.
Hey, look! A rectangular dial! And pushbuttons? It’s teh future!
Philco model 40-180 from the 1940 model year.
There’s nothing wrong with a rectangular dial in and of itself. In some ways, it allows you to spread things out a bit more. But listening habits had changed. Shortwave was less popular now that domestic broadcasts were numerous and high-quality. So out went the sophisticated geared tuning systems, replaced with pulleys and dial cord, as had always been the case on cheaper radios. They were sloppier, less precise, but less costly too.
Pushbuttons also became extremely popular starting in 1939. No need to tune at all- just press a button, and there’s your station. At first these were mechanical systems that physically moved the tuning condenser to a pre-determined spot. Later ones had their own tuned coils, simpler and more precise. Tuning eyes and other such aids (I’ll cover those in other entries) began to go by the wayside as manufacturers continued to shed costs. Photofinish decals began to replace some of the intricate wood veneers. Some switched from cloth-covered wire to rubber, which causes today’s restorers no end of trouble. :-)
Post-war Firestone console with record player. Cabinet design by Blecch & Yukk, Inc.
Then came the war.
Here comes the postwar baby boom… top left to bottom right, Majestic 5LA70, GE 201, Arvin 544, something portable by Motorola, with the antenna in the handle.
Radio makers rushed into the effort, of course, and there wasn’t much left of the civilian market for the duration. Some makers had lots of left-over stock and clever minds, so you ended up with things like Philco taking a car radio and its speaker and slapping it into a small console cabinet. It wasn’t very good, but it allowed them to sort of keep the consumer market alive.
When the war ended, a lot had changed. Almost all consoles of this period had a pull-out record player. Some had the new FM band.
But the biggest change was the rise of television. Radio was now a secondary medium. The TV now had the place in the living room that the old console or large table set had held. No need for ornateness, plus mid-century modern was coming in. The console of old was now pretty much a plain ol’ box.
But, of course, there was still a lot of radio out there… more than ever, in fact. Why confine your listening to one room… or to the house?
Makers had been experimenting with early plastics like Bakelite and Catalin to make radio cabinets before the war, but post-war the small radio really took off. You could mold the plastic into all sorts of fantastic streamlined shapes. One for the den, one for the office, one for junior’s room, and a white one (painted or cast in something like plaskon) to match the fridge in the kitchen. These small radios used a chassis design called the “All-American Five” (occasionally -Six) with basically the same tube line-up in all of them. They were simple, cheap, robust, and sounded great. A new generation of portables also appeared, able to run on AC power or on newer, smaller, lighter batteries.
The last of the tubes… a “Tempest” (among many other name badges, in many colors) from the late 60s, made in Japan.
By the 60s, radio really faded into the background. TV was now the entertainment king. Most of the classic radio dramas had fallen silent by the late 50s; a few popular stragglers would hold on into the 60s. Tubes were giving way to transistors, which were becoming cheaper and cheaper. With the exception of some high-end audiophile stuff, the last tube radios were made in Japan in the late 60s, using up whatever stock they had.
Radios continued to shrink, to portable transistor sets that could fit in a pocket, and continued to get cheaper and cheaper. They were, and are, thrown in as afterthoughts in other devices.
Here’s what we’re left with.
The first commercial tube radios were nothing more than a collection of parts, mounted on a wooden board. Today, radios are… nothing more than a collection of parts, mounted on a circuit board…
But the hobby is alive. Old radios are easy to restore, and you can tack on aux inputs and bluetooth without changing the circuitry at all, making them compatible with modern tech. And they still sound great. Quality is quality, and age doesn’t change that. With a bit of care, they can continue to play far into the future.
There’s a lot I glossed over or skipped in this overview, and I plan to cover a lot of these things more in-depth over the next several installments of this blog.
My baby, my daily driver- RCA model 15K, introduced in 1936 for the ‘37 model year. Five bands, fifteen tubes, full fidelity control, two-speed geared tuning, magic eye, twin 6L6 push-pull output, 20 watts total output power, 115 pounds of weight. Slobber slobber.
That’s it for now. I’ll leave you with some links with resources and information.
Antique Radio Forum: The biggest collection of us weirdos on the net!
The Radio Attic: A great site for buying an antique radio, from people who restore them personally, who know how to pack them… unlike certain auction sites I won’t name here.
Nostalgia Air: Technical and other resources for vintage radio!
Archive.org: A vast online repository of old time radio shows… plus films, documentaries, speeches, etc. Funded by your tax dollars. Enjoy it before you-know-who takes it away.
Michigan Antique Radio Club / Vintage Electronics Expo: This is the club that I run. If you can make it to Kalamazoo, MI in July, come on in and see some cool stuff at our big show!
I look forward to your comments, questions, corrections, and suggestions for future installments.
That’s all for now from the Antique Radio Blog. See you all in a couple of weeks for the next show. Until then, this is Hatrax, signing off.
