RCA 26x-1 Chassis RC1014 AM/SW Radio

[TelePlay]

Bought this in June for $64 total. Seemed a bit high but it was in great shape, except for the line cord (crumbling) and the tubular paper caps. Now it's electronically updated, moving parts have been cleaned and lubed and the cabinet was polished with Novus 2. I think it's worth what I paid for it. It now plays well and it is looking good for being some 75 years old. And best of all, my wife likes it . . .

Photos are after and before.

[Dennis Markham]

That's an awesome looking RCA, John.  Nice job on the restoration.

[jsowers]

John, that's a beautiful example of a pre-war RCA Victor. You can imagine the former owners listening to the latest war news on it, and on Short Wave too. I especially like your picture with the dial light lit. Like dashboards on cars, the dials are my favorite part.

Thanks also for taking and posting the before and after pics. The underneath shots are very revealing and you can see how much smaller modern components are. That "repair" someone made with the friction tape looks very odd and a bit dangerous. I'm glad you got rid of that one. This radio is ready for another 75 years.

[TelePlay]

Thanks, I like the lighted dial photo also.

Thanks also for taking and posting the before and after pics. The underneath shots are very revealing and you can see how much smaller modern components are.

Yes they are, about 1/5th the size of the old paper caps. The nice thing about that is as the old caps are cut out, it not only makes it easier to put the new one in but also provides more access to get the "deep" caps out and replaced. I tried to leave as much of the original wiring in as I could using white liquid tape to "patch" cracked rubber before it fell apart. If I didn't have to move a wire, it stayed in. The ones that had to be moved resulted in a lot of insulation crumbling off. Those were replaced.

That "repair" someone made with the friction tape looks very odd and a bit dangerous. I'm glad you got rid of that one. This radio is ready for another 75 years.

The fix was to replace the power cord which most likely was hardened by age and crumbling. Rather than do it right, they cut the old power cord out near the inside wall of the chassis and simply connected the remaining old wire to the new with tape. The old wire was brittle and needed to be replaced. Why they didn't run the new power cord all the way to the switch and a tube socket pin escapes me. Those connections would have been easy to do, even with the old, large caps in place. All I can think of is they didn't have soldering equipment and didn't want to pay to have it done right.

Anyway, when I got the radio, the first thing I noticed was the strange taped wire sticking out from under the chassis, pinned between the chassis and the cabinet, shown in the 1st photo below.

After removing the chassis, I saw what it was and what they did and how dangerous they made that radio. The second photo below shows the taped line cord lead "accidental" placement before I moved it in any way. Why someone would have put the chassis back into the cabinet with that wire sticking out is quite the mystery.

The 3rd photo below is an in focus close up of the power cord, how it was crumbling under the chassis edge exposing the copper wire within it.

The 4th photo shows the chassis edge after moving the power cord out of the way. You can see the discoloration caused by the rubber, or the copper wire, or both.

I was in touch with the seller during the purchase and he told me he did power it up but other than static, it didn't seem to work. I sent these photos to him and explained that if the non-polarized power plug was inserted into the outlet with the hot side in the half of the power cord touching the chassis, the chassis would have had 120 VAC in it. If so, while hot, the knobs would have protected the user during use but since the protective back was missing, anyone picking up the radio, when on and hot, and accidentally touching the chassis would most likely have a shocking experience. He was shocked at what I found and said he was going to stay away from plugging old stuff in without knowing anything about whatever he had. I told him good idea for that and also the fact that the old components may not take the shock of being warmed up after sitting idle for many years.

End of story, and lesson for this radio.

[DavePEI]

John:

I had one of these when I was young. It served as my first SWL'ing radio. Seeing your photos really brought back some memories!

Dave

[jsowers]

Yikes! The seller was lucky he didn't blow a fuse or a breaker with that one. Thanks for the extra pics and the explanation. It's good to educate sellers about not plugging in old electronics.

I can see from the back that this radio also has the connection for a phono or "television attachment." Better used today to hook a CD or tape deck to play back OTR on it. The missing back would have pointed that out. RCA was a pioneer in having that connection and later they sold 45 players that hooked to that jack. Even their TVs had jacks like that. The "television attachment" thing never panned out and everyone just bought a regular TV instead of hooking it to a dinky radio for the sound. But it was a way they could sell radios and make them not look obsolete when TV came along.

[19and41]

Good work and a nice looking unit.  Those antenna supports usually get beat up over the years.  That unit was remarkably clean, even looking like it came from a rare non smoking household.

[TelePlay]

Good work and a nice looking unit.  Those antenna supports usually get beat up over the years.  That unit was remarkably clean, even looking like it came from a rare non smoking household.

Thanks! Yes, it was quite clean. No dirt, limited dust, no corrosion, no scratches, no damage and no back board. The tuning number plate is in like new condition. Inner side cleaned up with a dry Q-tip. The multiple color water slide decal they used is a marvel in itself.

As for the antenna board/support, yes, looked like someone laid the radio on its back and without a back board, whatever it was laying on bent the support inward on the left side, when looking at it from the back.

As a temporary permanent fix, I used two inch and a half flat bumper washers (3/16 dia hole) and cut them to match the outline of the antenna board/support. Put one on each side of the support and tightened down the mounting screw. The antenna board went back to about 95% straight. The washers sort of ironed out the bend and are now supporting it in a near normal position.

I only have this top view (below) of the cut washers in place. You can see how nice and tight they fit to support the antenna board. I will post a back view when I get my camera out. So far, I just used a black magic market to get rid of the metal color, to sort of hide the washer, but will most likely paint the outside one with flat black in the future to match the antenna board.

I can see from the back that this radio also has the connection for a phono or "television attachment." Better used today to hook a CD or tape deck to play back OTR on it. The missing back would have pointed that out. RCA was a pioneer in having that connection and later they sold 45 players that hooked to that jack. Even their TVs had jacks like that. The "television attachment" thing never panned out and everyone just bought a regular TV instead of hooking it to a dinky radio for the sound. But it was a way they could sell radios and make them not look obsolete when TV came along.

Yes, this radio does have that feature, plug, but I haven't tried to use it yet. Your suggestion of pumping OTR into it is very interesting. Nothing like playing War of the Worlds on its anniversary and other great old programs. I have every Sherlock Holmes original episode on CD.

The selection knob has 4 settings: 1) AM Bass tone; 2) AM Treble tone; 3) Short Wave; and 4) Phono.

[TelePlay]

Did a bit more today. Was having a a bit of static and popping and signal drop out in the 1050 to 1200 range so cleaned the variable air cap again. Got about 90% out but now I have a bit of the same in the 900 to 970 range. Any suggestions on a good way to clean and check the variable cap?

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Plugged my mp3 player using clip leads into the radio phono jack and it played! Had the parts from past theater work to cobble up a male stereo 1/8" plug to a mono RCA female adapter cord. That will allow me to play anything on any of my stereo devices over the mono radio.

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Then, painted the antenna support board washer. Close up of the damaged board as receives, a full shot of the back with the "fix" and a close up of the "fix" are below. Worked out nice and the color matches a lot better when looking at it than what the camera saw.

[jsowers]

Did a bit more today. Was having a a bit of static and popping and signal drop out in the 1050 to 1200 range so cleaned the variable air cap again. Got about 90% out but now I have a bit of the same in the 900 to 970 range. Any suggestions on a good way to clean and check the variable cap?

Did you try compressed air, either from an air compressor or a can? It may not take much, since you said it wasn't very dirty inside. Here's something from the Antique Radio Forums on cleaning. Lots of differing opinions. I'm not sure what is best, but I wouldn't like to remove the tuning capacitor at this point if I were you.

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=74072

That's great you got the mp3 player connected and working with it. Those are small and easily hidden behind the radio. I've downloaded and saved a lot of OTR mp3s, but they're so variable in sound quality that I prefer listening to CDs when I can. I've been able to find 20-CD OTR sets fairly cheaply on eBay sometimes. They have lots of different sets that have been made over the years. Usually you can find them for less than $10 if you look. Search on jack benny CD or whatever the title and you'll be surprised what turns up on eBay.

Some old radio shows have surprisingly good sound quality for that era. The RCA microphones they used were very well made. I was fortunate enough to be able to use RCA 44 and 77 ribbon mikes like that in a studio at college and their fidelity was amazingly good. I was also able to record some 16" radio transcriptions onto tape in that studio and the fidelity on those was good too. They sounded much better than any old radio show tapes I had at the time (1979-80).

[TelePlay]

Did you try compressed air, either from an air compressor or a can? It may not take much, since you said it wasn't very dirty inside. Here's something from the Antique Radio Forums on cleaning. Lots of differing opinions. I'm not sure what is best, but I wouldn't like to remove the tuning capacitor at this point if I were you.

Yes, I have a 70 PSI air compressor that does a nice job at removing stuff like dust, dirt, water and tuner cleaner with anything that goes along with it. I also took a small strip of printer paper and put it between each plate, one at a time, and tuned the full range to see if plates were touching. None were. That may also have helped dislodge whatever was stuck on the plates causing the problem.

No, I do not want to remove the tuning capacitor, ever. And, thanks for that link to the ARF.

Some old radio shows have surprisingly good sound quality for that era. The RCA microphones they used were very well made. I was fortunate enough to be able to use RCA 44 and 77 ribbon mikes like that in a studio at college and their fidelity was amazingly good. I was also able to record some 16" radio transcriptions onto tape in that studio and the fidelity on those was good too. They sounded much better than any old radio show tapes I had at the time (1979-80).

Yes, they do. Enjoyed listening to War of the Worlds in the background today. Made it seem just like it sounded to those who tuned in late the night of October 30, 1938.

Mercury has so much good stuff one could spend several lifetimes and not listen to it all. Having to use one's imagination is so much better than animated, highly colored flash and dash they call movies these days.

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Hooked up a somewhat short long wire external antenna tonight and picked up a few stations on SW in the 31 and 25 meter bands. I think I could get better reception if there were a lead from the radio to ground but there is no ground connection on the antenna board and the schematic does not show an antenna ground. The schematic shows a path through a cap to common circuit ground but no connection to a true external earth ground. Or am I missing something? My Zenith Beehive has a connection to earth ground as does my Yaesu FRG-7 and Martian Special.

Adding the long wire greatly increases static on the AM band but closing the link between 2 and 3 cuts most of that out. Also cuts down on sensitivity. Without the long wire antenna, closing the link reduced the sensitivity to the point where few stations can be picked up at very low levels.

Nice to know it a fully functioning radio, again.

[TelePlay]

Since I've been enjoying this radio now for months, I never expected to buy another one. Came up on eBay a few weeks ago and sniped it away from another sniper to take the radio home.



The above Bakelite version is a model 26x1, the one I just bought (below) is its first cousin, a 26x3. The difference? The cabinet. This one is all wood. Same dial plate, same chassis, same antenna back board, same electronics and same knobs. The wood cabinet is also about a inch for so wider and deeper to accommodate the interior wood construction reinforcements parts.

Now, after the woodie is refurbed,  I can set them on opposite ends of a shelf, split my stereo mp3 cable into two RCA plugs, put one into each radio and listen to stereo . . . 

Anyway, in very good condition for a 75 year old radio. The wood cabinet needs some care but not much. No cracks or chips or dents, just a few surface scuff marks and rubs. The antenna board is broken off on both mounts but I now have a fix for that. As usual, need to be recapped. The second image below shows the wood construction detail of the bottom and the inside top curved corner. Workmanship, craftsmanship and design long gone from production lines.

[jsowers]

It will be interesting to see if the wood cabinet version has better sound than the Bakelite version, once it's recapped. Wood has a resonance sometimes. That's very good pre-war construction there. I have a post-war version of this same RCA radio with a much thinner wood cabinet. The men installing my replacement heat pump must've stepped on it when they were working. It was up high, but that didn't stop them. I found it demolished a week or so after it happened and nobody told me about it. The entire top was broken in.    It was under the line running outside to the heat pump.

Lesson learned. Clear them a path.

[19and41]

Nice examples of a good radio!