Hi, my name is Brian. I'm 54 years old and became interested in DX in late grade school when I received a GE radio with shortwave bands one Christmas. I was lucky enough to be in high school when Heathkit was still around and built an SW-717 receiver with lots of cold solder joints. While in the US Navy as an electronics technician, I moved up to a Panasonic RF-2200, which I used and abused and still have.

I also have a couple of console radios: A 1939 Zenith 12S370 'shutterdial' and a 1932 Philco 70 chassis in a 1929 Pooley cabinet. Neither work but I use both by lighting their dials and having computer speakers inside to play whatever media I want (CD's, mp3's, OTR recordings...). The Zenith was a curbside find, and the Philco was pretty much destroyed in shipping.

So....the question I have regarding the hellenized SRF-59 is as follows. I see that the SRF-59 can be converted to short wave by hellenizing it. I could put the SRF-59 inside the console radio cabinet and use the big tuning condensor to tune it. But I'd just as soon keep it in the AM band and use the big tuning condenser, since there is so much more content on AM and shortwave is on the wane. Any suggestions for the value of the toroid in order to do that, assuming the console radio's tuning caps are 365 pf?

BTW, I am not destroying these radios or ruling out someday restoring the Zenith, in particular. But I do enjoy using them. I'm thinking it would be great to have the modified SRF-59 velco'd to the top of the console and then putting a Terk or similar loop antenna on top and taking advantage of the vernier tuning of the radio. Win-win-win.

Brian

Here's a video of the Zenith console I talk about in my previous message. I'm actually leaning strongly toward restoring the actual radio in this one.



I picked up two SRF-59's and a Grundig small loop antenna at Fry's the other day. I'll be doing something with those. Probably playing around with some coils and variable capacitor to see if I can still wedge one into my other console in some way, and/or putting one into another cabinet with vernier tuning like I've seen on another site.

Brian

Hi Brian,
Personally, I would have the Zenith properly restored sooner than later. They are good performing sets, warm sound, and can pick up all four corners of the globe. Yours, I believe, is a 12 tube model. Up here in Ontario Canada your shutter dial set is worth a small fortune. Congrats and enjoy. Scott