Sparton 7AM46

[Motorola minion]

I figured a radio like this, old school for post-war, shows Sparton was a good value. Spartan?

The police band does not work but SW and BC are quite responsive to an outdoor antenna. I have been using it nearly every time Im in my shop. KDKA 1020 and WBZ 1030 come in nightly and exist as adjacent stations without any crosstalk! But WSB and CFZM can either be strong or missing in background noise lately. Weather defies what we get sometimes but heat waves dont help much either.

Ill get a better picture - Sound Remedy rebuit my speaker, new grill cloth and zig-zag from an RCA tv to dress it up and protect it.
The output transformer is oddly tiny, so I may try a replacement made for universal 41-42-6F6-6K6 push pull apps.
The wood knobs have been found too.

[electra225]

I think my Sparton is a model 990, from 1939. Eight tuber with push button tuning and an eye tube. Very good performer. Mine was painted titty pink when I got it, chassis and all. They painted the tube shields pink. Fortunately, they painted the pink latex paint over the old lacquer. I took a putty knife and got the pink to peeling, then used lacquer thinner/acetone mix to remove both finishes. The end grain was still pink tinged, so I painted it black. My wife put red grille cloth in it and my friend Marie got me the correct knobs, although somebody painted two of them red. I left them like she gave them to me, since she is up there in age now, 96 I think. She was so proud she found me the correct knobs for my radio, I didn't have the heart to tell her they weren't supposed to be red.....

[TC Chris]

My Sparton from that era is a 1081. This is the radio from a German family who had the SW components disconnected in WW II. I'd love to get an under-chassis "as-built" photo so I could rebuild the SW.

This radio has a huge chassis, probably to use up old stock, and a lot of single-purpose tubes, probably for the same purpose and also to augment the tube-count bragging rights.

Here's a pre-restoration photo. It went through a flood and needed lots of re-gluing, and I recapped it at the same time.

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/sparks_wit_1081.html

Chris Campbell