Batboard

Hey everyone,

I believe I have uncovered a 3rd generation Motorola Deluxe radio. It looks to have some homebrew mods to it though. Anyone know the frequency band or any further info? I only found one site using a Google search which gave me what I have now.




Thanks!
Dave

I cannot say for sure, but judging by the vintage (March 1949), it's probably low band. It's receive only (no transmit), and this was the trunk unit - it's missing the control head. Hence the mods to put VOL and SQ on the chassis.

Here ya go.....http://www.wb6nvh.com/CHP/CHP1.htm
He has lots of great info on vintage Motorola gear

Bill_G wrote:I cannot say for sure, but judging by the vintage (March 1949), it's probably low band. It's receive only (no transmit), and this was the trunk unit - it's missing the control head. Hence the mods to put VOL and SQ on the chassis.

Thank you for your reply. I was assuming that it was a base unit because I have a 120v power cord that came with it. Haven't plugged it in yet of course. So would that make it 12v? Or possibly 24v? There's very limited info out there on these exact radios, nothing like what we have for the "newer" stuff. It would be neat to get it functional.

I wouldn't even try. If anything, scrub it up, give it some paint, and try to make it shine, but don't try to make it work.

Bill_G wrote:I wouldn't even try. If anything, scrub it up, give it some paint, and try to make it shine, but don't try to make it work.

Way back in my high School days, I ran across one of these radios. Motorola was really proud of these as they were the very first mobile radios they ever made. They took on the nick name of the "Dog House" radios because of the shape of the cover that went over them. There was a box for the receiver and one for the transmitter. The unit I had was using loctal tubes.

The reason Bill is saying not to plug the power up to the radio is because all the electrolytic capacitors in it are probably all dried out. Putting voltage to them will probably cause them to explode and really stink up the room ,and house.

I had an old military 12 volt power supply and did this to it. It had 4 round holes where it would mount onto a vehicle mount over the guide pins about 3/8 inch in dia. When I applied power, the entire power supply launched itself about 6 inches off the floor like a rocket jet coming out of those 4 holes. It put 4 neat round black marks on the plywood floor where the supply started out from. I opened up the windows to vent the stink. My mother yelled up to me on the second floor to ask what I had just done. i turned over the supply and took off the bottom cover. The whole inside of the chassis was filled with pieces of what looked like aluminum foil that had been through a mulcher. The smell was even worse now that I had let the air get to the bottom side of the power supply. I put the bottom cover back on and took the whole stinky mess outside to the trash can.

So a word to the wise, if the radio is old, replace all the electrolytic capacitors before applying any power to them. Save yourself the chore of trying to clean up the gooey mess inside the radio. Save yourself the un-pleasant ability to get the chance to see how bad one of these exploded capacitors really smells. Then comes the problem of finding a replacement capacitor.

+1

Replace electrolytics , A lot of wires lose their insulation so you should check them. Some resistors break down over time too. Transformers can short internally. I restore a lot of old vacuum tube radios and electrolytics are first. I also use a variac to bring up power. Start with 20 volts and go slowly checking everything then go incrementally to full voltage

Yes, that is a low band "Precision Selectivity" Deluxe receiver, the last version. Probably model FMAR-13V. They were available with DC vibrator or AC power supplies. The electrolytic in this supply has already been replaced (I recognize the Sprague TVL tag) but that was probably in the 1960's or 1970's. You could probably slowly power it up with a variac and try it out. I did that with one here and it worked just fine, even had 0.4 Microvolt sensitivity, not bad for a 1940's radio.

Your big problem will be crystals. International is out of business and you can't get a crystal made for a reasonable price anymore unless you go overseas. There was an article in 73 Magazine, I think May 1970, about wiring the oscillator in the octal tube version of this to be variable tuning, allowing a small window of reception inside the band and eliminating the need for a crystal. That may be possible on this version with some adaptation.

These are of course wide band, i.e. 15 kHz deviation, but they work OK on modern 5 kHz systems.