1935 GRUNOW RADIO STORY

In 1935 my mother and father bought a Grunow Radio, from that point on it became the entertainment center of our home. I remember spending hours at night listening to the Golden Age of Radio. The Lone Ranger, Amos and Andy, Dick Tracy, Blondie and Dagwood, O'Henry, The Aldridge Family, The Squeaking Door, Figger Maggie and Molly, Jack Benny, The Great Gildersleeve, The Shadow, and even Ma Perkins, a soap box opera. The era lasted until the Television came along, about 1948. Then the poor Grunow, we put aside and forget. It sat in Mom and Dads basement until they passed away, and then I inherited it. We played it once in a while for a novelty. One day one of my children was playing it and it started to crackle, and spark, and smoke. From then on it sat in our family room, in the corner, as an eye sore. Everytime we moved we thought about leaving it or throwing it away. I remember the crowning ending of the Grunow, as far as Karen was concerned. Our disobedient Afghan Hound decided to chew the fabric out of the front of the radio. From then on the Grunow was an ugly duckling and sent someplace where Karen didn't have to look at it. It ended up in the basement of our home in Toquerville, where another mishap took place. The irrigation water flooded the basement and the bottom half of the Grunow was soaked in the water. When we moved it over to clean the carpet, it had left rust marks in the carpet. It was really in trouble then. It was condemned to the garage after that. Eveytime I looked at the poor thing, I felt that I had to do something about it, before it ended up in the dump.

About two years ago I decided to restore it. Knowing nothing about the restoration of an old radio, I decided to take the chassis up to Michael in Oregon, thinking that he would like to restore it. After a year in his attic, I decided that I had better recover it and bring it back home.

I started to research and found out that there was a lot of information about restoring old radios, on the internet. I was even able to download the Grunow schematics. I joined the antique foram on the internet (http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=90720) and started to gleam a lot of information. I first restored the radio cabinet by scrubbing off years of grime with steel wool and hand cleaner. It cleaned up so good that the only thing I had to do then was give it 4 coats of laquer spray.

It does not look new, but it does look like a restored antique. Success!! I then replaced tha Grill cloth which I purchased from iternet.

The next was the chassis.


I first cleaned it with compressed air. You wouldn't believe the dirt, cobwebs, and etc. that came out of it. The speakers were in pretty bad shape. I found the tears and holes could be repaired with common silacon. All the experts said "never put power to a radio until all the capacitors and bad resistors are replaced".


This took some effort, but with the help of Charles, 26 capcitors and 4 resitors were changed out! Yes, one of the capcitors was bird up!


The capacitors and resistors were easy to find on the internet. The old tubes were replaced with new (old) tubes. New capacitors, resistors and tubes are cheaper now then thay were in 1935. Ofter spending only $40 and four months, it was time to see if it worked. I applied a small amount of voltage and did voltage testing as was suggested on the internet. Of course it did not work. After some frustrating time, I found out that I had it betweeen bands. One night I was fooling around and clicked actidently onto the right band, and it WORKED!


What an exciting time it was for me, it was the first time I had restored an old radio AND IT WORKED!. I put the chassis in the cabinet and now its in the den, and I can listen to talk radio when I am on the computer.




I am now looking for another old radio, that someone wants to throw away. I hope that this hobby lasts for a long time.

HELP ME FIND A OLD OLD RADIO