Silvertone
Model 7037
Brand: Sears Silvertone Year of Manufacture: 1941 Frequency Range(s): 550- 1600 Kc, 1.7 - 6 Mc, 6 - 17Mc
Tube Lineup: 5Y3 Rectifier, 6K6 Output, 6SQ7 Detector, 6SQ7 I.F. Amp,
6SK7 I.F. Amp, 6J5 Osc., 7H7 Mixer
Schematic: Available
here,
courtesy
of Nostalgia Air.
Riders 13-64
This
is the one that started it all. Back in the mid-nineties when I was
around 9 or 10, I spotted this radio in my grandparents basement along
with several others. My parents were kind enough to let me drag it home
with me. At the time I had little to no electrical knowledge, but I was
however fascinated by the glowing tubes and strange looking components.
The original volume control was shot, so I found one that looked like
the same size, and installed it via crimp connectors (no soldering
skills). So technically this became the first radio that I got
working. The original finish was probably fine, but I regrettably
coated the entire thing with some sort of poly, and replaced the
missing knobs with some modern plastic types.
Over ten years later I decided to restore it
correctly. The original finish plus the poly was stripped off, and a
new lacquer
finish was applied. The missing dial cover was reproduced using a kit
available from Bill Turner.
After some research, I tracked down a set of knobs that looked close to
the originals from David Frush.
The
radio was also missing two pushbuttons, which I purchased from Mark Oppat. I was able to salvage
the original grill cloth.
The electronics are a different story. Instead of
taking the time to replacing one capacitor at a time and testing the
radio after each one, I simply replaced/restuffed them all at once,
doing about four caps at a time. Sometime during the whole process
a mistake was made. Now my local oscillator is dead! After sitting on
the
bench for around a month and still not finding the problem I finally
gave up. For the mean time this radio will be a nice static display and
a reminder of past mistakes.