Old RCA Radio 1939


News / Saturday, November 18th, 2023

Our favourite vendor, Les WBOKFK of D&L Antenna, just bought an old 1939 radio made by RCA. He says:
I bought a 1939 RCA K-130 in perfect condition today 100 bucks! Last time I saw one was 2nd grade November 1963. The teacher came to all of us weeping she had us listen to the radio. Kennedy was dead!
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RCA K-130 features
AM 550 to 1500kc
SW 1.5 to 4.1 Mc
SW 5.7 to 18 Mc
Push button tuning for AM
Antenna tuner
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Notice the station callsigns on the pushbuttons. Is that W1AW and WOAF on the first two? Well, not quite. Maybe you recognize some of the others like KFEQ which used to carry the ‘Doctor of Democracy’ or Jeff Christie on a 2 hour delayed schedule, and KCMO Kansas City.
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Here’s the back of the set:
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That’s the power supply at the bottom, and notice the main chassis with most of the tubes in metal shield envelopes. Because of the higher freq SW section perhaps? Hey, why so many wires going to the speaker? Are 2 of them for DC to strengthen the magnet? That’s the audio output (low impedance) transformer mounted on the speaker.