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This radio bore many signs of heavy, long-term use. As always, the thumbnails are clickable for a close-up view: Here are a few more pictures, taken after removing the majority of the dust. As such, it it probably the least collectable of all the Micro-Synchronous variants. My particular radio is a model R-35, which is just a “straight radio” (no phonograph), in a low-boy cabinet, from the 2nd year’s production. These three changes were all pragmatic, in my opinion: modernizing, homologizing, and reducing the cost of production, respectively. Although the tuning mechanism remained, all the supporting components around it changed: new “unipotential cathode” ’24 vacuum tubes in the RF section, a whole new power supply/audio amplifier chassis designed to match the other radios RCA was making at the time, and a generally simplified metal chassis without the previous year’s heavy shielding. RCA discontinued production of Micro-synchronous radios thereafter, despite their popularity.Įven between the two short years of production, there are significant differences between the 1929 production models (RE-45, RE-75, R-32, R-52) and 1930 models (RE-57, RE-73, R-35, R-39). So, radios which contained the Micro-Synchronous radio chassis were placed into cabinets of different types for two model years: 19. That same year, the Victor Company was sold to RCA. Here’s a YouTube video of the tuning capacitors in action. However, in 1929, Victor introduced a radio of its own design, using an elaborate “Micro-Synchronous” tuning mechanism which, in my opinion, is something which could have only been designed by a company familiar with the manufacture of complex moving mechanical components, like Victor. The two companies had a close working relationship, with Victor frequently equipping RCA’s Radiola receivers into their combination sets. For most of the 1920′s, Victor and RCA were two different companies, with Victor best known for their phonograph record players and RCA for their radios. If Omaha Craigslist is any indication of the radio’s popularity, they were quite good sellers, or at least good survivors.īut first, some radio history. The operator can either slide the lever side to side to quickly move to a new part of the tuning scale, or he/she can turn the knob for fine tuning, as demonstrated here. There is a tuning knob which is placed on a lever. I hope he finds it worth the wait.įrom a user’s perspective, this radio and its 1929/1930 Victor siblings all share a unique look and operation. If he’s still watching this site to see if his radio makes an appearance after all these years, I congratulate him on his patience. While speaking with the seller I mentioned the existence of this blog. After all that work, I was happy to see that there was very little rust. I just had to wipe it all by hand with rags and alcohol. So no combination of canned air and vacuum cleaner nozzles were effective in cleaning the two metal chassis inside this cabinet. And then more dust accumulated on top of that. The dust had, at some point, gotten damp, and then heat-dried, so that it essentially baked on to the metal surfaces. I suspect it had spent several decades in a sheltered but dusty location prior to that. I bought this radio on Craigslist approximately 5 years ago from a gentleman in West Omaha who was storing it in a non-heated storage unit. Even lifting it up a few inches on to the moving dolly is properly a two-person operation. So, once some unrelated year-end electronic distractions were cleared off of the workbench, I resolved to turn my attention to the longest-waiting radio in my collection, this RCA-Victor Model R-35, from 1930: However it recently occurred to me that I had not done a floor-standing radio restoration since the Atwater Kent 70, more than 3 years ago. This was so that my rate-of-repair would approximate my rate-of-acquisition. Long ago, I placed upon myself a restriction to purchase, at most, one floor-standing radio per calendar year.