Hi, I have an old antique radio that i found in my aunt's attic. Unfortunately the innards were gutted at some point so it is now a shell with a old (brittle) speaker in it. I *do*not* want to maul/deface this radio (the face of it and outside in general is in fairly good condition other than its missing knobs) but i would like to put a mp3 player in it and somehow put knobs to the player and maybe a small LCD face plate (not sure about non-destructive ways to attach it) on this radio. I am not all that good with electronics (never been able to solder very well) and was hoping there was something like a kit for these kind of things. If anyone out there knows of such a thing then please let me know!
Thanks for the input, the link i put was not the exact radio i have (I will take a look inside and give the exact model, its on a tag in there) it was just there to give you an idea of what it was similar to (ie cone-ish shaped wooden radio).
That looks like a Philco 60. They are fairly common; and even good originals don't command a lot of money. . Most of the folks on the RRA+P forum would probably suggest trying to find the correct chassis for the cabinet, since often only the chassis is salvageable after a radio was stored in a damp cellar or barn for several decades..
The speaker can be reconed, and repro knobs are available.
there arent any adapter kits for this at all. I have been at least hoping to find a way to make a "universal" AM-FM-AUX chassis but havent come up with anything adaptable that would get the dial to line up. The other controls could be easily adjustable, I know.
If I were you, I'd try for at least a chassis for it. if its a Philco 60, that will not be too hard to find, but you gotta restore it, and you could tap off the vol control for an aux input. The osc coils in 60's are always dead, too, gotta rewind them... not real hard to do.
snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news:1135030462.562785.108000 @g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
Take out the old speaker and dispose of it. Go to a thrift shop or used computer store and buy a nice AMPLIFIED stereo speaker set for a few dollars. Just put the speakers inside the radio cabinet pointing through the hole the speaker came out of, hiding behind the grille cloth. Computer speakers already have 1/8" stereo phone jacks on them to plug into your favorite portable MP3 player's earphone jack. These amplified computer speakers work great for an MP3 player. Put both stereo speakers up by the old speaker hole.
Load up your MP3 player from alt.binaries.sounds.78rpm-era alt.binaries.sounds.radio.oldtime
If you are stuck with Outlook Express, which sucks for downloading binaries on purpose, go get Xnews from
formatting link
for free and install it. It will ask you for your news server address, same as Outlook. Xnews will download the list, then you click the Q field in the list to que up the songs you want, click the blue rubix cube at the bottom of the message list window and tell Xnews where you want all these thousands of songs and radio shows. It will download until it's completed the task.
Buy a BIGGER MP3 player. You're gonna need it...(c;
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is the largest at 100 GB of hard drive space. I love mine. It connects to the USB2 port on your computer and the computer simply treats it as a Toshiba external hard drive....no RIAA license games or other protective bullshit. Windows Explorer simply copies the files to the Xclef 500's massive hard drive and the player will play any MP3 fed to it. It's also an FM radio and digital MP3 recorder with virtually unlimited recording time to the massive hard drive. Works great!
They'll recover from the Christmas demand and have the players available again in January or February...it's that good.
I use mine with a stolen PC speaker amp board inside a 1939 Motorola antique portable radio I carry to nursing homes. Sounds just as if you're listening to it in 1939...(c;
As the others have said, your best bet may be to locate another chassis.
About the only alternative I can think of would be to find an amp, possibly from a kit, to build and install in the radio, then use the line output of your MP3 player as a signal source. Of course this will not only require soldering skills, but possibly metalworking skill as well, for mounting the hardware. Then again, if your soldering skills need work, a good place to learn is by building a kit.
-- Gary E. Tayman/Tayman Electrical Sound Solutions For Classic Cars
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