'36 Radio Conversion Poor Sound

I've seen a few old tube types where the amplifier section was repaired with new capacitors and tube/******** plug ins to get the amp working. The mp3 was integrated in monaural for a single speaker. They could at least play a variety of music that way. The jack was placed where the player could easily be plugged in or removed.

Nothing fancy but at least it had some music. AM is pretty much talk radio if a person can even tune it in.
 
Steve in Denver said:
Not sure, whoever I had build it, and I think he has since passed away, put the radio together, and as it does have some sound, I think the antenna is hooked up. The lead does go into the box.
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I would trace the wire from the antenna to see where it goes. It should somehow connect to the card. You might also try temporarily (jumpers) connecting the antenna to the card, centre to ANT and and outside to GROUND.

One other thing to check is if the radio was rebuilt as a 6 Volt unit. I see a wire soldered to the 6 V pin. The Ford-Philco FT-9 is of 1936 vintage so it would be 6V positive ground and you have 12 volt negative ground.
 
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Als48 said:
You might try connecting a temporary ground with an alligator clip to one or both speaker frames and test for improvement. There should be no risk in trying this.

Another thought as I was sending the first message was whether your new radio card provided any option to control front/rear sound if four speakers is an option or choice. I didn't notice any connections that suggested 4 speaker outputs, tho.

Al H
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*If you look at the picture of the card carefully, you can see soldered connections to R+, R-, L+, and L-. That means two speakers, Right and Left. It helps to turn the picture upside down so you can read the connections.
 
Eagle43 said:
*If you look at the picture of the card carefully, you can see soldered connections to R+, R-, L+, and L-. That means two speakers, Right and Left. It helps to turn the picture upside down so you can read the connections.
Click to expand...
527432
 
Can you post the model numbers on the board? part of it is covered by the wires in your photo.

Aurora make conversions for the radios and it appears they also make reproduction old style radios as replacements.

Google may be your friend if you can show the complete numbers/letters on the board.
 
Eagle 43, yes I saw those connections after I made my post. Do you have any balance adjustments? Had several thoughts going there at once, Ha ha.

Al H
 
Only have the two speakers. I will borrow a separate radio from a friend and see how it sounds. That will eliminate the antenna and speakers.

As to digging up the guy who put it together, I'm not sure where he is burred.
 
Wow, you guys are ambitious! I have the old radio in the dash of my 46 Coupe for "looks only" since it's toast and I use my bluetooth speaker linked to Spotify on my iPhone for tunes.
Might try something like this someday though!
 
Many years ago it was a common practice to solve the radio problem in older cars with receiver boxes and remote control heads using a modern pre-digital analog radio with conventional off-on and tuning knobs. The original vintage control head is retained, the control knobs are removed from the new radio with modifications to attach the control cables too.
 
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