Mystery early mono-FM tuner

S

Stereomaster

New Member
I just pulled this out of a dumpster in CT:
eX6KPiJl.jpg

TXpePill.jpg

jswcTDOl.jpg

5BaK8rCl.jpg


Has anyone ever seen one of these before? The nice folks at Antique Radio Forums haven't. Perhaps someone here is familiar with the make? We suspect it might be an early HIFI set, or ?possibly? a factory prototype.

Info:
Mfg by Barber & Howard Co. (Westery Rhode Island)
mono-FM tuner (no serial#, model#)
No OPT
Phono input
AFC
2 tuning meters
Bolted tube sockets
Ceramic Caps

Tube layout: (with guesses as to the 3 missing tubes)
http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/download/file.php?id=67242
(thanks to azenithnut)

Link to original forum thread: http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=241972

Links to full size photos: http://imgur.com/jswcTDO http://imgur.com/TXpePil http://imgur.com/eX6KPiJ
 
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never heard of them, but it looks like a seriously well built amp. What are the two meters for ? It has that vintage boatanchor construction look about it. Lots of those had string bound wiring harnesses like that. It looks to have a lot of IF stages too, its probably one hell of a tuner in operational shape.
 
It looks like it has the switching that would be in a preamp (complete with phono and tone controls) like the Radio Craftsmen RC-10. This plus a turntable and a power amp were probably the three components of a hi-fi system from the early 1950's.

It looks to be in excellent shape - no chassis rust and relatively clean. Nice find!
 
dual tuning meters

The purpose of dual meters is :

1. Tuning (signal) strength for situating an antenna in the proper direction.
In the early days of FM some folks used a conventional set top TV antenna to get optimum signal strength.

2. Center of channel fine adjustment of the signal. The center of the tuned frequency had to be fine tuned as many of the old tuners didn't have a wide band feature or AFC to hold the tuned station. They drifted easily and the best tuning resulted when the tuner was warmed up and on for a few hours. The center of channel meter would show if any drifting had happened.

Years ago I installed an FM radio at a local toy store for background music. Way before there was advertising on FM. It was a business owner console canabalized chassis with a couple of speakers I got hold of. The radio FM section had dual meters and no AFC or wide band station locking. The thing drifted all the time. The first hour it had to be corrected often. This was in the late 50's when I was a high school student. The owner didn't care if he had to re-tune, all he wanted was to say he had FM background music in his toy store. He wanted to play Christmas music all the time during the weeks before Christmas. Several stations in the Chicago area played it non-stop. WKFM at 103.5 was one.

So was the technology at the time.

FM was great sounding but drifting discouraged many of the general public to avoid it. Only very pricey tuners had a wide band or AFC feature.

Paul
 
Center meters weren't common on tube gear. Usually the only indicator you had was an eye tube or maybe a signal strength meter.


Most tube tuners drift to some extent though, AM included. If you want a challenge, try copying SSB or CW signals on a vintage boatanchor. The first few hours will give your hand cramps trying to keep up with the float. If you want to keep those things really solid, you basically have to leave them on constantly. There were a scant handful of AM sets with AFC, but it was quite rare. Not sure if that ever made it over to the comm reciever world, it was usually found on really high end pre-war stuff.
 
Stereomaster said:
I just pulled this out of a dumpster in CT:
eX6KPiJl.jpg

TXpePill.jpg

jswcTDOl.jpg

5BaK8rCl.jpg


Has anyone ever seen one of these before? The nice folks at Antique Radio Forums haven't. Perhaps someone here is familiar with the make? We suspect it might be an early HIFI set, or ?possibly? a factory prototype.

Info:
Mfg by Barber & Howard Co. (Westery Rhode Island)
mono-FM tuner (no serial#, model#)
No OPT
Phono input
AFC
2 tuning meters
Bolted tube sockets
Ceramic Caps

Tube layout: (with guesses as to the 3 missing tubes)
http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/download/file.php?id=67242
(thanks to azenithnut)

Link to original forum thread: http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=241972

Links to full size photos: http://imgur.com/jswcTDO http://imgur.com/TXpePil http://imgur.com/eX6KPiJ
Click to expand...
 
You should try playing the lottery with your luck. The Barber & Howard FM tuner is extremely rare.

I only learned about it because I had a Howard FM tuner for sale through the Audio Mart over twenty years
ago and received a phone call from the actor Vincent Gallo, who is an avid hifi enthusiast who maintains
a very large collection of vintage hifi equipment. He was calling because he thought that I had a Barber
& Howard FM tuner for sale, and preceded to tell me about the Barber & Howard FM tuner and how he owned one of only a few ever produced.

He was a very interesting guy to speak with. A fairly well known Hollywood actor and sculptor with a real
affinity for vintage audio gear. He could tell you far more about this tuner than I could, and I'm sure that he would love to hear from you. He might even offer to buy this tuner from you given its rarity.

You might try contacting him through IMDB or I think he even has his own Website. Google "The official Vincent Gallo Website." I know he has a sizeable collection of vintage audio tuners and the Barber & Howard may be about the rarest of FM tuners - Even more rare than the REL PRECEDENT.

Best of luck...
 
Interesting that the dial is calibrated from high to low instead of low to high (going left to right). Very cool piece of equipment.
 
This was built by my grandfather Earl W. Barber in Westerly Rhode Island. He ran a small company out of a shop on his property. He made his living making radios, real to real tape decks, tube amps and record players. He was forced to give it up around 1967 due to MS. My dad used to work for him and knows everything about this radio. I wish I had one but sadly I don't. There are slug tuned Stereo models out there but not many!

Mark Barber.
 
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