zenith trans-oceanic shortwave tube radio - my latest find.

wd409

Super Member
the tuning string is broken and needs replacing, and it needs a good cleaning.

but its still neat to look at.

zen1.jpg

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zen2.jpg
 
does that have the charts included ? i have been close to getting a trans-oceanic a few times in the last month. i found a flea market that had 2-3 available last weekend plus i was in contact with a private seller for another.
i decided to hold off but picked these two up (on the cheap) instead. these old radios are also pretty addicting...
 
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The transoceanics are good radios and the tube ones sound pretty good. I listen to a solid state one late every night.
If yours has the 1L6 tube they can be abit expensive to replace if bad. Looking from the rear it is usually on the far left and in the front, close to the dial of the radio. Other than that they are easy to work on and alignment is simple. I've had several over the years including a brown cased military version used during the Korean war.
Nice radio :yes:
 
Perch, I have like 6 of the 600 model Transoceanics here. If I knew you wanted one, I could brought one out with me last weekend. I was out in Novi for the UM PSU game. Most of them work but they need to be restored. Great radios.
Joe
 
hey, novi is not too far away from me for sure. sure is a long drive to see a game, hell of a party i bet.
i really have not been looking for one per-say but they are awfully interesting. i am afraid the stereo "monkey on my back" thing is blossoming into a full sized pink assed gorilla. hmm, maybe we can work something out.
 
If you take the chassis out of the cabinet, be very careful of the RF section on the left. Lots of tiny wires and easy to bend stuff.

Congrats on a nice find! Got a few myself!
 

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those don't look like fishers, dude....

nice

do you have the charts in any of them ? i was told they are tough to come by
 
Nice TO, I recapped and aligned one of them 2 months ago and almost finished restoring another one.

Sal
 
Hey, I have one of those... waiting patiently in line for me to get around fixing it up...

Regards,
Gordon.
 
Well, I just scored my first (and a really rough example) Trans-Oceanic over the weekend. The seller claimed it played, despite my demonstrating to her that the dial pointer should have moved when the tuning knob was turned. Since there were no convenient power sources in the area and I didn't have a "dim-bulb tester" handy, I just gave her a severely-skeptical "If you say so." look and left it at that. Since the Leatherette covering didn't look too bad and the dial glass, Wavemagnet, and Wave Rod were intact, the $35 price on it didn't seem too terrible if I could do a bit of haggling. I scored it for $30, but got the distinct impression that I should have driven a harder bargain and tried to haggle the price down farher once I got the thing home and did a full inspection. The interior was a real mess. Not the worst condition I've ever encountered in an unrestored radio (that distinction goes to a National NC-46 that I picked up at a Hamfest once, and that Jamie and I nicknamed "House of Mouse"), but definitely one of the five or so all-time worst I've seen. Lots of rust on the chassis. It looks like it languished in storage in a garage or barn for some time before or after being the victim of a failed Restoration attempt by some newbie along the way who subsequently swiped the 1L6, both 1U4, the 1U5, and the 3V4 (stuffing the empty sockets with 6BA6's and other obviously-incorrect types in an obvious attempt to scam an unsuspecting buyer) before it ended up at the flea market where I spotted it. Whoever cannibalized it forgot to steal the 50A1 Ballast tube, though, which checked good. Overall, I paid a little more for it than its condition warranted, but didn't get totally "hosed" on the deal. The chassis will obviously need to be stripped down to bare metal, and I have plenty of good used-unboxed 1U4's, 1U5's, and 3V4's in my junkbox, so the 1L6 will be the only expensive tube I'll need to replace. I forgot to take "before" pics, but I'll post some "during" and "after" pics as things progress on it. So far, I've removed and disassembled the cord reel, installed 6 feet of new line cord, re-assembled, and fitted it with a new "side-entry" snap-on replacement plug which seems to make a suitable replacement for the (unobtainium) original molded right-angle plug. I've also removed and packed up the dial glass for safe storage and I'm about to remove the speaker and tuning condenser to allow for a thorough cleaning of the chassis and tuning condenser. When finished, this will be virtually a "from scratch" Restoration. Since I learned from one of the sites dedicated exclusively to the Trans-Oceanic that a 1R5 can be safely substituted for the 1L6 during the less-critical steps of post-recap checkout, I'll be using one of the (many) 1R5's from my junkbox as a temporary sub before ultimately obtaining a NOS or good used 1L6 to install once it's ready to be aligned for maximum performance.
 
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With the chassis partially torn down to enable easier access, I've got the metal much cleaner than it was, although I'm settling for "significant improvement" on it since the set's as-found condition was far too rough to enable bringing it back to looking truly pristine without resorting to extreme measures (sanding and re-plating of the entire chassis inside and out) whose anticipated cost doesn't quite seem justifiable to me. My being someone who strongly prefers AC-operated sets to the point of never actively seeking out "AC/DC AA5" and "three-way portable" sets is a factor, I suppose. The few "AC/DC" and "three-way" models that I have in my collection have mainly been "accidental" acquisitions (grouped in a "lot" acquisition with other sets I was actively seeking, feebie "old radios" brought to me my friends who aren't familiar enough with them to know an AA5 from a 12S232, or just garage sale finds too cheap to pass by). This one was just a case of being somewhat curious about how much of the Trans-O's mystique was truly deserved, and this being the first I'd seen for sale for under $100 in a long time. I'm reasonably sure that the Trans-O was to three-way portables as the 12S232 was to table radios of its day and as the "roundie" Color TV models of the 60's were to their rivals, though ... best sets of their kind on the market at the time.

It looks like the original "cause of death" on this Trans-O was that C41C (40uF/150V section of the main filter) went dead-shorted and took out R2 (the 130-ohm 3-watt resistor) and the 560-ohm resistor (in the B+ line), but leaving the 50A1 intact. Since the 560-ohm resistor was burned beyond recognition and had to be identified by consulting the schematic and R2 was found to be open with a burn mark on its case, it seems fairly certain that C41C was the culprit. I'm fortunate that the culprit was C41C rather than C41B, since C41B shorting out would probably have wiped out the expensive 50A1 Ballast tube that the seller forgot to steal from the chassis before taking it to the flea market.
 
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I probably owned 10 of these over the years and all but a couple of them worked reliable and like champs with just a good cleaning and nothing else. They were made to be humidity proof so they are much less prone to failure than other radios. Try cleaning the black Stag cloth cover with some Goop hand cleaner. You will be amazed how much better it will look.
 
I probably owned 10 of these over the years and all but a couple of them worked reliable and like champs with just a good cleaning and nothing else. They were made to be humidity proof so they are much less prone to failure than other radios. Try cleaning the black Stag cloth cover with some Goop hand cleaner. You will be amazed how much better it will look.

I agree that Zenith sets were designed for greater durability than other makes of the time, but this one has obviously been pushed past the limits of even Zenith's ultra-durability. Any lesser radio would have been reduced to "parts donor" status by what this one has been through. Still, this one's needs in order to get it working again seem to be on par with what would be considered "routine" work for any radio (aside from the rust-removal and almost a complete re-tubing resulting from its less-than-honest seller).

It's loaded with paper-in-plastic (aka "bumblebee") and paper-in-ceramic (aka "white time bomb") capacitors, and there are five electrolytics (four in the multi-can plus one axial unit) needing replaced. I briefly considered going for "overkill" by using 250V electrolytics, but test-fitting them into the can revealed that they wouldn't fit. To go 67% over spec seems extreme to me, anyway. Instead, I selected 160V units (68, 47, 22, and 15uF replacing 60, 40, 20, and 12uF respectively) for the ones originally rated 150V (only 6.7% over spec, but 55V higher than the expected B+ from half-wave rectified 120VAC). I plan to determine by experimentation the correct R2 value required to get the 105V B+ value specified on the schematic from the new 1N4007 diode (calculated value of 150 ohms as a starting point, in place of the original 130 ohms) to compensate for the difference in forward voltage drop between the new silicon diode and the old selenium. For the 200uF/10V section of the multi-can, I selected 220uF/16V.

Complete eradication of the rust problem on this set's chassis would have required a glass-beading chamber, ultrasonic cleaner, and a plating tank. All of these are "long term wish list" items at this point. While we plan to purchase these eventually, they are considered "luxuries beyond our means" for the time being.

Thanks for the Goop tip, by the way.
 
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They're all collectible as far as I am concerned (including the soiled state ones); great and beautiful radios. That one was given to me by a friend in our town.
 
My 2 looked very nice after I'd cleaned them good w/warm soapy water & rinse w/ just water, allowed 'em to dry very good, & then went over 'em w/a couple coats of black shoe polish. Dr. Hardy, betcha yrs would look SMASHING w/a good cleaning w/leather cleaner/saddle soap, & then a couple coats of tan/lt brown shoe polish...The thing is, they need to just sorta GLOW rather than have an extreme "sheen".
 
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