E.H. Scott Tubes. What a photo!!!!!!

[Pio1980]

Among the last of the great multi-band console receivers post-war were the Scott 800B and the RCA Berkshire, these sets frequently included a rear projection television receiver. Television eventually overtook listening to distant radio broadcasting as primary entertainment and better end radio consoles emphasized recordings and local AM/FM broadcasting. Short wave listening became a niche interest served mostly by tabletop receivers, exemplified by the Zenith Transoceanic portables, basically conceived a later 1930s multi band console in an overnight suitcase, that bandspread mainly the various international broadcast bands instead of tuning thru general coverage reception for convenience and efficiency. Most customers bought them to listen to foreign broadcasts on the international bands and for their excellent BCB reception, as they were designed to do best.

 

[egellings]

That's a radio and a half!

 

[EastPoint]

It is a neat one! Looks like someone updated the can caps back in the day, and I'm sure you'll find some updated parts under the chassis, probably from the 1950s/60s.

 

[Audio Fan]

I had never heard of EH Scott until I ran across a small hoard of them many years ago. It seems a repair tech back in those early days migrated from the Chicago area down to NC in the early 70's. There, he stored everything he brought with him which was about a dozen of the old radios. There is a thread here somewhere, but one of them was referred to as a "Mini Quaranta" and, as I was told, only the 4th one ever found. Lots of other great stuff, but that was the pinnacle of my find and I enjoyed learning about the EH Scott history.

It I recall, the largest radios were up in the thousands of dollars when originally sold, so only the VERY wealthy would have been able to afford them. Quite an amazing era for radio.

 

[Pio1980]

For comparison, a working class person could pick up the same stations on their AA5
That's called an AA5 because the tube count is 5.
So the scott has 8x as many tubes as a average household radio of the time.

Just to put that number in perspective.

The "AA5" topology was a technological miracle of efficient reduction, with their simple single dial tuning and AGC stabilization, from the first complex and costly ten to twelve tube monster battery superhet kits of the mid-1920s and even the popular tho expensive reflexed 1st generation six tube RCA battery powered Superheterodyne Second Harmonic receivers. The superheterodyne superiority lies in a combination of sensitivity, selectivity, and perfectibility thru development, radio reception technology thus matured in the early 1930s.
Everything subsequent was refinement thanx mainly to the specialized tubes that brought it to the that point and reduced necessary complexity, notably the combination converter front end tube and detector diodes piggybacked on the first audio stage triode. Pentodes with superior gain to triodes eliminated necessity of cascaded stages for gain.