The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay The Radio Bench Could I hardwire an AUX jack to my AM radio?

Fred, Alan and Bill...first, thanks for taking the time to help.

I have a '52 truck with one of these

Short of adding an AM modulator mentioned in earlier threads, could one "tap in" directly in to the radios internal amp?

I would love to at least operate the volume with the original dial, and hide the iPod. Any thoughts?


Also, about the radio: The light comes on, and it clicks in the speaker, but that is about it. Where do I start to check out?

It is possible to tap into the audio circuit as you have suggested. I have not done this myself and I don't know how to protect a device like an MP3 player when connecting it to older tube electronics. I believe one of our members, Mr Lang, has done this. You may want to drop him a PM.

As far as restoring the radio, here is a general outline which may be helpful:
Radio Repair Hints

If you decide to work on your radio, I will help you with any questions that come up. If you want to have someone work on it for you, I know of one of our members that does that work including the audio tap.

Fred

You might want to check out this Redi-Rad . The product is made in the USA and comes in 6 volt negative and positive ground and 12 volt. I have heard good things about it and it appears pretty easy to install.

Good luck.

Chris

Fred, thanks, I will take a look at the step by step info.

Chris, yes, I did see that unit, I was hoping to eliminite it, but Fred has a point about protecting the iPhone.

Do you guys have a recomended 12V to 6V reducer good enough for the radio?

Rolph,
there are two ways to reduce the voltage. One is with a resister With a resistor, the voltage drop varies with the current used. The vendors sell a large resistor for the heater or the radio which will do the job. However, if something fails in the radio, such as the rectifier OZ4 tube, a large part of the load will disappear and the voltage on the radio will go up. In this case, leaving the radio on after it fails to operate could subject all the rest of the tubes to a higher heater voltage.

Another way to reduce the voltage is with a three terminal regulator. This is a circuit that uses a solid state regulator. It is powered at 12 volts and it has a third lead that powers the radio at 6 volts. There is a device by Runtz that does this. There is also a thread in this forum showing plans for a do it yourself circuit to do this.

Fred

Yay! A new topic in Fred's Forum!!!!


If you can rebuild the carb on your truck, I'll bet you can rebuild the tube radio. Fred helped me with mine, and answered about a hundred email questions. I use my radio everyday commuting, for about and hour and a half. Its been in the truck for about a year now, and it runs great!!!!

I tried a Redi-Rad, and was not really satisfied with it. I ended up putting a aux input in the radio, for my blackberry. What I did find, was that the blackberry, and I pods, don't put out quite enough power for the radio, so it won't get quite loud enough, well okay, at the time my truck had duals and no mufflers...... We get a great AM station here, KIXI, from seattle, so I don't use the input much. A capacitor on the aux input will protect what ever you plug into the old radio. The most important thing I found, was to get the big giant tall antenna for the radio, as the reception is much better.

I saw a thread on the antique radio forum on how to do this. I have not tried it so I can't say how well it works in this application.
Here's directions how to do it.

I'm working on an AM vacuum tube transmitter for my radio. Will have to see how well it works.

Thanks guys, great info. I will dig in to it.