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I'm no expert on any of this and rather new to Bluetooth. Seems to me that with in a few years that radio stations will broadcast to Smartphones (or maybe they already broadcast??) In which case we only need a smart phone and BT speakers mounted in the car.

Note "Music Player" is one of the Apps already on smart phones. So the permanant in car radio as a fixture of the car is now obsolete as slide rules and buggy whips??

I don't know. I'm still spinning vinyl.

Working with 6V and having all of those features for less than what is currently offered sounds like a great option to me.

The bluetooth option would allow your phone to "stream" any audio media to the radio, and the volume would be controlled with the radio volume knob. The phone could literally steam any type of audio. So that could be music or videos(sound only) on the actual phone or from some type of internet based streaming service/radio. I guess it would also act as a handsfree speaker phone.

Basically would work just like it does in a modern car that is bluetooth enabled.

This is a project that is going to take me a couple of months to get fully working and tested, and then figure out if I can put it all together cheap enough (parts and labor) to make it worthwhile selling as a kit.

If I can't, then I will just publish it as a "how-to", publish the parts list and the source files for the program code and let others build the entire thing themselves if they wish.

Still working on this project.... been trying to source all the IC parts I need and trying to find the cheapest route possible. Sadly the microcontroller programming portion of this is actually the easy part.

But it is amazing to me the amount of stuff that they can build into a single IC now.

If you lived in the Chesepeake Norfolk Virginia area you could listen to this on an FM radio

1920's Radio Network

Sadly, I am out of their coverage area, but I do stream this in my garage and house

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mibfVgMexKM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Here I am streaming it through a Sonos into my restored radio

What I've done for a couple of 40's and 50's radios is to replace the paper caps and the tubes (altogether, maybe $30 per radio) then run a cheap mp3 player in with a phono out - we have a big Zenith 12 tube console radio in our entryway that plays big band and swing when you turn it on - if you pull the iPod out of the back and pick it, then you can get shows like Little Orphan Annie and the Shadow, or listen to the news and hear about Amelia Earhardt flying around the world, or Britain declaring war on Germany. If you Google "OTR" for Old Time Radio, you can download a lot of those mp3s for free.

In the kitchen we have a 50's Crosley Dashboard that I just finished restoring for my wife for Valentine's day - when you turn it on, it plays Billboard's top hits from the 50's, so we'll listen to that at dinner.

In both cases, I just disconnected and isolated the IF stage, the part that connects to the antenna, so it ignores the radio altogether and just acts a tube amp for whatever comes in the phono jack. So it looks and sounds (and turns on) like any old radio, but we don't have any AM stations close enough to receive. If you connect the IF stage on the big Zenith, you can pick up Radio Disney, but with a lot of static.

Just another consideration - the only capacitors that really fail are the paper/wax ones, and the electrolytics - you replace the paper/wax ones with 'orange drops' and the old big electrolytics with new small ones - they run between a dime and fifty cents each, you'll spend more on shipping them than on the capacitors you need. Old tubes I've bought on eBay.

I haven't played with the Packard Radios yet, just because I didn't have a suitable 6v power supply, but that'll be coming up soon.

Attached a picture of the Dashboard radio - can't find any pictures of the Zenith

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I have an old 30/40s console RCA Victrola with phono player in my entry way. It was my grandma's. My mom says an eletrical storm took it out years ago and I remember as a kid that it didn't work. I think my grandma kept it because it is just pretty. Idk

One Christmas I took all the tubes and replaced them with good working new ones. Cheap and easy. I got it to play, but the volume was very very shallow. I did it for my mom. It played long enough to surprise her and she loved it. It even played the old super hard thick records. Shortly after it pretty much doesn't work again. Sometimes I get lucky, but you have to shove your ear next to the speaker to hear it.

This thread is making me want to send it somewhere to be restored. I have the schematics, but I have no idea where to start really.

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richter12x2, Can you add a switch to the IF side so you can change inputs from the MP3 player to AM (antenna)?

Yep! In fact, both radios actually have the switches already. Disconnecting that Intermediate Frequency (IF) section just gets rid of a lot of inductive noise from unshielded source wires.

Basically you'd get a low hiss when playing phono, but if you turned it up super loud and you were on-station, you'd figure out that hiss was actually the radio station being picked up by the inactive network - so the radio station you were tuned into was still playing, just wasn't getting amplified.

Disconnecting that wire from the IF tube in the Zenith just cut all power to that section, so the silence is clear as a bell now. Honestly there was probably a resistor to ground or something that I could replace, but it was easier to disconnect the wire than to find which one. When I say I isolated the wire, I just mean I wrapped the plug end in electrical tape so that it won't short anything else out in the radio from being loose - all you have to do is unwrap the tape and plug it in - takes about a half a minute on the Zenith.

In the Packard radio, you could surely just add a Single-Pole switch there, and use that to isolate your IF.

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I'd bet recapping the thing would fix it - there a few guys around DFW that will do it, but it'll probably run you starting at $100 or so.

If you can operate a soldering iron, and would be comfortable replacing an ignition switch in an early car, or a radio in a late model car, you can probably do it yourself with no problem, and if you've already replaced the tubes, the caps will probably run you less than $10.

The schematic you have should tell you the values of the capacitors. The ones you're interested in are likely big (about the size of a glass buss fuse, or bigger) and covered with wax (they dry out over time), and the key is just to go slow, cut and solder one leg at a time, and make sure you're replacing them with the correct ones.

You SHOULD replace the electrolytics, too - that can be a little more complicated because sometimes they're in a big can on top that looks like a metal vacuum tube. They also have polarity, meaning you have to get positive to positive and negative to negative or it doesn't work. The theory is still easy - you clip out the wires going to the 'can' and just replace them with new electrolytics in the chassis where they're hidden, leaving the can up there on top for looks. The only challenge there is getting comfortable enough reading the schematic to figure out which leg of the can goes to which value of electrolytic - not super difficult, but can be a challenge if you're not used to schematics.

If it were me (minus having done it before), I'd take a look at the capacitors that are in there and figure out if I'd be comfortable cutting them out one at a time and soldering new ones in - if so, I'd do all the paper caps first (they're almost surely shot.) Then (carefully, that's live voltage, and amplified!) plug it in and see how it does. It may be good enough that you can just leave the electrolytics alone. If it's not, getting the guy to replace 3 or 4 electrolytic caps for you would have to be about half the price of a total recap job.

It's all point to point solder, not a circuit board, so you just bend the legs into little hooks, then add a dab of solder so they don't let go. Make sure they don't touch anything they're not supposed to, do one at a time, and it's hard to mess up. Like soldering in a new turn signal socket.

Also, I'd offer to take a look at it for you, but with my two year old running around, I don't even have the time to work on my own projects, without taking anyone else's on. :D I'll be happy to answer any questions for you, though, if you decide to take a shot at it yourself.

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Oh, and if you decide to take it somewhere, see if you feel comfortable enough removing the chassis from the case. If you look in behind the dial where the volume and tuning knobs are, you'll probably figure out the radio itself is in a metal case about the size of a shoebox, with plugs to connect the record player, speaker and probably antenna as well (some of those are built into the case though). It'll be a heck of a lot easier to transport without having to move the furniture piece, which already looks in good condition. :)

edit: Here are some awesome sites to explain what I mean - the same ideas apply to the radios in the Packards as well - at least in my '53, the radio is totally standalone, just like the chassis in the big console radios - as long as you have 6v power instead of wall power, then you can run it on your desktop, and it'll recap and retube just the same.

http://www.antiqueradio.org/recap.htm
http://www.justradios.com/captips.html